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.
What will it take for some people to realise FSG are milking the club? Turnover has rocketed in the 36 months since they took over. Now moving into the 4th year they are NOWHERE NEAR any progress with the stadium. Ian Ayre was on record 18 moths ago mentioning a planning submission in Spring 2013. What actually happened was erm..nothing. For those of you who don’t know, even if planning was submitted TODAY work wouldn’t start for a year. You are all aware of the new t.v. deals coming up? Well guess what that money will go straight to FSGs pockets. What has reassured you that FSG are the right custodians for our proud club? Really, what is it? I cant see it. I am not suggesting we spend 50 million here and there, but we should not be getting outbid over 11 million. And it isn’t the first time. I see we fell out of the Deloitte top 10 football clubs today for the first time since 1999/2000. Am I the only one who can see where this is going. By the way they wont be so slow with three new kits in the summer and a hike on the season ticket prices. Because they know we will keep coming back. They have found a cash cow. Its us and our world famous club. Sickened to the core.
Great comment . It still amazes me how any Liverpool fan can be so stupid as to believe the bull FSG spew out . Dirty greedy bstardos
12 richest club in the world . Where’s the money going ? It’s not going on the team , and it certainly ain’t going on the stadium. The sooner fsg fook off the better
ayre fsg nd br re using us to joke bt no problem
At this rate man u will book 4th spot ahead of us.
to me if they loose salah ‘no top four
Intact I could nt sleep last when I heard that blues hav snap sala frm us.now I understand why furgi ruled lipoo out frm the top four he is ryt there is no way we r going to get the top four.
Before the window opend fsg and rodgers promised us progress,the current state of affirs is reflective of were we stand in global football-trash can…rodgers gets the boot for lack of champions league football.
you guys I have been telling you that rodgers’ tendency of saying we are strong when we win and when we loose he says the squad is thin is absolutely bad as that doesn’t demonstrate the truth on the strength of the squad to the owners.the truth is we are thin and nowhere near our rivals.I don’t criticise Ferguson for completely ruling us out of the title becoz he has noted with a sad concern that we are Nt serious when it comes to player investment.as much as we would want Suarez to stay I think its good for him and his career to move on so that he plays alongside other world class players rather than playing with average and below average players.fsg must be serious.we have lost jorginho as well to napoli
Henry please sell up quick and get out your not wanted, Your bleeding this club dry for your self destroying greed, YOU HAVE NO SOUL…..
These yanks are only interested in money end off! they are no different to ” itchy n scratchy” who went before, two sides of the same coin! they are just more sneaky than
the other two…now the reason why we did not buy Salah is a long but easy story to follow once you have some knowledge of the way the world runs so here goes..Salah
being Egyptian and muslim refused to shake hands with an Israeli team when playing
for his last team and when during the return game in israel he had to grovel and
make a statement explaining his actions as they they were spouting the old chestnut
about him being an anti semite lol! now Israel is a front for the Zionists who control
most countries including America Russia and the rest of Europe their members consist
of Politicians bankers judges media and music big corporations local and international
and Pharmaceautical giants, this can all be verified if you care to divert your eyes away
from “Dancing on dogshite” and do a little research for yourself, now within any
kind of political belief system and especially one as evil and twisted as Zionism you will
have factions and divisions so now lets get back to Salah, Roman Abramovich is a Zionist
and they are easy to spot remember PM Blair and the Bush fella two Zionists who both claimed god told them to blow little kids to pieces in Iraq and other countries? well the
Chelsea owner and many others including our own guardians of Liverpool fc yeah you
know who I mean tom and john from America belong to this movement called Zionism
so once our two got wind of salah refusing to shake hands with israelies they pulled the
plug on the deal, now the roman fella also got wind of salah’s actions and sent the heavies down on him getting him to grovel in order for the deal to go through so once
salah backed down he signs his contract in order to receive his dirty blood soiled pay check from the Russian mafia guy, so there we go a short history of nearly everthing
so to finish off I just want all fans of our club not to worry about missing out on buying
this player or any other because at the end of the day its only a game and I want our
club to win games cups etc with players who have a love for the red shirt and this is
something that no amount of dirty money can buy, Born a red and die a red! Y.N.W.A
Just watch the pr machine pour out all sorts of silly rumours tomorrow. Brendan started the window saying 3 or 4 players in then that got lower then the talk changed to we may wait until the summer that was it sunk Salah deal never was its all hype guys to string us along what club would allow this to go on,is Brendan working for Chelsea and Spurs scouts. We will sign some Spanish un known player for the future what future there won’t be one if we don’t make top four. Brendan won’t be sacked if we don’t as he is clearly being used as a puppet by Fsg. I really thought they cared but its becoming clear they don’t wait to the summer and sign more 21 year olds. I have no faith in Henry and co any more
What is comment awaiting moderation????????????????????
Why is my comment about salah not being shown shitheads?
Who controls this site because author of this article Christer Eikrem is not listed
so my question is are all the people listed as authors fictional or real an answer
please?
