1. Do you think Luis Suarez is in a team and a system that allows him to realise his full potential?
Not yet. I don’t think we’ve seen Luis Suarez’s full potential yet, personally. He’s at a club that suits him, in my opinion. A club that loves mavericks, that loves passion and loves talent. He ticks those boxes.
For me, though, there is more to come. Suarez is an individualist talent, who plays for the good of the team. Surround him with similarly gifted footballers (not necessarily similar personalities) and I think you will see even more from him. His relationship with Steven Gerrard and Raheem Sterling is there for all to see, he trusts them with the ball and he trusts them to give him what he needs. The early signs with Daniel Sturridge are also very promising.
He’s improved his finishing so much this season, and let’s be honest he needed to. He can still improve his decision-making in certain situations, and see the bigger picture at times (I think he can occasionally treat it like a 1v1 duel against defenders), but that really is nitpicking. But add a little more guile behind him, perhaps a player with a little more consistency wide of him, and I think there is an extra X% to come. And that’s a frightening thought.
2. Can Brendan Rodgers emulate a successful possession ethos in the premier league like Barcelona in La Liga?
The first thing I would say is that, whilst basing your ethos on certain tenets of Barcelona’s is fine, the idea of copying them is not advisable. Barcelona’s current team isn’t a quirk of fate, it isn’t down to luck. It is down to long-term thinking, planning, organisation and, most of all, faith and belief that this system is the way the club wants to take itself.
It has worked for them, but it needs patience, confidence and understanding of the ups and downs of the game. Clubs talk all the time about “philosophy” – West Ham, I’m told, have always played football on the ground – but their decisions simply don’t back them up. Look at West Ham’s last few managers; could Gianfranco Zola, Avram Grant and Sam Allardyce be much further removed from one another? Or Alan Curbishley, Glenn Roeder, Alan Pardew and Harry Redknapp before that.
How can a club build a philosophy if they are changing their style every time they change their manager? All managers are different. Some prefer possession football, some prefer the direct route, some like tall, athletic players, and others go for smaller, technical specimens. Some like youth, others experience, and some like to spend money, some like to develop existing players.
Building an ethos is about continuity. It is about getting everyone at the club ‘on message’, from the U10s to the first team. It’s very hard to do, by the way, which is why it fails at so many clubs. I read a fascinating interview with Huw Jenkins, the Swansea chairman, recently, who said that things like the club’s transfer policy, youth setup and scouting network are designed in such a way that, even when personnel changes (as it did during the summer, of course) the system remains the same. They target the same kind of players, negotiate in the same way, and promote the same kind of football. That’s commendable, even if it can’t (and doesn’t) work for every club.
At Liverpool, it is clear there is an acute understanding of the need for a “philosophy”. It is Rodgers’ favourite word. And all the signs point to a club that wants to be self-sufficient, that produces its own stars from the Academy, and that has stability from top to bottom. There will be teething problems on the way, these problems could take years to iron out too, but it’s a vision, and it makes sense. Even if not every decision the club takes does.
The acid test is how much support is given to the people within that “vision”. Some have already been and gone – Damien Comolli didn’t last long, whilst Graham Bartlett, Pep Segura, Kevin Keen, Steve Clarke and, of course, Kenny Dalglish have all left in the last 12 months.
3. Is renovating Anfield the right move or would a new stadium be more beneficial?
Without wishing to dodge a question, I think it is impossible to say until formal, detailed plans for an Anfield regeneration are offered. We have seen the initial plans, and they sound ok, but talk is cheap, and Liverpool fans know that more than most.
A few things are clear; Liverpool lose out season upon season, when compared to clubs like Arsenal, Manchester City, Manchester United, Chelsea, because of their stadium. Anfield is a special place, but it is not a moneymaker, not to the extent that Liverpool need it to be.
