It’s been a weird few days. First, the hard-to-fathom sale of promising, albeit rough diamond, Emiliano Insua – all the more strange as he was the third and final left-back out of the club in six months – followed shortly after by the signing of a player who wanted wages Liverpool could not match, Champions League football the club couldn’t offer and a locale that was not in, or near, London.

Other than that, it was business as usual.

This led me to write two articles, although so inter-linked were they, I’ve merged them into one; albeit split into two distinct sections.

The first section is for Subscribers only. The second section is free to read, and is not dependent on having read the first part.

Part I: Young, Gifted and Gone

Part II: Going English

‘Going English’ has been the theme of this summer. In some ways I still fear it is the usual 180º-turn/backlash against the (incorrectly) perceived problems that clubs like Newcastle and, of course, the English national side, end up making.

Signing Joe Cole is an excellent move; however, it seems part of a move to a more English set-up throughout the club. There’s nothing wrong with that, so long as it’s not simply to be different from what went before.

Apparently senior players at Liverpool wanted an English manager. If true, it’s not hard to guess who they were; it’s not as if Torres, Reina, Mascherano, Agger and Kuyt would be making such demands. They’d surely just want the best man for the job, irrespective of where he hailed from.

It’s also the usual line trotted out by the older ex-Reds, who predate the mid-‘90s continental enlightenment of the game. ‘Old-fashioned’ seems to be the byword at Liverpool right now; the brilliant Jonathan Wilson described Roy Hodgson as such in this informative piece.

It doesn’t have to be only negative in connotation; Wilson’s piece was fairly complimentary, and he prefaced ‘old-fashioned’ with ‘endearingly’. Hodgson, as shown by his success at Fulham, is not out of touch; but he is in many ways old school. And it remains to be seen if that will work at a club, beyond the short-term, where more is expected.

(Of course, the appointment can be viewed as getting back to basics: perhaps there’s the notion that if Hodgson won’t be as inspired as Benítez at his best, he won’t be as ‘over-complicating’ as Benítez at his worst. “Good old-fashioned ideas”, and so on.)

Part of the problem I’ve had getting my head around things this summer has been that I prefer managers who are one step ahead of the game; as outdated as some of his ideas now seem, Bill Shankly was certainly that (at least as far as football in England was concerned; he learned from the Europeans while his peers remained insular, introducing ball-playing centre-backs in the early ‘70s).

I made it clear a few weeks back that I was no longer sure if Kenny Dalglish would be forward-thinking as a manager; but he was 25 years ago. I felt Benítez was, too. Mourinho, Wenger and Ancelloti are similarly inventive.

And Alex Ferguson has remained at the cutting edge for so long because he surrounds himself with people who don’t hark back to the methods of his first successes at United, almost 20 years ago: he moves with the game,  replacing coaches on a regular basis; using more rotation than anyone else; experimenting with modern formations (the ‘false-9’ as Wilson describes it, when two years ago United had no ‘real’ centre-forward); and not buying Brits for the sake of it.

I remain to be convinced that Hodgson is the best man for the Liverpool job before a season of steadying, but he is certainly not a bad manager, and is definitely one of this country’s finest.

Of course, that’s partly the problem; it’s not an especially big pool. Lest we forget, many pundits felt that Alan Curbishley should have got the job in 2004, rather than Benítez.

And although England tanked at the World Cup with an Italian manager, at least they got there, as they had with the Swede in 2006; with the Englishman in between, they failed to even qualify for the major tournament. (Although again, Steve McLaren – like Hodgson, with a Uefa Cup final and a foreign league title to his name – is one of the better English managers.)

While I’m definitely a fan of forward-thinking and innovation, some long-held (ergo old-fashioned) values in football remain constant: the need to care about the team before the self; the importance of not being a total arsehole off the pitch as it can come back to bite you on it; keeping the ego in check at all times; giving 100% on as many occasions as is physically possible in a season; and so on.

If you can guarantee most of those – and that’s something that Hodgson seems to have the maturity and wisdom to command (at least until he ‘loses the dressing room’) – then, allied to good organisation on the pitch, Liverpool shouldn’t do too badly at all next season. Often, any new approach can be positive, for a while at least.

But I’d like to think that the club are not pandering to the views of those hoary old pundits and rent-a-quotes who see the world through a sepia lens. Roy is now the manager, and although he has to earn his right to be revered, even his doubters will be give him time to win them over. So far he has spoken a good game, signed one very good player, and managed to keep a world-class one.