So not real fans here running this site just more puppets ( Muppets! Zionists.grrrr!!
Don’t know why anyone is surprised ….it’s ALWAYS been obvious FSG are here to make money for themselves.
Salah isn’t even a top player , just a cheap 11m filler…and we weren’t even willing to pay the price.. Costa , mkhitaryan, eriksen , salah…
Things wont change ….we will never be a top club under the hungry yanks
‘FSG are here to make money for themselves’…. As opposed to losing their own money for their/our club. Not sure just how many owners are in football to lose money?
maybe our owners are onto something new, invest in a club, try to help it grow, within the new rules of the game, hopefully bring success, meaning more money, eventually when you come to sell up, you make a tidy profit. WOW, when you look at it like that they must be some kind of new wizard yet to be identified.
Lets not embrace this wizardry instead give them no thanks for removing most of our debt, ignore the fact they are growing our commercial muscle off the pitch also stabilizing the most embarrassing period of our history, trying to rebuild the team on the pitch and just because their long term goal is too long for us mortal fans to wait….. We hunt these yank bstrds outta town.
Oh and once outta town enjoy another mess of stadium plans, Suarez leaves cos the club again in turmoil, potential players see us as non contenders and sign instead for actual competitors of trophies but as long as we are not in the hands of any Americans, we can live happily. Yay.
Don’t remember a massive que trying to buy us when in trouble, don’t envisage a sugar daddy owner either, so what’s the alternative?
Yawn yawn yaaaaaawn
The boring troll talking rubbish as usual. Nobody cares what the idiot Aaron says
‘Nobody cares’
you obviously do TH, you care. If it wasn’t for me….. you’d be unemployed.
Yawn . The troll keeps on trolling
Idiot
I think Aaron is on the FSG payroll otherwise i cant see the point of his constant whitewashing of recent events under The Yanks.
Aaron doesnt know anything, FSG bought the club at a hugely reduced price, 200m+ lower than estimated, H&G called it the ‘epic swindle’, FSG have pulled the wool over dumb fans like Aaron!!
Not just dumb. He is a totally deluded d!ckhead
Suggest who you would have own the club? Who cares what H&G said, they put us in this mess in the first place or don’t you remember that?
It’s all good and very easy to stand there twiddling your thumbs going ‘yanks out’ and not have anything else to add. Why is the fact they’re yanks an issue, it’s almost racist. If owners were of colour would you be asking for their colour skin to leave?
Wool over my eyes or deluded, cheap sale or not, still wasn’t many offers on the table, ‘if’ it was such a swindle at unbelievably cheap price, where were all the bidders?
Liam, I love your well crafted answers and debating, completely restores my faith in lower education, although if privately educated….. What a waste of money for your parents.
Yawn . The boring fool aaron keeps on trolling.
Idiot
It’s attention he is after so don’t feed the troll
Still cant get my head round FSG at window time. Lucas out, Enrique – out, Johnson – out. Signings -none.
Some of you are saying bring in this youngster, bring in that youngster, bring in Kelly etc.. but dont you realise that they too need cover. For most if not all of the season we have been on the cusp of 4th and we are close to CL, but they are sending us into battle with limited resources.
Make no mistake, one injury of more than three games to Luis and we are out of the hunt. We are so close yet the failure of FSG to back us up has shown them.
Little Red Riding Hood has now seen the evil wolf laid bare. We have been in and out of the hands of charlatan owners for 7 years. Time is now, to hit them where it hurts. But guess what, as soon as the new kit comes out we will all be there. At every home game fans shop till they drop. We queue up at the cafes. Time has come to boycott as much LFC commercial goods as you can. After all, if we spent everything we had it still wouldn’t make its way to Brendan would it?
Dont worry guys . Im sure we will sign some cheap piece of cra p like aspas alberto b4 window shuts
From my point of view, its a tactics of fsg, as if they are in a auction sale, no money in ze pocket they are there just to rise ze price of ze player, just to make all fans believe zat club is really making an effort to bring a calibre player, no never, it wont happen. i really dont understand BR say we hv a thin squad we need to add some new talented player,wen times comes rumours ,after rumours for one player, we are closing in, we are closing, medical soon an after wat happen Demps n Eriksen for Tot’ham,MK for Dormund ,Willian n salah for Chel, we desperate fans we will keep see others going foward, its heartbreaking n painful, do they feel it, no, infact they feel happy n relift wen ze player is sold to our direct rivals, ooff ze money is safe warm in ze pocket,now who is next in rumour bayern ace wow 20m, eumhh 12 m they cant afford going for 20 m player now, are they making fool to us
THANKS FSG FOR MAKING US A LAUGHING STOCK THOUGHT TOM & JERRY ALIAS HICKS & GILLET WERE BAD ..
PATHETIC OR JUST TYPICAL YANKS UP THERE OWN AR SE SELL THE CLUB AND TAKE YOUR DUNKING DONUTS WITH YOU TO !!!!!
Amen to that
wiz Dunking Donuts money we will buy king cones n peanuts in our new brand car