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Pickles Offline OP
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Liverpool’s incredible run deserves praise but manner of dominance provides concern for future of the game

The Reds won for the 19th time out of 20 Premier League matches this season last night against Sheffield United.

by Miguel Delaney Chief Football Writer
4th January 2020

As Sadio Mane thundered the ball into the net against Sheffield United, it was impossible not to be struck by how stunningly everything again came together – but in more ways than one.

There was primarily the conviction of a forward on all-conquering form, soaring due to his confidence in his own game and his perfect fit within this Liverpool team. That finish flowed from a glorious interchange with Mohamed Salah, reflecting the integration of these forwards into the most exhilaratingly of modern tactics, instilled by perhaps the finest manager in world football right now in Jurgen Klopp.

This inspiring play is itself the natural product of the most intelligent project in football right now. Liverpool are the example to follow, showing best practice, and now putting out by far the best team.

That can all be true, however, it can still be simultaneously true that Liverpool’s results are an example of something much less inspiring.

They are also a natural product of the super-club world that football now finds itself in. It is a world, just as in society, that is getting much more punishing for anyone on the wrong side of the lamentable embrace of hyper-capitalism.

It would be much easier to talk about all this if Liverpool’s supreme results records were unique – but they are not. It is only two years since Manchester City posted almost identical numbers. In between, both clubs claimed 96-plus-point seasons. When that happens, it’s less unique brilliance, and more a common issue of which there are more examples.

Before that, Chelsea bested an in-season record with 13 consecutive wins. Across Europe’s major leagues, the same major clubs – Juventus, Bayern Munich, Paris Saint-Germain and even Barcelona – are winning the title again and again. The clubs from these countries now completely dominate the Champions League last 16.

There has never been such a collection of situations like this in football’s history, where so many such records are being broken in so short a time, and so many results are… so predictable. This is not some grand coincidence. It is a distinctive consequence of something bigger, that has been developing for decades. It is exclusively because so many resources are being concentrated at the same few clubs.

It is perhaps the biggest issue in football right now, and has many bigger effects. It is already leading to the death of clubs like Bury, and may yet lead to the birth of a super-league. This is how extreme the economic reality of the game has become. This is why Leicester City were a 5,000-1 “miracle”.

It should be stressed at this point that Liverpool themselves defied those economic realities to even compete with City. They had to absolutely maximise what they had, through the most astute of thinking, to make that happen. By rights, they shouldn’t really be beating City. This is hugely admirable – but it would be naive to think it was down to genius defiance alone.

They had a distinctive financial platform. They had a super-club’s financial platform, without which all the most intelligent decisions in the world would be irrelevant when it comes to actually challenging. It was not as big as City’s super-club platform, no – but it was an essential bottom line nonetheless.

Many might naturally quibble with what a super-club is. It conjures images of oil-money takeovers and transfer grandeur. Those are all part of it, but the fundamental definition is more basic. It is purely about what you can afford, and having an amount of money that puts you above a certain threshold of financial potential. Liverpool can right now afford one of the highest wage bills in world football, and that is pretty much the only figure that matters when it comes to competitiveness. League tables correlate to that more than anything else.

Many might at this moment fairly argue that Liverpool almost went bust a decade ago, and point to their hugely impressive net-spend figures. It is true they only emphasise the scale of the achievement, the quality of the thinking. But the added point there is that FSG – in a move entirely in-keeping with the intelligence they have shown throughout this project – identified an under-performing club with huge financial potential. And FSG’s brilliant business approach is now maximising that potential, too, to ever-escalating rewards and resources.

And that’s why Liverpool are a super-club. They did not have an Abu Dhabi, Qatar or Roman Abramovich buy them as with City, PSG or Chelsea, but they did have a rare historic status and immense global appeal that was rife for maximising. They were essentially “lucky” enough to be successful and famous at the right time in history, so it created this huge fanbase. It is a similar story with Manchester United, Barcelona, Real Madrid, Bayern Munich, Juventus and, to a lesser extent, Arsenal. They have this globalist power that make it impossible for almost anyone else to compete without a super-wealthy owner.

And sure, many of these – especially United and Arsenal – are currently under-performing. They are not making the best of their resources, or potential. But they could get right back up there with the right decisions, or investment in football intelligence. Clubs outside this band couldn’t get up to this level with right decisions alone. Even the sharpest football intelligence only goes so far – and is usually bought up by the super-clubs anyway. Klopp wasn’t going to Everton in 2015. Pep Guardiola wasn’t going to Lazio. That is the way of things.

Jurgen Klopp has maximised the potential of Liverpool.
It is also the point with FSG and Liverpool. Had they taken over any other club bar perhaps Milan or Internazionale, and taken the exact same steps at the exact same moments, they just wouldn’t have had the same effect. This would not have happened at West Ham United, or Sunderland, or even Everton or Leeds United. They just don’t have that financial platform, and don’t really have the globalist appeal to develop it. This is of course not to single out Liverpool.

It’s just to signal that their incredible season should not solely bring gushing praise. It should bring cause for thought, about the state of the game and where it’s going. Liverpool’s supreme run is really just a symptom of a wider issue, where a growing financial disparity is causing a greater distortion of results and harming the very unpredictability that makes the game so glorious. The reality is that a series of decisions have been taken since the early 1980s – from changing rules on directors to the birth of the Premier League to ongoing changes to rights distribution – have made this inevitable, and arguably brought it past the point of no return. Wealth has always dictated the game, sure, but never to this degree. This is unprecedented.

