Real Defeat Highlights Red Roulette

The atmosphere inside Anfield was incredible. Brendan Rodgers challenged the Kop to make its voice heard and they duly obliged, hoping somehow Liverpool could reverse the form book and overcome arguably the best team in the world – reigning European champions Real Madrid.

It didn’t happen.

Liverpool were not only completely outclassed but given a stark reminder of how far they have yet to travel in order to become a top-class outfit.

Those who were praised for their performances and evolution last season, such as Jordan Henderson, looked out of their depth against players of truly world-class quality. Liverpool have the history to take Real Madrid on, but not the resources.

Cristiano Ronaldo, the best player in the world, aside, Madrid could still call on Karim Benzema, Toni Kroos, James Rodriguez, Luka Modric and Isco for their front six, with Gareth Bale out injured.

You can tell when a team is a superpower through its transfer policy and its effect. Regardless of whether the spending is legal or not according to Financial Fair Play, teams like Real can go out and spend £20-30m on players that make up the squad and, if not good enough, can be discarded. The key players normally have price tags above £30m, with Ronaldo and Bale totalling over £160m.

Meanwhile, sides like Liverpool (and others such as AS Roma) who seek to challenge football’s finest have to get their big signings right first time, because they only have the funds for one shot. Roma have done well with their transfers; Kevin Strootman and Mehdi Benatia cost about £25m combined. Benatia has since left for Bayern Munich for £30m, while Strootman looks set to leave for at least that figure.

Liverpool’s most recent hit was Luis Suarez and it was a spectacular hit. £23m was turned into £75m (a figure that now seems moderate given our struggles since his departure) as Suarez became one of the best players in the world.

But the signings this year are nowhere near the same grade. Lazar Markovic, Dejan Lovren and Mario Balotelli cost £56m between them and are probably worth £30m together now because of their underwhelming, to put it mildly, starts to the season.

Liverpool cannot go out and replace them all in a year as they simply cannot afford it – if they had extra cash they would have bought better players on bigger wages in the first place.

When Rafael Benitez was in the Anfield dugout, he bought the majority of his players on low fees so that the risk was minimal but the rewards great.

There were many duds – Josemi, Fernando Morientes, Mark Gonzalez immediately come to mind – but they could be sold for very little loss. The rewards – Xabi Alonso, Javier Mascherano, Pepe Reina for instance – all formed the spine of Benitez’s great sides and, Fernando Torres aside, none of them cost above £20m.

Scouting and knowledge of good players at low prices is crucial for clubs like Liverpool who are not on the same level financially as the superpowers.

The Benitez saga deteriorated because his later expensive replacements of top players (Alberto Aquilani for Xabi Alonso, Robbie Keane for Peter Crouch) were failures and consequently Liverpool were back on the slide.

The formula stays the same looking back further. Gerard Houllier’s 2001 treble winning side did have some support from the Academy, with Steven Gerrard, Jamie Carragher, Michael Owen and Robbie Fowler just some of Liverpool’s own helping to achieve the club’s most successful season of the millennium.

However, it was not simply down to local heroes; Houllier’s purchases in the summer of 2000 were vital cogs in the Red machine. Nicky Barmby arrived from Merseyside rivals Everton, Jari Litmanen was snapped up on a free transfer from FC Barcelona (albeit in January 2001), Gary McAllister was another bosman beauty who contributed on and off the pitch (helping turn Gerrard into the player he became) and Markus Babbel was an integral part of the defence, joining from Bayern Munich.

Like Benitez, Houllier chopped and changed with players in a wheeler-dealer fashion, never spending too much on one player. The likes of Dietmar Hamann, Emile Heskey, Sami Hyypia and Stephane Henchoz had already arrived at the expense of Paul Ince, Steve McManaman so that by the start of the 2000/01 season Houllier had his team ready. And they were devastating.

Unfortunately, Houllier inclined to keep poor players at the club who he had signed, compared to ones he inherited. This set him apart from Benitez, but the major reason for his downfall was the same as the Spaniard’s – poor transfers.

Having finished runners-up in the Premier League, the summer of 2002, exactly as in 2009, saw quality players replaced by average buys. Nicolas Anelka, who enjoyed a successful loan spell at Anfield, was not signed on a permanent deal so that Houllier could bring in El Hadji Diouf.

The less said about Diouf, the better.

Bruno Cheyrou and Salif Diao also go down in Anfield folklore for all the wrong reasons, meaning that Houllier’s transfers had weakened the squad considerably. Liverpool failed to qualify for the Champions League that season.

2014/15 is unlikely to be Rodgers’ last, despite enjoying a transfer summer akin to the final days of Houllier and Benitez. Yet Liverpool’s struggles this season again stem from disappointing signings, partly because Liverpool lack the financial clout and modern reputation to attract the very best, but mainly because all of the risky signings are not coming off.

That’s ok if the fees are small, but there are no second chances if they are not.

Admittedly it is harder to find bargain buys nowadays but even the players between £5-15m need to be worth double in value after their time at Liverpool so that a side can be built around them, just like Benitez did.

Then the mega purchases cannot go wrong, otherwise there are no world class players to finish off the work of the quality, dependable players in the side.

Superpowers like Real can keep recycling the massive signings, hence their permanent seating at the elite table. For Liverpool to return to that level, they need to obtain similar funds or get the majority of their signings right first time, particularly the big ones.

Money talks.

The bulk of the population occupied the outlets of two large creeks
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