It seems only a matter of time before Liverpool's three-year search for investment draws to a satisfactory conclusion. Dubai International Capital may not hail from Merseyside (the clue is in the company name), but the early signs are that they will respect the traditions of a club that has always maintained a certain dignity. As fans we can but hope that they are as good as their word.
The sums being spoken about seem a lot heftier than in previous negotiations. If the investment is sufficient to make the club's finances sustainably healthy, and does so without compromising the club's character, that has to be welcomed. A one-time cash boost can do very little. It might buy a couple of top-class stars, but with it comes an increase in wages, usually across the board. If those players flop, that's it. Game over. Only now you have a higher wage bill and a bucket-load of disenchantment.
The increase in pressure brought about by the new cash will be interesting to monitor. It's already an absurdly difficult task managing Liverpool, with its overbearing history and almost two decades without the league title – the loudest ticking clock in English football (although Chelsea failing to finally win the European Cup, if it doesn't happen this season, will quickly rival Big Ben being broadcast through Metallica's sound system).
Add a lot of money at Anfield, and that might just ramp up the expectation and pressure, without any guarantees about what it will garner.
It seems like a case of all top clubs trying to keep up with the Abramovichs, rather than overtake them. The trouble is that Chelsea have a massive headstart, with their über-squad already assembled. They've cornered the market on a lot of exceptional players, with a stockpiling of talent that is now safely out if the reaches of other top clubs.
Whatever the Reds' future finances, the club will never have the unique power of Chelsea to write blank cheques. Nor, perhaps, the audacious way they do business that secured the services of Ashley Cole. All clubs tap-up players to some degree, but never so blatantly.
While a cash influx will help the Reds compete, it still leaves the difficult task of overtaking both the London club and Manchester United, a team whose recreation is now starting to come to fruition – but only after Alex Ferguson procured several £13-£30m players over the past half a decade (Ferdinand, Rooney, Saha, Ronaldo, Carrick).
United are perhaps benefiting from not needing to add too many players last summer, with most of the rebuilding work started well before Benítez even arrived in England. (Six of the current strongest United XI were introduced by Ferguson before 2004.) And whatever Liverpool's financial state at the time, there's no way the Reds could have prised Wayne Rooney from Everton. Some players money cannot buy, as Chelsea found with Steven Gerrard (even if they did appear to make it to the checkout desk, before finding the Mastercard was no use for something priceless).
Also, I'm not sure Benítez would want too many expensive superstars on his books. His teams have always been about collective effort, with a healthy regard for skill and quick passing without ever being pure entertainers. His teams are about perfect balance – not too defensive, but not too gung-ho either.
Perhaps the Manchester United model is closer than the Chelsea one, both in terms of how the club is run – i.e. as a business, not a pet project – and in the kind of players it pursues.
Then there's the man-management. Rafa's methods are very different from those of Jose Mourinho, who seems to play the 'best pals' act with most of his players. Mourinho massages the egos of his stars by constantly talking them up, whereas Benítez is far more distant, and less likely to 'bond' with his charges as men.
Perhaps (and here I'm only guessing) Mourinho's more flamboyant style better suits a moneyed environment. It's an easy conclusion to draw. Then there's the fact that Benítez has yet to deal with really large sums of money in his career. Some managers find it more of a burden than a blessing.
That said, when he's spent big (by his and Liverpool's recent standards), he's mostly landed top players: Kuyt and Alonso, at around the £10m mark, are excellent value for money, and both also happen to be incredibly professional, dedicated and down-to-earth 'thinking' footballers. Relatively expensive, but not superstars.
Reina, Sissoko, Agger, Crouch, Garcia and Bellamy, for £6m-or-so, also look very shrewd purchases. Benítez's only proven failure at that price was Fernando Morientes, who didn't lack quality, as he's again showing at Valencia, just an aptitude for the English game. And at present, Jermaine Pennant may look a similar flop, but there's still a lot of potential for success there.
Perhaps the finances will mean less digging around for bargains to bolster the squad. No more of the ilk of Josemi, Nunez and Pellegrino. Spending big money on players doesn't guarantee they will be successful, but it makes transfers less of a gamble when it comes to the one or two no-brainers, like Wayne Rooney (resists cheap 'no-brainer' gag). Rather than buy unpolished gems, in the way Arsene Wenger has, you can go for more proven players. Still won't mean they'll succeed, but it increases the odds a little.
Patience
Liverpool Football Club has always been about patience. Patient football. Patient fans. Patient boardroom. That's changing. The modern way of life is about fast-living, and everything now! now! now! Then again, a 17-year wait for the title might be said to be patient enough.
