Neil is joined by Jim Boardman, Nick O’Prey and Rob Gutmann as well as renowned football finance expert David Bick and Spurs fan Catherine Stewart.
Music this week from Elliot Oakley and The Blacklights and The Tea Street Band
Direct link to CITYTALK: ANY SPURS LAD?
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The biggest problem at the club is yourselves. Christ you all love a good moan don’t you. One week your whinging about ticket prices, and the next it’s the club not earning enough revenue. Their hands have been tied for years by bias council. They should have bitten the bullet years ago and moved completely away from that area of the city.
The finance discussion was franklfy embarrassing – ‘red top’ garbage.
Part 1: Christ.
I’m sorry, but I’ve had to turn this off after 15 minutes. I’m gonna exclude Rob and Jim from this because I, at least, think they’re points are valid.
It’s utter shite. We’re talking about FSG here. The accounts have just been released. Why is that negative fool talking about £15m average net spend over 5 years. In the first 2 seasons of that 5 year period the net spend was £-1m. FSG took over in October of year 3 and so only had the January window. With the sale of Torres the net finished £-5m. In the past 2 seasons their net spend is £76m. That’s £38m per season net.
In those past 2 seasons, Spurs net is £-28m, Arsenal’s is £-9m, Utd’s is the same as ours exactly, City’s is £14m less than ours with only chelsea out spending us. Most of these teams are regulars in the CL too. You all live in a simplistic world where cash is available left right and centre but then you moan when the books aren’t balanced. It’s pathetic. If you get your heads out of your arses for 5 minutes you’ll notice that money is tight in the capitalist world.
It’s clear what FSG are trying to do. They want to enhance the squad whilst keeping us in budget. We lost £22m. It went on paying off management staff. It went on over priced players offering nothing to the squad. Without these the losses would have been minimal. Up to where i switched off there was no mention of the £25m Warrior deal that started just after these figures. I bet that idiot who said we’re not exploiting our global brand was kicking off about ‘Being Liverpool’ or made derogatory comments about Chevrolet (as Neil did at the time).
Our revenue has grown slightly since FSG took over. Our interest payments have been massively cut. We have made strides in reaching out to fans all over the world through social media or initiatives in India or tv programmes aimed at the U.S market, with pre season friendlies to back it up. We’ve cut dead wood from the squad. We’ve recently increased wages to players who deserve it. We’ve invested in the team. One day very soon we’ll be back in the CL and we’ll be in a position to invest all the fruits of qualifying. FSG know the increased tv money is coming and when it does, we’ll be able to be sustainable even in the worse case scenario of no European football. Hopefully the payouts to all and sundry will have finished and that saving can go back into the squad. Don’t forget that some of this debt is H&G’s unrealistic stadium plans.
Talking of which, I’d like to see our capacity increased but the fruits of that are for later. It’s not gonna help us get into the CL in the short term – which must surely be our goal. Besides, I sell tickets for Liverpool games and it’s hard work selling them. The reality is, increasing amounts of people are happy to spend Sunday afternoon with their kids and then stream the match online. Football’s a dear do. With the lack of atmosphere the benefit of going to games doesn’t always justify the cost over staying home to watch it. Again, there’s talk of what Utd and Arsenal make in match day revenue yet today I know a lot of people who are livid with the 10% increase in season ticket prices. Stop living in this fairytale world and stop the angst unless you’re prepared to stick your hand in your pocket to pay this gulf in match day revenue. I’m not. I can’t afford to take my lad as it is because it’s 2 adult tickets. It’s a fallacy that a renovation of Anfield will create cheap tickets for everyone. It won’t. Ok, admittedly, it’ll be more affordable to go to some cup games against wank opposition.
Can’t see any improvement in the team? Look at the results since the start of December. If we can add a defender or 2 who can stop big physical sides taking points of us then the form is certainly CL material.
P.s As someone who has listened to TAW from the start and promoted it to anyone who’d listen, I’m sick of you’re opening questions – they’re shite. I’m sick of hearing about the Dovedale Social or Tea Street band (good though they are) and sick of hearing about your jollies abroad. If you say ‘don’t listen then’ well I’ve not been for the past 6 weeks until this week. Apologies, but that cockney’s wound me up with his shit.
Just a small addition to your post:
If we exclude the first five league games, when everything seemed to go tits up even though we performed quite well (apart from against Arsenal), we’re actually the fourth best team in the league. Second highest scoring team and second best defence in terms of goals against. And we’re playing excellent football; the progress in our attacking game is there for everyone to see. If people don’t see it it’s because they don’t want to.