The sums are all there. There have been some brilliant studies written both for and against a new stadium, but only time will tell unfortunately whether a redevelopment of Anfield is the “right move”. One thing is for certain, Liverpool need to up their matchday revenue if they are to grow as a spending club.
4. Looking at foreign ownership in the English game, how do FSG differ and are they doing it the right way, in terms of buying for future?
Ok, foreign ownership. Well there’s Sheikh Mansour and Roman Abramovich. The Glazers at Manchester United. There’s Randy Lerner at Villa. Ellis Short at Sunderland. Venky’s at Blackburn. Markus Liebherr’s estate at Southampton and the Zingarevich family at Reading. That’s a mixed bag indeed (and I’ve probably missed someone out there too).
How do FSG differ from those? Well they don’t have the spending power of Mansour or Abramovich, let’s not pretend otherwise. Theirs isn’t a bottomless pit of cash, far from it. They haven’t placed the club in financial peril, as the Glazers have, and I think they have avoided the PR-catastrophes of Venkys so far. Their communication could perhaps be better on occasion, but generally they have been relatively open and consistent in their public statements, they have stopped short of wild promises, expressed their support for Financial Fair Play (there’s one area they differ from Chelsea and City, for example) and spoke in terms of the long-term.
The contradiction, of course, is that they have been at the club for just over two years and they are onto their third manager. But both were, in their own way, inherited. Roy Hodgson was a leftover from the previous regime, and Kenny Dalglish was a club legend who earned the right to manage the club again by performing an excellent “steadying” act from the ruins of the Hodgson/Hicks/Gillett era. There is an argument that Dalglish deserved at least another crack at getting things right, having after all ended the club’s trophy drought and taken them to an FA Cup final, returning them to Europe in the process.
I’ve heard plenty of dissent towards FSG from Liverpool supporters although I must stress this is more general complaints rather than hate campaigns or terrace dissent! The bottom line is that fans want concrete evidence of progress in as many areas as possible; it is just their nature. They want investment in the playing side, they want progress with the stadium redevelopment, improvements in league position, trophies and they want better treatment themselves. Very few owners in English, in world, football, can deliver that, but what FSG can do is try to deliver on as many fronts as possible.
It isn’t a universally shared view, but I believe they intend to be here for the long haul. I think they have been shrewd in that they have kept their promises to a minimum and that they have broadly stuck to a consistent line when it comes to their aims and ambitions. Their actions haven’t always supported this – I do think there is a gap where an experienced football administrator should be, for example – but I don’t see sinister motive behind that. Ultimately, though, these people will be judged as anyone else will; by their results, and how they achieve them.
5. What are realistic targets for Liverpool for the remainder of the season?
This will sound like a cop-out, but the target has to simply be to pick up as many points as possible, whilst simultaneously developing and improving the style of play. Easier said than done, but I think the signs are that it is happening. There are lots of areas Liverpool can improve in – their defensive compactness, their game management, their overall defensive play, the ability to sustain performance levels over 90 minutes – and I think they will be focused on by Rodgers and his staff.
I do think it is possible to get way too bogged down in setting targets as for league position. Every week the questions are about top four or top six, but progress is progress. Liverpool are yet to beat a side from the Premier League’s top ten, which shows how far they have to go despite the obvious areas of progress.
That said, I think there should be a concerted effort from everyone at the club to take both the FA Cup and the Europa League seriously. We all know the financial and prestige importance of a top four finish, it goes without saying. But ask a Liverpool fan for their best games from the past ten years. I guarantee you at least 8 of the top 10 answers will be cup-ties. Speaking to fans who enjoyed three trips to Wembley last season, the feeling is that that is what football is about, it’s about days like that, glory, one-off joy, jaunts across the country (or continent). Undoubtedly the League and FA Cups have suffered, image-wise, since the birth of the Champions League, and the Europa League lives in its shadow, but I would urge any club not to undersell their supporters by treating these competitions lightly.
After all, in 50 years’ time who will remember the party they had after their side finished fourth?
