Last season, Liverpool fans had to endure the transfer rumours of the BBC Sport’s gossip page for far too long. This made it seem that chief executive Ian Ayre was inept at his job, as targets like Alexis Sanchez were snapped up by Premier League rivals Arsenal
Of course hindsight is 20/20 and fans may not have seen that at the time Liverpool’s dilly-dallying in the market, would cost them points in both the Premier League and the Champions League group stage.
When we look back together and reassess the fortunes of our opponents one thing is true. The teams that got their business done early were more successful on the year than the ones that didn’t.
If we take Chelsea as an example. The Blues won the League title and the League Cup after a close semi-final tie with Liverpool. A double. A successful year. When you then analyse their two main signings that they made, midfielder Cesc Fabregas and striker Diego Costa, not to mention the return of loanee goalkeeper Thibaut Courtois from Atlético Madrid, all three knew where they would be playing before the World Cup.
That settles players. Instead of them hunting for houses and arranging for the movers to come in, they could sit back and enjoy the beaches of Rio and not have to worry as their agents got busy making their money. Manager Brendan Rodgers mentioned this countless times in press conferences. He would reiterate over and over again that players must settle in, find houses, places to eat, essentially get use to everything around them and get use to being at a new club.
Chelsea tackled that problem head on during the pre-season while most Liverpool players were still finding their feet during the first and second months of the season.
The other advantage Chelsea gained from making sure their business was done before the World Cup was that the new players would have a full pre-season with the club and new team mates. The benefits were clear to see as all three players, that I had mentioned, got off to astonishingly quick starts. Fabregas piled up the assists, Costa stomped in the goals and Courtois added more and more clean sheets to his account.
Whereas when Liverpool played AC Milan at Fenway Park in Boston, during there preseason, Alberto Moreno was still at Sevilla, Javi Manquillo was training with Atlético and Mario Balotelli was playing for the opposition.
Another team that struggled mightily even though they qualified for the Champions League were Manchester United, who took a very similar route when it came to signing players. Angel Di Maria was signed after the World Cup and most die hard United fans didn’t even know who Marcos Rojo was until the tournament in Brazil was over. Blind was another late addition and to this day United still can’t find a better right-back than Antonio Valencia.
They too waited and paid a premium both in transfer fees and in the lost opportunity of early training sessions to allow the new boys to settle it.
Now it is fair to say that Liverpool’s transfer dealings were turned on its head when the unfortunate incident for Reds fans came as Luis Suarez lost his marbles and bit Giorgio Chiellini during the World Cup. At that point Liverpool were done with protecting their star striker and thought it best to move on from the Uruguayan. Barcelona forked over the money as Suarez was handed a ban until October of that year.
All so far has been different this transfer window. Players are coming in early. Stars like Roberto Firmino have been captured during the Copa America instead of waiting until after the tournament, when every club knows his name and are willing to pay over the odds for him.
The Anfield team have captured six signatures before the window even officially opened on July 1.
Making mistakes are bad enough but not learning from them is even worse. It’s nice to see that the top brass at the club were able to admit their mistakes of last summer and work to fix that this summer.
Now the window isn’t closed yet. Liverpool need to find themselves another striker and the must start to offload players that won’t be there come the start of the season. So although the transfer committee is off to a fast start they must maintain this pace if they are to succeed. Then it will be up to Rodgers come late July to make them all gel.
