Liverpool owners: The two old guys from the gallery in the Muppet Show.
Liverpool Football Club is one of the biggest brands in football. However, for the past two decades, the club has struggled to produce the consistent results in the Premier League. This season, four straight losses may signify the beginning of a crisis. But this crisis is larger than inconsistent play on the pitch. It started in the back rooms of the club. Liverpool is struggling because of a management crisis because (drumroll):
1) The club hired a coach for Europe and not the Premier League. Rafa is an excellent coach and a tactical genius in Europe. However, the same abilities that make him an asset in European competition make him a liability in England. His teams often play not to lose instead of playing to their strengths and going for the win. All to often LFC have snatched defeat from the jaws of victory in the Premiership this season. It is clear to many that he has issues coming to grips with what it takes to win in England. If he didn’t, he wouldn’t have sold Robbie Keane, a player who would have served as a third option sans Torres & Gerrard.
2) Player Management: Rafa has shown that he is incapable of taking pressure off his players, and this is an integral aspect of winning in England. If the last managers to win the Prem share anything in common (SAF, the Special One, Jose Mourinho, and Arsene Wenger), they are all guilty (to a fault) of protecting and shielding their players from outside criticism. Instead of building camaraderie, Rafa seems to alienate his players (at least the ones not named Torres or Gerrard).
3) Erratic Spending: It became apparent that Rafa shouldn’t have been given total control to sign players last year. After all, the club had an amazing run of form in large part due to two moves he wanted to make that didn’t come to fruition (he wanted to sign Gareth Barry and get rid of Xabi Alonso). Alonso was as instrumental a member of the team as any. But this slight lead to his exit at the beginning of this season. To compound his problems, Benitez turned a good bit of business (30 million quid for Alonso) into a calamity by spending 20 million quid on an injured unestablished player, Alberto Aquilani, and then signing Glenn Johnson for 18 million quid. If this is not financial ineptitude, I don’t know what is.
Nevertheless, it is apparent that LFC, like many of the teams fighting to be in the top four, are fighting to keep up with the Joneses. LFC is in the same position as Arsenal, Aston Villa, Everton, and Tottenham, teams that do not have the spending power or desire to buy at the same level as Manchester United, Chelsea and now Manchester City. Arsenal has drastically improved its financial health from a cash flow perspective. However, building Emirates has tied the Club to a long term debt burden. Many top clubs have found it difficult to weather the long term financial demands of such a huge debt burden and immediate short term demands of maintaining form on the pitch (Derby County, Leicester City, Coventry City and Southampton all were subject to relegation). It appears that Liverpool has some fundamental decisions to make and then they need to tread carefully. They can seek immediate gratification and seek a buy-out from Middle Eastern money men or they can focus on a long term outlook and change their management approach while reducing expectations in the short term.
Rafa will fail again. Liverpool is the new Leeds.
“Benitez turned a good bit of business (30 million quid for Alonso) into a calamity by spending 20 million quid on an injured unestablished player, Alberto Aquilani and then signing Glenn Johnson for 18 million quid. If this is not financial ineptitude, I don’t know what is.”
Hmm, guy. Not so sure about that. It’s too early to call Aquilani bad business. He’s a quality player. But you can’t be a bust before you even play. As for Glenn Johnson, the toilet seat thief, he’s been one of the few bright spots for Pool. His place in the England team is pretty much solidified.
Good read – Your article, while well written and accurate… there is a lot going wrong with Liverpool Football Club this season. If lined up ten different football fans (not necessarily Liverpool fans) they would give you a combination of different rationalization to Liverpool’s slow start to the season. The three explanations stated in your write up is part of the challenge at Anfield this season. The second explanation you gave with regards to Benitez’s Management abilities is fundamental in this season’s slow start.