So things are actually far from bleak on the pitch right now. As you say, with a good summer window we should have a squad capable of challenging for a Champions League spot next season. But we need to get it right, and hopefully the January transfers are a sign of what we can expect come summer.
“Look at the results since the start of December.”
Good job the season starts during the New Year then… You make good points but in playing devil’s advocate to give balance to the negative podcast you’ve gone too far the other way.
And ‘Being Liverpool’ was never a good idea at the time, although we can all laugh at it now.
http://www.theanfieldwrap.com/2012/09/why-being-liverpool-can-only-be-a-bad-idea-for-lfc/
“If we exclude the first five league games, when everything seemed to go tits up even though we performed quite well (apart from against Arsenal), we’re actually the fourth best team in the league.”
Are we going to write off another season if the fixture list deals us a tricky start for 13/14? What you’ve got to ask yourself is why we were so atrocious against Arsenal, with the two proven world class match winners in Suarez and Gerrard being the dirt-worst performers on the day? It goes without saying that it wasn’t anywhere near Torres’ malaise when the wheels were falling off under H+G, but there’s no doubt the club handicapping itself off the pitch yet again like they did during that deadline day debacle had some effect on the pitch. It shouldn’t effect player performance, but no one knows more than Liverpool fans in recent years that it does – all the time. Chelsea this season, Blackburn last season (although they’re cases of poisonous atmospheres at the ground), even Everton recently since Moyes’ future has been in doubt culminating in Wigan’s hilarious win today.
I think everyone enjoyed watching Suso and Sterling flourish during the first half of the season but it’s a rare teen that can come in and start winning games for teams with aspirations of playing Champions League footy sooner rather than later. It was Dempsey vs Sturridge for 15m vs leaving us way, way short going into the season and the club collectively opted for the latter. Which would be fine. FSG sticking to their principles and compromising our chances to compete this season, that is. I mean it would be if Liverpool played in a vacuum. We’ve looked really promising since January, but it’s not as if Spurs aren’t going to strengthen again this summer, the feeling around Chelsea doesn’t look like it can get any worse and they might just go out and buy even more £30m players and Walcott, Wilshere and Cazorla shouldn’t be going anywhere and the rest of Arsenal’s squad excluding those 3 players can’t get much worse either, especially with mounting pressure on Wenger to spend some money and win them something next season. We might get top 4 next season and everything will look like genius foresight in the end, but it’s not going to get any easier.
Torres had had enough after a season and a half of sub-top 4 league form. Suarez has been playing for a season and three quarters to the same results and if the noises coming out of the club and from Suarez himself can be taken on face value then that’s fantastic and lets for argument’s sake say we can. The point is that for all FSG knew last summer, Suarez could easily have seen his arse after a second season on the trot where L’pool are out of a realistic shout for CL qualification by February, and be looking to engineer a move away to much bigger clubs than Chelsea. Where would that leave us going into next season? How promising would this current season look then? Torres moped about with Kuyt, Benayoun and Maxi in support whereas Suarez has had two kids (talented and exciting as they are) playing either side of him for large chunks of the season and has never once given any less than 100%, but that’s the measure of the man. And that’s without even mentioning the unprecedented media scrutiny and villification the lad’s had to deal with.
To continue the comparison, remember when Torres used to constantly come back from playing for Spain injured? It was arguably the difference between 1st and 2nd in 2009. We could just move Dirk up front and bring Benayoun/Riera into the side and still be relatively competitive with anyone in the league. Borini came back from international duty injured this season and was out for a good few months and missed a load of games prior to January’s Sturridge deal. Can you all imagine if that was Suarez and how much worse the table would read and how much more difficult Brendan’s job would have been this season? The fact that FSG didn’t seem to even account for that possibility showed a worrying lack of understanding of what running a steadily progressing LFC should look like. Hopefully they’ve learnt their lessons, will build on this season’s positives and we won’t rue this season as the one that got away. It’s certainly felt like a big window of opportunity looking at how patchy the teams above us have been at times this season. Tomorrow’s game could have felt like a genuine 6-pointer/play-off for a Champions League spot this season had the club not been its own worst enemy ad nauseum last summer.
It was always going to be a difficult season. Supporters have generally been right behind Rodgers and the team all season and have understood the need for patience, but for LFC to not give themselves a fighting chance of achieving this season defied belief and having seen how improved we’ve been recently it grates even more, to be honest.