However, filling the squad with Premier League journeymen – if he (or Purslow) is planning such a move – is not going to help his cause. One thing Joe Cole’s arrival has done is ease some of those fears, but with several further exits lined up, and no left-back on the books, more than one ticks-all-the-boxes signing is required.

It just seems a little odd – if it is indeed the path Liverpool are taking – to dilute the Spanish and South American influence, given the healthy state of these regions with regard to developing technically gifted players who are winners. Maybe it’s just coincidental.

In truth, Joe Cole will add little new to the squad, simply replace what had just departed; albeit two years younger and, perhaps, with greater untapped potential, than Yossi Benayoun. While arguably no better than the Chelsea-bound Benayoun (worse goalscoring ratio, better assist rate), he is at least of the required quality to appease the fans.

Some other names being linked – Paul Scharner, Paul Konchesky, and, heaven forbid, James Beattie – are not. (In fairness, these are currently just names in the press.)

But Cole was a free transfer; otherwise, English players in particular are usually horribly overpriced. (Cole’s wages aren’t cheap – almost £5m a season – but in this case, they’re probably worth it.)

Brits also often come with cultural flaws, such as the desire to chase every ball like it’s playground football; an immature attitude to getting drunk; a fear of keeping possession when the going gets tough; and a distrust of ‘thinkers’. (Get a GCSE and you’ll probably be nicknamed ‘the Professor’.)

Despite the impending rule changes relating to the amount of home-grown players needed for Premier League games, it’s vital to get the best players irrespective of nationality. We were here before in 1991 when Souness offloaded Houghton and Staunton and bought inferior Englishmen, on one of the prior occasions when the rules for European competition were changed (before being changed back). You need your quota, but not at the expense of common sense.

If there’s this tired notion that Liverpool need more ‘English steel’ because it’s best (and not merely to fit the 6+5 ruling) then you only need look at the World Cup for a total lack of heart and technique and overabundance of egos. John Terry, Mr Lionheart personified, will throw himself in the way of a flying ball or take six studs in the head out on the pitch, but it’s not much good if he’s diddling someone else’s wife and trying to undermine the manager away from it.

For me, bottle is about never hiding when the going gets tough; Insua showed bottle. Lucas has more bottle than almost any Liverpool player I’ve ever seen; he’s more ‘English’ in that sense than plenty of my fellow countrymen. (Bottle isn’t going around kicking people off the ball, ala Vinnie Jones, or diving into tackles without thinking, like the gutsy but tactically suspect Stephen Warnock.)

It doesn’t stop there. Reina is the best captain Liverpool have never had. Torres is a fighter (who admittedly needs to sulk a bit less). Foreigners don’t have to be scared of wet Wednesday nights in Wigan.

As for the ‘they don’t understand the club’ rot, I’d rather have overseas professionals (Reina, Alonso, Torres, Kuyt, Hyypia, and so on) who give their all every game than some Brit with major character flaws who, all the same, ‘understands the club’.

After all, it doesn’t take long to play for (or manage) Liverpool to get what it ‘means’. Or were Hyypia, Hamann, Dudek, Alonso, Riise and Garcia all passengers in Istanbul? Did Torres, from Spain, understand what Liverpool FC is about as much as fan-as-a-boy Robbie Keane? Did it matter one jot?

Maybe xenophobes also forget the antics of the ‘Spice Boys’ under Roy Evans, and how English players like Neil Ruddock devised drinking games while out on the pitch, and Stan Collymore only did his best when it came to staying away from training. I don’t miss that.

It took some pesky foreigners to change that crass approach. Yes, English players are generally much more professional these days; but they’re not without their faults. If you can find those who fit the bill, great; but I object to the notion of English-for-English-sake.

Right now, Liverpool have four first XI players who are English, plus three or four youngsters who, as things currently stand, won’t let anyone down if included in the squad. There are also overseas kids who now qualify as ‘home grown’. There’s no need to panic. And there’s no need to abandon the continental approach – making wholesale changes (which lead to longer bedding-in times) – just because of dinosaurs like Ian St John don’t think Johnny Foreigner likes it up ‘im. And to suggest that Rafa Benítez didn’t understand Liverpool or the club itself is equally disingenuous; he and his wife did far more in the community than some home-grown players. He was from Spain; not outer space.

