Money has been disappearing from Liverpool’s coffers, never to be seen again. But this is not a recent development. While the American owners may have personal profit as their single raison d’être, this is a problem dating back to the days of Graeme Souness.
This is a strange season to preview; previously, whether or not it transpired, we had a pretty good idea of what to expect: top four, almost certainly, and on some occasions, heady dreams of the title.
A new season is finally upon us and Liverpool couldn’t have been given a tougher start if good old Fergie himself had hand picked the fixtures! Home to Arsenal followed by an away trip to Man City, then home to West Brom and two successive away trips to Birmingham and Man Utd. A nice easy start for the Roy Hodgson era then.
I’m warming more and more to Roy Hodgson every day; pretty much in the same way I did to Rafa in 2004. I respect and support new managers, but they’ve also got to remove any doubts I hold.
Yesterday I was asked by The Daily Mail for 200 words on the potential Chinese takeover. While it’s far from my favourite paper (relating to the right-wing scaremongering in the front part), I’m happy to try and offer a balanced view to tabloids (bar ‘that’ one) on a once bitten, twice shy rule; badly misquote me, and never again.
It was encouraging to hear Roy Hodgson say in a press conference last week that the squad was not in need of a complete overhaul; backing up my recent assertion along those lines (made in response to Gérard Houllier’s ludicrous claim that he left behind a much better collection of players in 2004.)
“The End of the Innocence”: the Don Henley song about a bitter divorce was released during the last season Liverpool won the league title. At the time I was just 18: on the cusp of adulthood, and blissfully unaware of impending baldness.