It is a fact that the likes of Wenger, Sir Alex Ferguson and Mourinho, getting the best out of the players they have at their disposal is the cornerstone of their success. They are skilled at creating the whole siege mentality with their players and that breeds success in any aspect of life. And the players who have played for them at Arsenal, Manchester United and Chelsea will all run through a wall for them. Off the top of my head, I don’t believe I can name more than 5 players at Liverpool who would do that for Rafa Benitez.
Remember Benitez admired the great Arrigo Sacchi as a young coach. And in that school of management, the coaches tend to believe the system is more effective than the sum of the effectiveness of the individuals within in it, but that can test the patience of the very best and most professional players. I sense it is why Benitez prefers less high profile players who he knows will stick to his ‘tactical’ vision, but that’s why there’s a constant stream of mediocre talent in and out the door, many of whom possessed neither the ability or mentality to play for such a big club as Liverpool FC. I would be very surprised today if the likes of Gerrard, Torres and Carragher are not beginning to question his coaching abilities.
I am also convinced though that one thing which has slipped under the radar is Pako Ayesteran resignation and he was Benitez’s former assistant manager. Ayestaran and Benitez’s relationship started well over a decade ago, and when Ayesteran left, he took with him 11 years of shared knowledge and mutual respect. And he was the only one in the Liverpool coaching staff willing to challenge Benitez on a regular basis. It was Ayesteran who developed relationships with players on a daily basis, something Benitez is unwilling to do, not interested in, or not good at, because he does not regard it as part of his job. He was the human element to Liverpool FC’s coaching which has been blowing hot or cold since he has left. There’s no one getting into the players’ heads, gauging confidence levels. The point is that there’s no-one there to tackle Benitez, to say NO with the firmness and authority Ayestaran commanded. For instance, one could argue that Rafa has his favourites, and no matter how dreadful they play they are never left out of the starting eleven. In the past Ayesteran would stand up and question such decisions. This season, it is Lucas Leiva and Dirk Kuyt who are never dropped. The club has lost 6 games this season; the likes of Benayoun, Riera, Babel and Mascherano have been regularly dropped, yet Leiva and Kuyt – who have played in all 6 defeats – remain the cornerstone of an underachieving team. Some players may deem this as unjust as players should be played on merit, and both Lucas Lieva and Dirk Kuyt have had awful games this season. There has to be some sense of consistency with regards to the selection of players. A manager cannot have one rule for certain players and another one for other players.
Other reasons of the demise of the team? The Erratic spending is a fair shout. Liverpool’s squad strength in depth is weak, and for that, Rafa Benitez has to take the responsibility. He has had over £230m to spend since he arrived at Anfield, and that is not even counting the unrevealed fees paid for youngster in the club’s Academy; the money for signing-on fees and salaries; money for re-signing existing players; money wasted on players warming the bench. Think about it…. Benitez has spent £55m+ on Babel, Pennant, Dossena, Riera, Keane, and Lucas; he personally chose those players. That money could’ve been spent on two world class players who could have suited the club’s playing style/ system. Maybe he did not have the money buy his first options at that given time or he was outbid by a Manchester United or even a Real Madrid, then why squander the money on a discount option when he could have hold onto the cash for the following transfer window? A good example this past transfer window is the £2million purchase of the Greek stopper Sotiris Kyrgiakos when he could have simply purchased Sol Campbell as the fourth choice stopper on a free transfer and held onto the £2Millionn going onto the next transfer window… or evens spent the fee on Niko Kranckar?!
What else? Alberto Aquilani looks like a fantastic footballer from some of the Youtube Highlights we have all seen of him, along with his 15 mins debut for Liverpool reserves this past week. And he may go on to be an Anfield great. Time is on his side. He is a young player. He needs to be given a chance. However, Liverpool’s player of the season Xabi Alonso leaves and the player is replaced by someone who now nearly 3 months into the season and he has STILL not made his debut for the first team, was a glaring mistake from Benitez’s side. (The team is missing the impact and influence of a superstar player as Alonso, the heartbeat of the team from last year.) This decision makes no sense… During this time, Liverpool has lost 6 of the first 12 games in all competitions. Had Aquilani (or someone else) had been available from pre-season, the team would’ve benefited from having another top class player in the side, and there is every possibility things would not be looking so miserable right now. Real Madrid gave Liverpool FC and Benitez a combination of player swap deals for Alonso and yet he ignored all of them to sign an injured player. Are the likes of Robben, Van der Vaart, Huntelaar and Sneijder not good enough for Liverpool FC?
