The blame game

[redgold]

I've lurked here for well over a decade, and at the risk of being accused of only posting in the bad times, the inability to do what the money clubs do (namely stockpile fit, good, rather than world class players in one position and then buy the odd superstar) does put us at a disadvantage when we play decent teams. Our style of play doesn't allow us to be thin in the midfield, let alone be stocked with old, knackered, unfit or promising but young players. We can't simply rely on 3 midfielders and hope they stay fit or in form. We need 5 or 6 (plus youngsters like Bacjetic) to regularly and realistically be fighting for first team selection every week. We play who we play because we don't have that. You can argue Keita and Ox, but have they really been regularly in contention for the last two or even three years? Having the extra money allows these clubs to fix problems like this and still buy the top attackers. Perhaps we should have bought midfielders earlier, but then would we have picked up Jota or Diaz?

[redebreck]

I always thought Real were pretty much bankrolled by Spain as a country.

"Royal" Madrid.
Does Spain have homegrown rules similar to the English leagues?

[Insidious]

I always thought Real were pretty much bankrolled by Spain as a country.

"By the end of the 20th century the land surrounding the Real Madrid’s Ciudad Deportiva training ground was no longer on the outskirts of Madrid, but had become a transportation hub with the north of the city and a financial area.

Its location along the Castellana further increased the land’s value. With Real Madrid’s debts mounting in the late 1990s, plans to re-zone and commercially develop the land were mooted by the council several times, but it wasn’t until the presidency of Florentino Pérez that these plans came to fruition.

In 2000, the motion was re-introduced, voted on, and approved in the Madrid parliament to re-zone the area of the Ciudad Deportiva, which until then was zoned for non-commercial purposes – Madrid immediately moved to sell the property for financial gain.

The dodgy deal between Real Madrid and the local government determined that in exchange for re-zoning the land, Perez would agree to sell a portion of the land to the Government. The remaining portions were sold in public project bids to four opportunist corporations, Repsol YPF, Mutua Automovilística de Madrid, Sacyr Vallehermoso and Obrascón Huarte Lain.

From a value of €421,000 in 1998, the Government somehow deemed the value in 2011 to be €22.7m, a 5,400% rise.
After completing the sale of their training ground, Real Madrid completely wiped out all of their massive $245.4m (£170m) debt.

The dodgy dealings of land re-valuation and direct proceeds enabled Real to embark on their period of extravagant Galacticos spending.

Not only did the deal represent a windfall for a club struggling to compete on the field with a resurgent Barcelona, but the series of property swaps between club and council left Real owning the land it needs to substantially upgrade the Santiago Bernabeu Stadium – a £200m plan that includes putting a roof on the ground.

Without the scrupulous government deal there is no way that heavily indebted Real would’ve been able to splash out on their extravagant squad of superstars"


- https://www.theversed.com/32754/real-madrids-success-was-expensed-by-the-spanish-government/#.nQfY0JeJy9

[jimmyliver]

I've lurked here for well over a decade, and at the risk of being accused of only posting in the bad times, the inability to do what the money clubs do (namely stockpile fit, good, rather than world class players in one position and then buy the odd superstar) does put us at a disadvantage when we play decent teams. Our style of play doesn't allow us to be thin in the midfield, let alone be stocked with old, knackered, unfit or promising but young players. We can't simply rely on 3 midfielders and hope they stay fit or in form. We need 5 or 6 (plus youngsters like Bacjetic) to regularly and realistically be fighting for first team selection every week. We play who we play because we don't have that. You can argue Keita and Ox, but have they really been regularly in contention for the last two or even three years? Having the extra money allows these clubs to fix problems like this and still buy the top attackers. Perhaps we should have bought midfielders earlier, but then would we have picked up Jota or Diaz?