P.S. mirroring my general frustrations aside, the ‘spend big or not at all’ shout on the pod was weak. That completely contradicts the problem fans and manager had over Dempsey for 6m.
Mistakes have been made but I like to think they were rectified in January. Like you said earlier, I don’t want to go too far the other way trying to be too positive but was Dempsey the right player for us? I’m happy to have Courtinho. Dempsey hasn’t set the world on fire at Spurs. I think it was more a case of being naive anyway. If Spurs hadn’t come in for him we’d have got Dempsey at the price we wanted. I believe it was Rodgers that wasn’t keen on Sturridge too. We’ve sent a message out that we won’t be walked over in the transfer market and FSG have stuck to their guns with their philosophy of buying young players. Also, the scouting team wasn’t in place in the summer. Either way, mistakes were made to leave us so chronically short. Certainly over loaning Andy Carroll.
I feel positive about our direction though. I can remember how low we’d sunk as a club in the last 4 years. If Suarez were to stay and we were to make 4th next season then I’ll be hailing FSG as a success. I think a new manager needs a bit of time mate. He claims to have a plan (and some would say we’re starting to see that now) so it’s harsh to expect him to hit the ground running. I don’t think those extra few buys would have lifted us into the top 4 anyway. With a few extra players in the summer the squad will feel stronger for our malaise in the transfer window and having to play the youth lads.
Personally, I think it’s time we all start to sing from the same hymn sheet. I feel it helped the team today with the crowd behind them. FSG have certainly made mistakes – they’re human and have had to learn about football from scratch. I don’t think LFC are in too bad a shape on and off the pitch. Bearing in mind no one wanted to buy Liverpool except a few cranks or companies that would later run into problems I don’t think we’re in too bad a shape. There’s no evidence whatsoever FSG are looking to sell us except a few rumours from Boston that they feel they made a mistake. On the pitch we’re a few defenders away from having a good team / squad. Let’s stop the moaning. Stop hoping we fail so we can say ‘I told ya so’ and get behind the team, the club and the manager. Onwards and upwards.
THANK YOU!!!! I’ve nothing to add but really hope that TAW has the balls to actually address your points, perhaps finding a guest who can provide some balance to the rank negativity which permeated this entire discussion. No one is saying FSG hasn’t made mistakes, but there ARE financial realities which none of the lads has any clear perspective on. And those that are positive (net spend, reduced debt load, free/clear accounts) are somehow turned into negatives, as you’ve said.
They HAVE invested in the club, they HAVE been working constantly with the community on stadium expansion, they HAVE been initially successful in garnering new commercial partnerships, and they HAVE brought a more exciting (albeit currently inconsistent…expectedly) brand of footie a la BR and January signings. I honestly don’t understand what more TAW wants. Their expectations, frankly, are exactly setting the standard of “perfection” they lament for the manager working under. The cognitive dissonance is deafening.
Have to agree with this criticism of the analysis of the financial results.
I usually enjoy the TAW and find it pretty balanced, but part 1 was absolute tripe.
A couple of points to add…
Revenue held up well for a period without European football. Overall revenue (for 12 months) was comfortably ahead of Spurs, match day revenue was just ahead of Spurs and commercial revenue was nearly twice that of Spurs even before some of the recent deals. (Read Deloitte’s Football Money League report for comparison against all our rivals).
The paranoid nonsense (in my view) about the stadium redevelopment and the view that FSG are just marking time before selling us, seemed to go unchallenged by any of you. I see nothing happening that is inconsistent with the public statements from Liverpool that they are making steady progress with the stadium issue. Yes we might all want to see this move more quickly, but the club can only move this forward in step with the council. When the property acquisitions are sorted, I would hope things moved at a quicker pace, as quickly as the planning process and the need to stage work allows.
What was that guff about it not being worth spending anything unless you spend big? So not worth buying Sturridge and Coutinho, if you are not also going to buy Sneijder? Self evident nonsense surely?
Everyone seemed to feel we are miles away from Champions League. We might not be sitting in top 4, but I think it was the last pod-cast some contributors were ready to say we looked liked one of the top 3 or 4 teams.
Anyway cheer up and don’t invite the miserable burk on the phone back.
Lot of negativity here. I found the discussion about the pressure on the Liverpool manager to get everything 100% right, because he has no financial leeway compared to other clubs, quite interesting. And apposite. The boys who put the podcast together for the love don’t have a lot of choice, do they, expect to keep mentioning the clubs and pubs that sponsor them.