While each and every player needs to be judged as an individual case (you will get good and bad buys from both home and abroad), Liverpool’s British signings have too often underwhelmed in the past couple of decades: Collymore, Heskey, Bellamy, Pennant, Barmby, Ince, Stewart, Saunders, Babb, Ruddock, Walters and Keane, to name just a few who arrived with full English top division experience (and in most cases, a hefty fee), but were average at best, terrible at worst.

Harry Kewell, Oyvind Leonhardsen, Bolo Zenden and Christian Ziege can be added to that list, if including overseas players who were used to English football, but a fat lot of good it did them.

When signing from the Premier League since its inception, only Steve Finnan, Yossi Benayoun, Didi Hamann, Gary McAllister and Peter Crouch stand out as definite successes, and two of those were truly outstanding. Glen Johnson is busy adding himself to that list.

So I don’t see English league experience, or British nationality, as a simple solution; there’s no evidence to suggest you’ll have greater success. If you had to pick a team of Liverpool’s best British signings since 1992 to play their overseas counterparts, there’d only be one winner. And that applies to value for money, too.

Equally, it’s daft to suggest that Cole will go the same way as Robbie Keane simply because they both moved from an English club and wear the number seven shirt (if Cole is confirmed as such).

Cole looks to be an excellent signing, but in many ways a simple one: a free agent, and proven quality. He required no scouting; no great vision or imagination. He will have needed persuading – and well done to those responsible in that sense. But he was on the open market and destined for a good club.

And that’s where some of my doubts remain; it doesn’t really answer the questions I have about Hodgson in terms of spotting untapped talent. (Or indeed, about just who is behind the buying and selling policy at Liverpool right now, and if that policy is far-sighted enough.)

So far, so good; but if going English is to be more widespread, it’s hard to see who the club could find of sufficient quality on the current budget. Hopefully Hodgson will realise that he has the bones of an excellent team, and that whatever their nationality, the quality – so long as injuries don’t force him too deep into the squad – is there.

Ultimately, if Cole’s arrival helps keep players like Gerrard (and as I write, Gerrard has confirmed he will stay) and Torres at Liverpool – with their hearts fully in it – then that’d be ideal. It’s certainly got to be more persuasive than James Beattie trundling into Melwood.

But if it doesn’t, the departures – especially if it’s Torres late in the summer window with no real time to adjust – could throw us all back into darkness.

This piece was originally published on June 21st. Since then it’s become widely accepted that Roy Hodgson will be appointed this Thursday. This tallies with information I received a couple of days ago: that the appointment will only take place once Standard Chartered officially replace Carlsberg as the club sponsors. With this in mind, I’ve brought this piece back to the top of the site, as the main featured article.

Judging which managers are suitable for a big club is fraught with perils, especially if those in question have never held such a position before. Ultimately, those who’ve gone on to succeed at major clubs have had to have been given that initial chance first. But these days, it takes a brave chairman to appoint someone previously untested in a high-pressure position.

Ultimately, managers can only be judged by the possibilities and limitations of the clubs they’ve managed, within the context of the strength of the league and, in particular, against those rivals with shared aims.

However, to me it seems that there are clearly those suited to smaller jobs, who achieve great things with certain approaches, but whose methods don’t transfer to bigger clubs, where expectations are higher and demands are placed on at least some ‘style’ to the play (case in point: Sam Allardyce from Bolton to Newcastle).

My choice, as outlined here, would be Manuel Pellegrini, because of the reasons outlined in the piece. But where does Roy Hodgson – the current bookies’ favourite – fit in?

Background

Hodgson made his name in Scandinavia in 1977, taking Halmstads, who’d just finished 12th (out of only 14 teams) to the Swedish title in his first season. Over the course of the next four seasons he finished 8th on three occasions, and champions one further time.

His success here, and in several later jobs, was largely down to converting the team from the traditional German-style man-marking and libero system, to a pressing, 4-4-2 formation where players marked zonally in open play. These are now very much current trends.

This led to a move to England, and Bristol City. He took charge after two years as assistant to Bob Houghton, but lasted just 20 games the hot seat, winning only three of them. So it was back to Sweden, and stints at Örebro (where he won the 2nd Division North) and giants Malmö, where he topped the 1985 championship in his debut campaign – and indeed, wrapped up the league in the next four seasons, too. However, a play-off system meant that, despite topping the table in each of his five seasons, only twice were Malmö recorded as actual Champions.

These were Malmö’s best years, and only once in the two decades since Hodgson left have they won the Swedish title.