I also been on here just over a decade and never posted much until last few years , the guys on here are great at posting in depth info which I love , but I agree with what your saying mate , to play the way we did the last few years it took a very talent rich pool , the midfield has been left to almost rot in the last few years leaving us in this state now . Just hoping that in the summer we can rectify it

[Crimson Dynasty]

Bottom line is we need to drop this pathetic excuse using oil money funded clubs as the reason we can't compete they have 11 players on the field same as all others.
We have also outspent them in recent spending

Nobody's claiming that oil money or sportswashing or any of those other excuses had anything to do with out defeat last night.

That defeat along with our poor form this season has been long in the making thanks to badly mismanaged transfer windows over several seasons along with Klopp's own inflexibility in his tactics.

However to sit there and pretend like money spent by different teams has nothing to do with anything or like "the 11 we put out there" is equal to the 11 they put out ( all while ignoring the gulf in class between the two teams in terms of the players we have available of the depth of the respective benches and squads.), is equally head-buried-in-the-sand delusional.


We're having to rely on a teenager to take on a monumental midfield role as a starter in a way that he shouldn't have to be in his first year with the first team because the manager rightly can't trust the alternatives available in the form of a crock, a pensioner and another crock waiting to happen, even while he has no choice but to rely on a defensive midfielder who's so far out of form, that he should be spending weeks with the reserves to get his form back and his head straight rather than starting games with the team.
And don't even get me started on our "captain Fantastic" and the whole debate of whether he's past it.

And you really still think money and the quality of players we put out has nothing or little to do with any of it?

Yes, the players have a shitty attitude and they should be pulled over the rack for that woeful shameful performance.
Yes, there ought to be an inquest at the end of the season (now, even) as to who'll still be here as a Liverpool player come the beginning of next season and who deserves to leave or stay.
Yes, Klopp probably needs to look at himself too and perhaps even some of his staff, and possibly consider reinventing and re-evaluating some of the things he does in tactics and team management to cope with where we fall short as a team.

But none of any of this is going to mean anything if you choose to ignore the financial reality we have to operate in as a club - which ultimately will determine if fixing half those problems is even possible.

[ianlfc]

"By the end of the 20th century the land surrounding the Real Madrid’s Ciudad Deportiva training ground was no longer on the outskirts of Madrid, but had become a transportation hub with the north of the city and a financial area.

Its location along the Castellana further increased the land’s value. With Real Madrid’s debts mounting in the late 1990s, plans to re-zone and commercially develop the land were mooted by the council several times, but it wasn’t until the presidency of Florentino Pérez that these plans came to fruition.

In 2000, the motion was re-introduced, voted on, and approved in the Madrid parliament to re-zone the area of the Ciudad Deportiva, which until then was zoned for non-commercial purposes – Madrid immediately moved to sell the property for financial gain.

The dodgy deal between Real Madrid and the local government determined that in exchange for re-zoning the land, Perez would agree to sell a portion of the land to the Government. The remaining portions were sold in public project bids to four opportunist corporations, Repsol YPF, Mutua Automovilística de Madrid, Sacyr Vallehermoso and Obrascón Huarte Lain.

From a value of €421,000 in 1998, the Government somehow deemed the value in 2011 to be €22.7m, a 5,400% rise.
After completing the sale of their training ground, Real Madrid completely wiped out all of their massive $245.4m (£170m) debt.

The dodgy dealings of land re-valuation and direct proceeds enabled Real to embark on their period of extravagant Galacticos spending.

Not only did the deal represent a windfall for a club struggling to compete on the field with a resurgent Barcelona, but the series of property swaps between club and council left Real owning the land it needs to substantially upgrade the Santiago Bernabeu Stadium – a £200m plan that includes putting a roof on the ground.

Without the scrupulous government deal there is no way that heavily indebted Real would’ve been able to splash out on their extravagant squad of superstars"


- https://www.theversed.com/32754/real-madrids-success-was-expensed-by-the-spanish-government/#.nQfY0JeJy9

As long as Barcelona aren't top dogs the Madrid based government will let them away with anything.