It still doesn’t mean that football is uniformly predictable. It will still vary. There are still humans involved. Players will get tired of managers. Bad decisions will be made. Clubs will drop off. Surprises will be possible. But the key point is that if a super-club gets it right, results like this are becoming the norm. It is not a surprise, because that is what happens with hyper-capitalism, and so much going in one direction. The rich get richer, gaps grow. The wider forces of the game are by now unmistakable. This has been coming together for some time.

This is not to take away from this Liverpool. This team, and this manager, would have been historically brilliant in any era. They would be repeat champions in any other era. But, in this era, they’re achieving results that are becoming painfully routine for a distinctive group of super clubs that get it right.

And that is not healthy for the sport.

https://www.independent.co.uk/sport/foot...s-a9268531.html


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Pickles Offline OP
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Only in the UK can it become a sin for somebody to be successful on the world stage, especially in sport. There seems to always be somebody waiting in the wings to not give you the credit deserved but want to find negatives in how you reached that pinnacle.

You reach the pinnacle of your chosen field with grit and determination, overcoming obstacles in the way, even when there are teams that possessed even more money and talent. The paying Customers/Fans change generation to generation and it's up to the clubs to manage this and be competitive to the point of attracting new Customers/Fans.

For 30 Goddamn years we've laboured in obscurity with the odd fleeting success. Now we've reached where we are with good, sound financial wellbeing we are being ripped for it?
We almost ended up as Bury ten years ago, what we have done since is nothing short of miraculous.

I suggest Miguel be critical of the ones much more deserving of critique, the hyper wealthy Oligarchs and Arabs who treat their projects as pets. Lavishly spending with a bottomless pit of money, finding ways to nefariously get around rules designed to stop monopolizing the sport.

Miguel also needs to brush up his knowledge on hyper capitalism. I suggest he go study the retail industry where it really is a huge problem!


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Jesus we haven't even lifted the title yet, we've been starved for 30 years besides the odd cup every 10 years or so, only the last 2 seasons we picked up some silverware or we were involved in finals. We are not a super club, we spent 75m on a top defender and 65m on a top keeper after selling our best player for that sum. If the media wants to criticize a club go after City who are inflating their sponsorship deals to buy and give players absurd sums of money.


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Originally Posted By Snakeye
Jesus we haven't even lifted the title yet, we've been starved for 30 years besides the odd cup every 10 years or so, only the last 2 seasons we picked up some silverware or we were involved in finals. We are not a super club, we spent 75m on a top defender and 65m on a top keeper after selling our best player for that sum. If the media wants to criticize a club go after City who are inflating their sponsorship deals to buy and give players absurd sums of money.


I said this to myself as I was reading the first post.

We haven't won anything yet. 2 years ago we were history merchants. Now we seem to be the best of all time and best in the future too

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And the Bury reference is a bit absurd aswell.

They were a club that used more money to buy players than they could afford to.

A badly run club quite simply.

What has that to do with any other club's success?

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Well there's much truth in what he says about how the game has gone, but as most above have said its a bit rich to put it on Liverpool, giving where we've come from over the last few decades.
I suppose they'll be saying the Ref's are favouring us next, maybe they'll Even say the FA is favouring us....dear God!! They've already said that VAR is favouring us

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In life there are winners and losers. This reporter is some kind of big loser.

His argument is full of holes. The example of Leicester for one. They won it 4 years ago and where are they today? Second in the league and semi final of League Cup. Why? Because they are doing what we are doing on a smaller scale. They sold their best player twice (Kante and Maguire) and invested the money in young players very very wisely. Of course it could all have gone spectacularly wrong if players had been signed for big money and failed to perform or got injured. But they did their homework, waited until the time was right and made their move. Maddison, Tielemans, Soyuncu and Ndidi. All fantastic signings. All worth big money now.

Look at Ajax and their run to the semi final of the CL last season. They sell their best players year after year and they probably still have the best academy in world football. They had no right to get that far but hard work and a sound plan can overcome the oil rich clubs.

Football in this country in the lower divisions is dying. It was a slow death for Bury. Every year a club looks to be going under and is then saved at the last minute just to carry on going stale. They charge £18 to £24 to watch absolute garbage.

He says United and Arsenal are underperforming. Well this is what happens when you pay the likes of Rooney, Sanchez, Pogba, Zlatan stupid amounts of money and then put 21/22 year olds on £180k a week to keep pace or risk losing them. The fans see this and turn against the team.

All sports have more losers than winners. It is such a shame that some who earn a living from reporting on the game are so bitter when it comes to our turn. This guy has a fear that Liverpool can keep going and is trying to shoot it down before it has really started. These Man United fans are always so comical when they have these meltdowns.

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Interesting article. Those above saying it is negative about LFC are missing the point. What the guy is saying is that the "super clubs" are becoming more and more dominant making results more and more predictable. True.

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Pickles Offline OP
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Poppycock!

This didn't happen overnight or since Liverpool have ascended in the past year. Why didn't the hack go back 10, 15 or 20 years? nothing has changed in this time except for Agents and their players getting greedier putting more emphasis on clubs becoming more dynamic in their approach to their financials.

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I remember in the 70's I recall it was reported in some of the press Liverpool should have to play permanently with ten men. There was even talk of it going to parliament but in those days Liverpool won everything year after year after year. As others have said we have never won the premiership title and still might not. The 10 man thing came to nothing obviously


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