Next up was Neuchâtel Xamax, in the Swiss league. Domestically they did okay – nothing remarkable – but a 5-1 Uefa Cup thrashing of Celtic and victory over Real Madrid showed an ability to humble bigger names.

This led to Hodgson taking over as manager of the Swiss national team in January 1992; taking charge of a country that hadn’t qualified for the World Cup since 1966, and wasn’t exactly blessed with bundles of top talent. But Hodgson ended that 28-year wait. The Swiss finished in 2nd place, ahead of Portugal and Scotland to qualify for USA ’94, and just a point behind the tournament’s eventual runners-up, Italy.

In the States, a draw with the host nation and a 4-1 thumping of eventual quarter-finalists Romania, saw the Swiss through to the last 16, where Spain turned them over, 3-0.

Qualification for Euro 96 was secured by topping a group that included Turkey, Hungary, and World Cup semi-finalists Sweden. At one point, quite incredibly, they were ranked 3rd in the world. This all led to Hodgson being offered the Inter Milan job, which he took in 1995.

The Milan giants had finished runners-up in 1993, but 13th a year later, and 6th the season before they installed their new English manager. Hodgson himself would lead the Italians to 7th and 3rd place finishes.

He did however take Inter to the 1997 Uefa Cup Final; as would be the case 13 years later, his side lost, although in this instance they were the more favoured outfit. Schalke won the first-leg 1-0, although Inter had been denied three of their best players through suspension, and others were sick with flu. The return saw Inter win 1-0, but not for the first time, a German side won the penalty shootout.

This wasn’t good enough for Inter’s fans, who pelted Hodgson with coins and lighters, causing him to resign – even though they were on the brink of qualifying for the Champions League. But Massimo Moratti, the man who recently gave Rafa Benítez his latest job in football, liked Hodgson enough to twice ask him to return, briefly, in a caretaker capacity.

Next up was Blackburn, which was fairly disastrous (more on which later).

Then it was back to Switzerland, this time to manage (ahh) Grasshopper for a season. This time, in contrast to his early career, titles arrived both before and after his time in charge. So it was back to Scandinavia – this time Denmark – to take charge of Copenhagen. The Danes, who had finished 7th and 8th prior to his arrival, won the title in his sole season.

In 2001, he left Copenhagen to move to Serie A side Udinese. Despite a successful start, he was sacked just six months into the job, after apparently making comments about regretting his decision to move there.

Between 2002 and 2004 he took charge of United Arab Emirates, but it was an unhappy experience, with a poor showing at the 2003 Gulf Cup. The Englishman was philosophical. “That was a period where I didn’t know where my career was going. But all these experiences enrich you.”

Repeating a theme, he returned to Scandinavia yet again, this time managing Norwegian side Viking. He took them from the relegation zone to mid-table, then 5th a year later. They qualified for the Uefa Cup, and enjoyed a famous victory (by Viking standards) against Monaco.

The Scandinavian set was complete when he switched to Finland, to boss their national side for their Euro 2008 qualifying campaign. He did fairly well, and they were reasonably close to an unlikely qualification, although 0-0 draws were the most common result.

And finally, Fulham, in December 2007. A poor start to his time in London was forgotten when the Cottagers improved in the spring of 2008, and pulled out a remarkable final-day relegation escape.

This impetus was taken into the next season, with an excellent 7th-placed finish, and finally there was the season just gone, when their league form slipped a little (although they still managed to beat Man United 3-0 and Liverpool 3-1 at Craven Cottage), but which was easily offset by a superb run to the Uefa Cup Final. They ended up empty-handed, but Hodgson was voted the 2010 LMA Manager of the Year by a record margin.

Present

So, all in all a mixed record – as you’d expect from three decades in the game at clubs of different stature – but enough highlights to suggest he has something. Hodgson is clearly a fine manager. But is he an outstanding one? And can Liverpool currently attract anyone from the top bracket?

I’ve heard it said that Hodgson is not suitable for the Liverpool job because of his 39% win ratio with Fulham. The question should be, what is a realistic win percentage for a club like that? Surely not better than 39%?

(For comparison, Graeme Souness won 41% of his league games at Liverpool, obviously on a far greater budget: he had the country’s most expensive squad at the time. Rafa Benítez won 55% of his league games.)

More worrying is that Hodgson’s win percentage at Inter Milan was just 44%, and at Blackburn 35%. Over 148 games, that’s not very encouraging.