Interference is not the way of the Liverpool boardroom, which was what made the comments of Noel White in October so shocking. But can a massive investment in the club come without the urge of those investing to get too involved, and tamper?
For my concerns I just need look at Chelsea, Hearts and West Ham.
Did Jose Mourinho really want a £30m striker in Andrei Shevchenko? Chelsea have taken a slight backwards step this season, and the striker himself has yet to look as good as Carl Leaburn, let alone the class act we know he is. His manager's comments about the Ukrainian not being untouchable suggest an internal power struggle, and that he wasn't the manager's signing.
If Chelsea have had mostly cash and quietness from Abramovich, take one look at Hearts, where a right royal farce continues to unfold. A football club is never in more danger than when its owners think they know more than the experts they employ.
My greatest fear is that Liverpool become a knee-jerk club. There are already a few fans whose patience is as long as Jamie Carragher's goalscoring roll of honour. But it's never been that way in the boardroom.
The events at West Ham concern me. Alan Pardew had taken the Hammers a long way in the last three years, and found that all count for nothing. No sooner had Eggert Magnusson got his feet under the table than Alan Pardew, the man responsible for their recent resurgence, was sacked.
This season Pardew had to manage with speculation of a take-over and losing his job (a self-fulfilling prophecy); with the unsettling act of two new players foist upon him, with a pressure to play them at the expense of others; and has seen a star player like Reo-Coker have his head turned by ideas of a big move, while another, Dean Ashton, broke his ankle with England. All this, with massively raised expectations.
All of the current top managers have seen a reversal of fortunes at one point or another, and it often comes straight after reaching a new high – i.e. the crashing comedown. Pardew was not given the chance to recover the situation, and I shudder to think what would have happened if the Liverpool board had lost patience with Benítez so quickly when the Reds were struggling earlier in the season.
To me, Pardew looked like a younger version of Alan Curbishley, albeit a man who has at least taken a team to a cup final, and was unlucky to not win it. One bad season happens from time to time, and it takes players a while to adjust to the new expectations after any relative form of success.
After Benítez landed the league title with Valencia, following a 31-year wait, he saw his side slip to 5th the following season, falling so far as to not even make the Champions League. It's quite remarkable that he kept his job in a quick-fire country like Spain, but he came back with both the league title (won with far more flair) and the Uefa Cup a year later.
What if Charlton had dismissed Curbishley after they were relegated in 1999? Where would they be now? It's hard to see them spending the entire decade (up to now) in the top division, after their swift re-promotion in 2000.
I can sympathise with the urge to change when a rot seems to set in, and statistics show that the first eight games under new management leads, on average, to a vast improvement. But then, after that, the previous pattern is often reverted to. Look no further than Aston Villa. (Having said that, Martin O'Neill is still a very good manager working with very limited players.) Change can give short-term boosts, but leave longer term problems, especially with new managers wanting their own new players. Unless you get someone patently better than the man sacked, the dangers are great.
Both Bill Shankly and Alex Ferguson endured lean spells at the start of their tenures at Liverpool and United respectively, and also endured dry spells later in their reigns. Arsene Wenger had a trophy-less period between 1998 and 2002, and a dip of sorts again from 2004 to the present date. All of these managers were given time to come back to win the major trophies.
So what would Benítez do different with money? Players like Gonzalez, Agger and Kuyt were long-term targets for Benítez, players he rated because of their particular qualities and long-term potential, irrespective of price tag. At the height of his form while on loan in Spain last season, as he scored against Real Madrid and almost single-handedly kept Real Sociedad up, Gonzalez looked a £15m player. He's had a fairly slow start at Liverpool, but has the skill, pace, work ethic and eye for goal that could make a mockery of his £4m transfer fee. Gonzalez was cheap because he was spotted at the right time, before he was as well known. Would Benítez have still wanted Gonzalez had he had far more cash to spend? I'd like to think so.
Would Benítez have wanted anyone other than Dirk Kuyt, a top-class poacher whom he had tracked for four seasons, and whose unbelievable work rate is precisely what Benítez's likes? I doubt it. Perhaps the only difference, with the new money, would be that a premium would have been added to their values by the selling club.
Money provides the freedom to go that extra mile, to secure players like Simao or Daniel Alves, whose clubs could afford to price them out of the Reds' range at the time. So while I welcome the chance of a new financial footing for the Reds, to make the chance of challenging to the top two more realistic, I do also worry that it will bring its own problems, too.
Paul Tomkins
18 December 2006 |
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