The ‘if’, the ‘but’ and the future

As I’m writing this, news have recently come out about the transfer of Egyptian winger Mohamed Salah from Basel – to Chelsea FC, not Liverpool FC. Am I bothered?

I’m not sure, but I think so.

Not as much about missing out on the player itself as the fact that LFC once again seem to have suffered from ‘the bus is leaving and I’m still on the toilet’-syndrome when a deal is about to be struck. Once is forgivable, twice is starting to get embarrassing, but thrice is starting to create the image of an unwelcome pattern.

Would Mohamed Salah been an important signing for Liverpool? I don’t know enough about the player to give a definitive answer, but here is what I do know: If a club spends a considerable amount of time scouting and negotiating, it suggests the manager wants to add him to his squad. That’s the essence of it for me. Who the player is and what I personally think is obviously as irrelevant as it gets.

There has been a bit of an excuse culture surrounding the club the last twenty years or so – particularly highlighted in recent years after Liverpool ceased to be a regular feature in the Champions League, and with it a European heavyweight. A lot of ifs and buts; promises ending up as a mass pile of deflated balloons, with the club seemingly incapable of keeping their collective eye firmly on the ball and the price.

Off the pitch shambles has regularly been used by us fans as an explanation for why the club never seem to get it right; a distinct feeling of being all dressed up with nowhere to go, of not taking their chances and the right type of calculated gambles at the right times.

Looking from the outside in, I think most of us agree that here and now is an obvious opportunity for one of those gambles, but as February 1 is approaching it seems like the club doesn’t think so.

I’m not looking to find any scapegoats to drag out of their offices. I’m simply growing a tad concerned about what I perceive as a dissonance between words and action. There has been a lot of talk coming out of the club the last few years about the importance of getting back to the Champions League – and rightly so. Liverpool Football Club is still one of the biggest clubs in Europe, and this is where they belong.

Crucially though, it doesn’t give them the right to be there. It has to be earned, like everything else, and earning that right often comes down to having a squad realistically capable of getting there. Which – at the moment – Liverpool don’t have.

With one week left of the transfer window  it’s still too early to draw any conclusions about the immediate level of ambition the club is showing, but if nothing happens over the next week my conclusion will be that Champions League football next season isn’t that crucial to owner John W. Henry and the people running the club.

Because if nothing happens on the transfer front, nobody can expect Liverpool to compete with the likes of Tottenham Hotspur and Manchester United for what looks to become a battle for fourth spot behind the top three.