People spoke a lot about the games Liverpool drew in 2008/09, but 66% of league games were won that season. Hodgson’s record at Inter, as at other clubs, shows a lot of drawn games. When they finished 3rd, they won only one more game (15) than they drew.

So, what can be read into the last time Hodgson managed an English club with fairly high expectations: Blackburn? As it was 13 years ago, it’s fair to suggest that he will have learned plenty in the interim. Even so, it’s a worrying blot on his copybook.

Blackburn were champions only two years before Hodgson pitched up, although it’s fair to say that the club had fallen quite far in that short space of time, following Kenny Dalglish’s departure from the dugout; they’d just finished 13th in 1997.

Even so, with Hodgson in charge, they were still spending heavily in the transfer market, if not quite as lavishly as in the early ’90s.

Using TPI, Blackburn still had the 3rd most expensive average XI in 1997/98, when they finished 6th, and the 5th most expensive average XI a year later, when the club were relegated, upon finishing 19th. (By that stage, Hodgson had long-since been sacked; he got his marching orders in mid-November, when they sat bottom of the table, with just two wins in 14 games.)

So, in his time at Blackburn his XI was, on average, the 4th most expensive in the land; in other words, identical to Liverpool’s average XI in 2009/10.

However, in his one full season, Blackburn’s average XI cost 87% of the most expensive average XI (Kenny Dalglish’s Newcastle), and only a fraction behind champions, Arsenal, whose figure was 93%. This dwarfs the current Liverpool squad.

The average cost of every starting XI fielded by Benítez last season was, at 48.5%, less than half that of top-spenders, Chelsea. (Manchester United’s XI was 76.30% of Chelsea’s, and Manchester City’s was 66.80%. As an additional point, the Liverpool team that finished as runners-up in 2009 cost 57.9% of the most-expensive side – Chelsea – so it’s clear to see a fairly significant drop in the intervening 12 months.)

In other words, Hodgson’s Blackburn were far closer to the big spenders of their day than the current Liverpool set-up, and it’s a gap that looks set to widen. And the pressure and expectation at Blackburn was nothing compared with what you get at Liverpool (although even with money, it’s only fair to point out that Blackburn were never going to attract the real elite of world football to Ewood Park once they found themselves a mid-table outfit, in 1997).

Even though he had money to spend, and even allowing for the fact that his club lacked the glamour to lure the leading lights, Hodgon’s record in the market was not at all impressive.

He paid £7.5m on Kevin Davies – or £17m in today’s money (calculated using TPI). You could argue that Davies is still a ‘successful’ Premier League player (albeit in his own inimitable barrel-chested style), 12 years on. But ‘£17m’ doesn’t read well for a player who scored only one league goal in his year at Ewood Park, and who ended up being swapped for the unremarkable, low-valued Egil Ostenstad.

In just 16 months, Hodgson’s gross outlay, in today’s terms, would work out at around £75m.

Of these, only Stephen Henchoz, at £3m (£10,128,237), and later sold to Liverpool where he further enhanced his reputation, stands out as an abiding success; in stark contrast to the horribly mediocre Christian Daily, who cost £5.35m (£12,982,782).

Anders Andersson, with just four games in two years, and Martin Dahlin, with just four goals in 27 games, were both clear flops. Swedish internationals, the pair (who combined cost approximately £10m in today’s money) weren’t without pedigree, but they didn’t succeed. Tore Pedersen, another from Hodgson’s beloved Scandinavia, played just five games for Rovers.

It gets worse. Nathan Blake, a striker who barely scored, was another flop. Blake’s fee – £4.25m – would in today’s terms equate to £10,410,721.

Finally, Callum Davidson was decent if unspectacular: £1.75m working out at £5,908,138 in 2010. Blackburn at the time were a richer, more successful club than his current employers, Fulham, but his signings seem awfully mid-table – if that.

By contrast, his story at Fulham is, to date, one of success. In 2008/09 they had the 13th-most expensive average XI, and finished 7th, to take them into Europe. Last season they had the 14th-most expensive average XI, and finished 12th, with a great cup run thrown in.

And it’s been achieved with far better signings than he bought for Blackburn.

My one nagging doubt, however, is that yet again he’s often gone for the market he knows best: Scandinavia and Switzerland. This is natural; after all, Wenger plundered France, Benítez Spain. But even though you get the occasional excellent player from the Nordic region, real quality from these parts of the world is rare. At Fulham that’s not a problem, but would he have the imagination in the transfer market to bring better than mere journeymen to Anfield?