TAW getting a lot of grief here. Fair enough it is a discussion forum after all.
Something I’d like to add: it’s ONLY about the three points. Get them in the bag and everything else will follow.
A big test tomorrow. We have crucified lesser team who let us play, but struggle against the better or more physical teams. It’s been the case all season. I think we’ll batter them, but they’ll snatch something at the end. However, the general trend will still remain: mid table and that’s the problem. It will be interesting what cash FSG make available to BR in the summer. If BR is under pressure this season, wait ’till next ! We need big investment on the pitch and dugout.
Oh yeah.. Josek (who ever/what ever you are) the best you should contribute to this discussion forum is silence.
Steve, although messages have been mixed more recently, I’m under the impression there will be investment in the team. I thought this year was about keeping the purse strings tight (although, I’m happy with the amount spent). Maybe the Sturridge and Courtinho money has come out of the coming summer budget due to the urgent need to strengthen up front. I’m also under the impression the extra tv money will be invested as the club is not far off operating without loss. We’re not far off being self sustaining even without European football. I agree with your points about our results against the top half but Arsenal and City may point towards a change there too.
Can I apologise for my final paragraph last night. I was angry and feel ashamed at my comments. Admittedly, I don’t like the opening question but many others do and I have the ability to skip to 3 minutes into the podcast. Regarding the other things, I had no right to criticise anything you do as you provide a fantastic service and as far as I’m aware, for the love of it. Keep up the good work. I think the show is fantastic and the reason I’ve stopped listening in the last few weeks is largely down to living in hotels in London during the week and as a result, being busier when I return at the weekend. Apologies.
I too was left in disbelief by the cockeyed negative dross of part 1. Easily the weakest segment of TAW I’ve heard. Almost felt physically angry listening to it.
Too much irrational nonsense to waste time tackling here, but I’ll weigh in on the wagebill seeing as that was the start point for your whinging.
The lack of initial reduction in the wage bill tells us what we already know-that Dalglish and Comolli overpaid for players. How about commenting on, you know, the year since?
Under FSGs management of choice we’ve brought in Allen on 40K/week, Borini 40K, Coutinho 15K initial to improvement on performance, Sturridge 60K, Assaidi 23K.
On the way out were/are Cole 90K/week, Carroll 90K/wk, Adam 60K, Spearing 40K. The higher earners of actual quality that left-Maxi, Kuyt and Bellamy-we had no control over.
All of which represents a significant cutting of the wage bill while recruiting promising young talent.
We now have the youngest squad in the league, and a wage bill close to Spurs and more than 40M lighter than Arsenals inflated 150M bill against which Liverpool have easily the better value squad.
Yes, its going to be difficult to oust 2 of the current big 5, but FSG are putting us in as strong a position to build from as they can.
Neil said, “we can come across like we’re being a little harsh on them”. And yes, you did. I’ll pen some thoughts.
This is the most disappointing podcast ever produced by you guys. Get it together. I won’t be listening for a while.
I think it’s simply fantasy to one minute think you can build a new stadium that will be some financial leveler and also ticket prices will come down.
That simply strikes me as illogical fan pie in the sky fantasy. If added seats are to provide added profit it’s gonna come by reducing the per seat price.
Not to mention it’s not charity. Nobody is gonna simply buy a stadium. The club is gonna have to take out loans and then repay them so again they have no incentive to lower the prices. I’m not saying there won’t be tiered pricing around the ground but overall i don’t for a minute think it’s logical to think prices will decline.
Also i think there is a lot of merit to the post Henry made about a stadium NOT being some panacea, partly because liverpool lacks the wealthy community incomes that you get in London and other areas. Anyways my two cents.
I also get the impression that it doesn’t matter what the owners do. It won’t be good enough unless they simply give a Chelsea like unlimited stream of silly money and like rehire kenny or rafa. People really really seem to want to just have a fight with owners. Like it’s some addiction.
Derrick, you’re not Deggsy from the Mirror are ya? Apologies if you have no idea what I am on about!
No i’m not. I’m sorry but I don’t know who that is. I’m not a writer or affiliated with any paper. Though i do write a lot but that’s cause I’m opinionated. No need to apologize.
thought it was interesting on the podcast today one of the American guys asked basically the same question, “don’t the prices have to go up ala the model here in America where they got more seats but higher prices for everything, seats, food, beer.” Not a direct quote. lol.
i loved the tony hibbert food discussion, brilliant.