Analysing Liverpool’s Finances and Transfer Activity
When it comes to football, there are few things less interesting then examining sets of accounts. However, the audited set of figures released by Liverpool in the first week of March each year give one of the clearest indications of the off-field standing of the club and its ability to effectively challenge on the pitch. This article aims to explain why the club’s net spend in recent seasons has appeared to be so relatively low, examines the story behind the …
Anfield's SeatServe - American Anfield
Ahead of Liverpool’s enthralling 5-0 win over Watford on Saturday evening, I was angered to see stickers slapped on the bank of seats promoting an app that Liverpool Football Club are now using.
This app, SeatServe, allows fans to have food and drink personally delivered to their seats before the game, at halftime, or even worse, during the game.
There are many moral issues with the induction of this skip-the-queue system. One is that it seems to be offering an …
Can Liverpool Balance Infrastructure & Intent?
On an otherwise tranquil day last April 9th, the most persistent, never-ending LFC Twitter storm was kicked off by the Echo’s Ian Doyle. Jupiter's Great Red Spot is a mere passing squall in comparison to the furore that Doyle kicked off. It was that day when his article entitled, “Liverpool won’t spend £100m this summer, it will be nearer £200m,” hit the interwebs.
https://twitter.com/iandoylesport/status/857630310183424000
As they tend to do, LFC Twitter gave Doyle a lot of grief that day, and …
FSG: Buy A New Club, Not A New Player
Disclaimer: Sorry to disappoint the FSGOut’ers, but this isn’t one of those articles. The boys from Boston will be directing the future for years to come. This is an FSG-Figure-It-Out article pondering possible paths to make the club more competitive while these owners are in place.
DOUBTING THOMAS
This week James Pearce did his “bad news” best to tamp down the persistent links to Monaco’s versatile winger, Thomas Lemar. Pearce cited the price tag an issue for the waning interest.
…
Liverpool: Deloitte Money League Report
The Deloitte Money League 2018 was released just a few days ago, and so in this piece, we'll be looking at Liverpool's place within it, whether the club has improved financially compared to previous seasons, what affects performances, but also the wider context of how much money clubs need to compete. We'll break this article up into three parts, the first of which will simply sum up the report and its general findings, before we move onto Liverpool, and then the …
Defending Set Pieces - A Statistical Analysis
It's silly season again. Time to double click on that football manager icon and see who the next football wunderkind is. Time to test your f5 button's durability. And most importantly time to complain about FSG and their transfer policy. I was thinking about writing on the hot topic but I as I have said before - I just hate narratives. So let's have a look at something positive that has been going on for a few months now - …
Coutinho January sale would be stupidity of the highest order
Selling Philippe Coutinho in the January transfer window would be a brazen, stupid act of the highest order, even for the standards of Liverpool FC.
After a summer-long saga of the Catalan giants attempting to prize Liverpool's Golden Boy away from the ground where he's picked up repeated Golden Samba's, the Reds stood firm and moved past the autumn transfer deadline with Coutinho in their ranks.
Since then he's embarked on a run of form practically unprecedented on a personal …
FSG Out? Be Careful What You Wish For
There is no doubt that Fenway Sports are investors first and sports fans second, but new owners would be far less likely to bring the riches of Gulf oil or Russian politics to the table and much more likely to take the club in the same direction as Aston Villa, Cardiff City and Portsmouth.
Mo Chatra wrote for The Anfield Index an article called “Follow The Moore’s and Cash In”. It essentially made the case that Fenway Sports should sell …
FSG – Follow The Moores and Cash In
When the Moores family put their majority stake in Liverpool Football Club up for sale in 2003, it was largely driven by an acceptance that they simply could not compete with rivals’ riches. Writing to The Times in May 2010, just over three years after his ill-fated decision to sell to Tom Hicks and George Gillett, David Moores explained, “The decision to sell was taken in 2003, when it became clear that greater investment in the club was needed than …
Liverpool's Transfer Committees, Sporting Directors and the need to Step Up
Since FSG have come into the club, transfers have been a mixed bag. There have been some resounding successes in the likes of Sturridge, Coutinho, Mane and Salah. There have also been some real flops like Lovren, Lambert, Balotelli and others. Michael Edwards has had to play a big role in all of this.
Edwards arrived as Head of Performance and Analysis and, more recently, worked with Brendan Rodgers as part of the now infamous Transfer Committee. This was one …