Premiership Season Preview 2007/08 - Liverpool
13th Jun 2007, 17:40
Forbes magazine’s annual rich list of football clubs published in March of this year showed that ten of the top twenty-five most valuable football clubs in the world play in the Premiership. Their relative positions in that elite group correlate closely with success on the field, underlining the close relationship between spending power and success, the prevailing philosophy of ‘speculate to accumulate’ seems to hold true. The frenetic horse-trading of the summer months is the most important phase in the process of Premiership clubs reorganising and strengthening their squads, providing ante-post players with vital clues to next season’s competition.
Can the Scouse ‘Franchise’ Succeed?
The ticker-tape had barely settled on the Olympic Stadium in Athens after Liverpool’s Champions League defeat before manager, Rafa Benitez, talked about the need for decisive transfer activity. "We must quickly sign our number one targets and spend big and spend now." The Spaniard was reportedly angry and frustrated at the lack of funds made available by the clubs new American owners, Tom Hicks and George Gillett. Benitez clearly feels that his squad isn’t big enough nor of sufficient quality to contest four competitions over nine months, let alone stand a chance of ending the League title drought stretching back to 1990.
The size of the task in hand, facing the might of the big three - Arsenal, Chelsea and Manchester United - is illustrated by the fact that the Pool’s record Premiership points total in 2006 of 82 points, still saw them nine points behind Chelsea. Last season the Reds finished 21 points adrift of United and Benitez believes Liverpool will only win the battle for the Premiership if they prevail in the summer transfer bidding wars.
Benitez has won an FA Cup and made two Champions League finals in three years at the club, but third is the best league position he has achieved despite investing £100m. A quarter of that was spent on Peter Crouch, Mark Gonzalez, Craig Bellamy and Momo Sissoko, but of that quartet, only Crouch made a fleeting appearance as a substitute in Athens. All are now facing the axe along with Sami Hyypia, Bolo Zenden and Robbie Fowler.
Accepting such disappointments, Benitez is employing a two pronged approach of trying to bring in world class talent while also developing younger prospects such as Lucas Leiva, - U20 Brazilian captain - and Hungarian duo Krisztian Nemeth (18) and Andras Simon (17) – who both excelled for Hungary at the Uefa Under-17 championships in 2006. That trio won’t however win the Premiership for the Reds any time soon.
The prospects for topping next season’s table will probably rely on the success of landing a world class striker who can deliver 20 plus goals, and a proven winger to provide the ammunition. The signing of Ukrainian striker, Andriy Voronin, was the first under the new US regime, which may provide an important indication of the club’s ambition, or lack of it. Voronin cannot be called world class, having previously played for four different German sides over seven seasons, he has managed just 65 goals, and the record of his two compatriots in the Premiership – Shevchenko and Rebrov – is not encouraging.
Gillett made the mistake of calling Liverpool a franchise during an early press conference, but that clanger probably illustrated the true regard he has for the deal. "I don’t know if we are capable of challenging for the title next year," stated the American. “We want to make progress but it is a multiple-year programme. We want to challenge but we won’t do it overnight.”
The transition in the boardroom has caused a paralysis of decision making which has frustrated Benitez. The anticipated arrival of Gillett’s son, Foster, to run the club and write cheques for Benitez, cannot come soon enough.