Also, continuing with the Lucas Leiva in the midfield has asked a lot of questions of the team. Why not move the best midfielder at club in Gerrard to Alonso’s old position? Lucas cannot play in that “quarterback” role position which Alonso excelled at last season. Everyone can see this except the manager. One could argue in order to compensate for Alonso’s loss and the time needed for Aquilani to recover, Benitez should have moved Gerrard back into midfield from the very first game of the season and played Benayoun in the hole behind Torres. Starting the season with an experimental, untried midfield partnership of Javier Mascherano and Lucas Leiva was, quite honestly, neighboring on carelessness, especially when Mascherano and Gerrard have played together successfully many times in the past…. Big teams like Manchester United, Arsenal, Everton and Chelsea fear a midfield that contains Steven Gerrard; and simply put does Lucas instill the same sort of apprehension? No. As such, the psychological battle is lost before the game even begins.
This leads to my next point with regards to the on-going failure of not playing “Aces in their places”. As well as playing Gerrard alongside Mascherano, it is surely also important to play Liverpool’s best players in their best positions. Benitez has simply not done that this season. Benayoun has been played on the left; Riera has been regularly dropped (even when he wasn’t injured); Fabio Aurelio a leftback has been played in central midfield, ahead of Steven Gerrard. Just this past week against Lyon, Steve Gerrard gets injured twenty minutes into the game (playing behind Torres), a defender in Aurelio replaces him instead of another attacker in Ryan Babel…. Has any of this worked? No. This is not a time for carrying out tests or trying to prove a point. It is the manager’s duty to make use of the playing assets of the club in a way that benefits the club…
Defensively, the team has not defended as well as it has in the previous 4 seasons which included Pepe Reina winning the Golden Glove for 3 straight seasons. The club undergone significant changes over the last few months: club legend Sami Hyypia has left; Glen Johnson has arrived; Emiliano Insua has begun to play more regularly and Daniel Agger the most naturally gifted stopper at the club has been injured. Sami Hyppia’s experience will be missing at the club’s training ground, which means players will miss out on essential knowledge and defensive tips. Hyppia’s organisational skills and calming influence on the pitch are also sorely needed. There are not too many immensely experienced heads on the field for Liverpool anymore.
Thus all the commotion has caused tribulations which have led to uncharacteristic goals being conceded by the team. Bedding-in two new fullbacks is always going to be difficult; Carragher and Skrtel need to get used to playing with them, and the defensive unit as a whole has to get used to each other and build up an understanding. In the past when the defenders would run into cul-de-sacs Alonso would drop deep and make himself available to relieve them from added pressure and he would immediately turn a defensive situation into an attacking one with his trademark Hollywood touches and passes. Simply put Lucas and Mascherano cannot do that, hence the team is continuously on the back foot because they cannot counter attack as well as they did last year.
Benitez has had 5 years to address the problems at the club. He hasn’t. If Manchester United make a bad signing (and there has been a lot in the past 15 years), it doesn’t really affect them as the squad is still relatively strong. The same could be argued of Chelsea FC. Benitez may have more tactical nous than others, but when it comes to man-management, there are plenty of managers out there who are far superior to him. But to your point effective man-management is vitally important to creating a consistently successful team. This is the vital component missing from modern Liverpool, and it has been missing since Kenny Dalglish left as manager. How ironic that Rafa Benitez and Liverpool FC rehired Kenny Dalglish this past summer as an ambassador to the club……
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