Originally Posted by
RedNoodle
Man City keep getting used as the example as to what level of spending is required, but that is not the case, nor has anybody I've come across suggested such a thing. All I and most other Reds want is for us to spend amounts commensurate with our standing in the world of football both on and off the pitch. In both regards we are in the top five clubs in the world, yet going by how much we 'spend' on the team/squad, you'd think we were a mid table PL club, not the reigning PL champions and six times winners of the EC/CL.
We can spend much, much more than we have/are without us becoming akin to a club like Man City.
Noods, "standing in the world of football" is not equal to nor commensurate with actual wealth.
You do know that, right?
Our so-called 'standing' as a global brand in the football world is built mostly on the reputation of our successful eras in the 70's and 80's during which periods we didn't actually capitalize on that dominance, off the field the way we could have.
Simply because nobody knew how to do that back then and the world (both sporting and wider) wasn't set-up for that at the time.
When the Mancs came along in the 90's under the Fergie era, as much as it pains me to admit it, they hired the right people who knew how to make the most of the success they were enjoying on the field, and built them to be the off-pitch financial brand that we know them to be.
They built the model that every other team now tries to emulate (the non-'Oil Money' teams that are mostly self-sustaining) - specifically those two powerhouses in Spain.
And which we, whether we want to admit it or not ourselves, are also hoping to emulate on some level now.
But it takes more than a decade of mostly continuous, if not uninterrupted success and dominance on the field (and a hell of a whole lot more than just "a global name in world football") alongside responsible custodianship off of it, to achieve that and we've barely had more than a couple of seasons (with the years before that being used by FSG to stabilize things off the field and put in place the things we need to be a sustainable model - like the Anfield expansion(s))
We CAN'T spend much more than we have.
We have neither the collateral to get the funding for it (again, your "name" and branding can only get you so far), nor I would hope, the recklessness or will to want to do so.
We barely even have the reputation for it now.
We're defending champions - but so were Leicester at one point - and of our 6 EC/ Champions' League wins, 4 came before most fans were even born and the one before the most recent one was over a decade ago when we were a few years prior to being close to going into administration.
I think Liverpool fans have to get some sense of humility, reality and perspective when it comes to our situation.
Do you want to be a club in debt? Because that's what it would take to achieve the spending levels you're craving.
Or do you want to be part of a responsibly managed club that's sustainable enough, so that even if they do decide to sell up, we won't be in a worse off situation?
Because the only other alternative to those two is being the moneybags toy of an Oil baron somewhere in the Middle East or Russia.
And there aren't many of those going around that would be acceptable to most LFC fans.
FSG wanted to furlough staff when the pandemic initially hit - something that they were already paying into like all other tax-paying entities - but they got slammed by fans and many in the press and the punditry class and ex-players as doing something that wasn't "the Liverpool way" (whatever the hell that means).
Not realizing at the time that by forcing them to turn back on that decision would impact their ability to buy new players or reinforce the squad like they had wanted to.
I thought it was stupid at the time (the complaints by fans, not the decision by FSG, which I understood where it was coming from, even if I may not have agreed completely), but now the same people who were slamming me for pointing it out are complaining about the clubs inability to buy new players or compete in mad prices for new players.
Clearly most of these people have never run businesses.
You can't have it both ways.
Last edited by Crimson Dynasty; 7th February 2021 at 01:42 AM.
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