KopTalk.com Forums Football Liverpool FC Forum imo FSG are being honest good custodians of LFC (to date)

A harsh reality check based on finances..

LFC is financially the 4th best team in England.
With City and Spurs not far behind.

Both Arsenal and ManU have stadiums that offer £20+ million more revenue.

City and Chelsea have been bankrolled.


This means we are technically 5th in competitiveness and our direct / nearest rivals are spurs.

Being below 6th in the league is underachieving.
Being above 5th in the league is overachieving.


We stood still and the global financial crisis has made the hole dug that much deeper. 2008 capital of culture also screwed us as all the steal and labour costs went through the roof. (no pun)

Fair enough when I read your post. Who do you think is responsible for us having only 2 strikers (one new who is looking like Ngog right now but could improve probably and the other one who need 3 chances at least to score once) then?

Great post Scainer totally agree.

Not being able to sell Carrol, or move on Cole and Henderson.
I think Dempsey and Sturridge where the transfer targets.

Dempsey is 29 meaning that down the road he would have no sell on value. This meant that the Charlie Adam sale was in essence a trade, and we offered Fulham the money we would get for Adam. They wanted 7 million, the deal collapsed, spurs offered the better deal and they where forced to accept it.

Sturridge is complicated. We obviously where trying to secure a loan move. It was suggested Sturridge only wanted a permanent transfer, but I believe due to only having Torres as a proper striker they didn't want to let him go. I also think they didn't want a loan move as they wanted to recoup money to balance the books for the FFP.

So why was Carrol loaned out?
I believe it was fully clear that BR didn't want him. FSG where forced into balancing the books. Westham have payed a nominal loan fee (£1 million?)and are going to cover his 4 million+ wages.
Lets say its a 5 year contract. (The first year is really 6 months)
Year 0 £55 million (£35mill plus £20mill wages)
Year 1 £44 million (£28mill plus £16mill wages)
Year 2 £33 million (£21mill plus £12mill wages)
Year 3 £22 million (£14mill plus £8mill wages)
Year 4 £11 million (£7mill plus £4mill wages)
Year 5 £0 million (player is free agent)

From the figures above you can see that FSG would have happily sold Carrol for £21-28 million.
He has gone out on loan so that financially means we can sell next year for between £14-21 million and not make a loss.

Plus he is injured now maybe for months and west ham are paying his wages and has given us a loan fee.

I thought I'd bring up the stadium issues while I'm at it.



If we rebuilt or redeveloped Anfield it would cost money. This money has to come from somewhere. If it is a loan then the interest payments would be similar to the previous owners and the additional revenue wouldn't cover the costs, making it pointless.

Either development option is to increase capacity by at least 15k seats. Lets for the sake of argument say each seat would bring in £30 net per match. That is £500k per match making at a minimum an additional £10 million a year.

The debts of H&G where about £220mill costing £20-£30 mill in interest per year.

A stadium is going to cost far more than this, so the figures don't add up. This is why the situation is in limbo.

The naming right seems to generate £10 million per season, and I have no issue with this as everyone will still call it Anfield, just as I refer to St James Park rather than Sports Direct Arena.

So the naming right and the extra capacity would bring in £20 million a year, this would still not cover the build costs.
The only other revenue would be from corporate opportunities, such as executive boxes and this is something that has not been exploited, and something that I can't guesstimate figures on.


The stadium will happen if partners can be found that will prevent a negative impact on the team.

Agree regarding Sturridge, I did say that Chelses was thin in the forward sector, so unless they bought/loaned somebody, it would not have made sense to them. They were wise enough to make sure they had a cover first before loaning out not as us.

With regards to Dempsey, I don't agree if the manager thought he could make a difference, 6m is not that much for his qualities as re-sale value comes in the picture only if you want to sell at a profit. If you take a player like say Allen for 15m on a 5 year contract, you should not think about re-selling especially if he is good. You would rather wish to keep him for as much as he can play, re-newing his contract so that he can help you win trophies / champions league place. Now if you can get Allen on a 5 year contract, he would be amortised by 3 million yearly in your books. That would be the exact amortisation in your books for Dempsey if you could get 2 good years from him, which is totally possible. If Fergie or the Glazers were thinking in re-sale value terms, they would not have bought RVP. They rather thought about winning the league / champions league that would increase the value of United and can get them better sponsorship contracts and sell more merchandise.

Now with regards to Caroll, probably BR did not want him, but he should have said you get me somebody first then you send him on loan. He might have said, I don't want him, ship him out as soon as you can and get me somebody else. Our life is all about choices we make, they say. I agree with you that BR does not rate Caroll at all and his priority was anybody but Caroll. Time will tell whether he made the right choice, but, definitely for me it's not looking good.

I forgot to even answer the question on Carrol. Doh!

By putting him out on loan, he has the potential to look good and raise his profile. On the bench with no game time his value would be minimal.


I agree, the loaning of him without a replacement was a cockup. I believe that FSG thought deals would be done. At the presser BR was very hopeful of one deal and hinted than there could be two. In the end Spurs beat us for the second time.

In a way I really wish we let them have Joe Cole. Its like they are taunting us for messing with them.

Noted thanks, just to add with respect to the sell on value. Don't you think that focussing on sell on value even for a 6m expenditure, means that we are becoming a selling club like Arsenal? FSG did that already with Torres (he also wanted to go because he rightfully saw that we would not be competing for honours for a long time just like RVP) and probably this will happen again rather more than less. This is how I think FSG will finance the sustainability of the club + hope that FFP will give us a better chance to compete. Am I happy with this plan? No, would prefer a Chelsea/City/PSG type of plan, but then we need to find such an owner and this is not easy especially if we are not even looking for one. So I guess we just need to sit and watch and hope the downfall will be minimal

Everyone wants to get bank rolled but I believe these owners are on the right track

Yes there have been a few mistakes here and there but they have clearly admitted these things and communicated it to the fans which is a whole lot better than the previous owners

Give it a season or 2, i think we will see results and wonder what all the fuss was about.