At Blackburn, the fans expected him to raid Serie A; they got nothing of the sort. And while fans’ desires for glamour signings just for the sake of them are to be avoided, the ability to spot and snaffle top-class talent is a skill. (For all Benítez’s mistakes in the transfer market, with Reina, Torres, Alonso, Mascherano and Agger in particular, he signed players for fees in the same prince-range, taking inflation into account, as Hodgson bought at Blackburn. This is before getting onto the likes of Benayoun, Skrtel, Kuyt, Garcia, Crouch, Sissoko, Johnson, Maxi, et al.)

His one major signing at Fulham, Andy Johnson, has delivered little for his £10.5m fee. But perversely, the lesser-rated Bobby Zamora, at £5.8m, has been little less than a revelation. Hodgson deserves great credit for the improvement in his game.

Another major success has been Brede Hangeland, the giant Norwegian centre-back having previously played under Hodgson at Viking. He’s the manager’s one signing during his four years in English football who wouldn’t look out of place in the Liverpool side.

But other Scandinavians have arrived, to far less impact. Leon Andreasen cost £2m, but was sold after just one season. Swedish international Fredrik Stoor, also £2m, joined from Rosenborg, but ended up on loan at Derby. Norwegian striker Erik Neveland, at just under £2m, has been a useful addition. Another decent £2m acquisition was John Arne Riise’s brother, Bjorn Helge.

But his signings from other Premier League clubs have been much better. Mark Schwarzer, on a free: good signing. Dixon Etuhu, £1.5m: good signing. Zoltan Gera, free transfer: very good signing. Damien Duff, £4m: another good signing. And John Paintsil, £500,000: also a good signing.

Those who mock his recent procurement of Philippe Senderos for Fulham are missing the point; at 25, and yet to reach his peak as a centre-back, he seems well-suited to that level of club. And in fairness, that’s what Hodgson has done well at Fulham.

Additional Thoughts, and Conclusion

The following is for Subscribers only.

Thank you to Richard Allen of The Fulham Review for supplying me with some of the biographical information on Roy Hodgson. This year’s review contains a 50-page look at the manager’s early career. The book can be purchased here, for £5.

One of the key areas of progress for Liverpool over the coming seasons will be in youth development. It’s a weird thing, but there have often been strong signs over the past decade, only for young players to fall short.

I don’t believe any young player has left the club in the last decade and gone on to prove that decision wrong, with the possible exception of Stephen Warnock, who only made his debut at the age of 22.

(But even Warnock looked out of his depth at times at Liverpool; he seemed to need to escape from the pressure, where his mistakes were highly scrutinised. For those slating Insua, let’s not forget he only recently turned 21.)

Florent Sinama Pongolle was another who would be more than good enough to be in the squad right now, but who, like Warnock, wanted regular football at a time when there were better options already at the club. Sometimes good players are lost that way, and it’s part and parcel of football life.

Otherwise, a succession of ‘decent’ youngsters have, at best, gone to Championship sides. Some will rise to the Premier League in due course, but it’s hard to see many making it at a top side.

You cannot criticise Benítez for not giving youth a chance when he gave at least half a dozen games to Darren Potter, Danny Guthrie, Neil Mellor and Jack Hobbs, at a time when each was a long way from being good enough to cement a place in the Liverpool side (if they ever could).

Of the next wave of youngsters, many of whom were brought in and have already excelled in the reserves, it’s possible that there are some future Premier League players present. Insua and Nemeth were brought in a few years back, and may well establish themselves in the long-term at Anfield; at the very least, they look like top-division players.

A weird quirk is that, while some decent players have been produced by the Academy, they’ve almost all looked physically deficient: lots of small players who neither have the blistering pace to compensate (in the way Aaron Lennon and Shaun Wright-Phillips do), nor the exceptional ball skills seen in Iniesta, Xavi and other Barcelona players. (Coincidentally, where Liverpool found their one diminutive-yet-sufficiently-talented technician, Danny Pacheco.)

Bigger, stronger and faster players appear to now be in the system, but not without the sacrifice of footballing ability. Most of these were brought in.

The success of Youth Cup runs in the past five years has obscured the fact that these were good sides full of a strong team spirit, rather than containing the outstanding individual talents of the ‘90s.

And of course, the gap to youth/reserve football has grown from the time when the English league was full of the best Brits, and a select few others. Now it’s an elite, multi-cultural environment, where even the lowest-ranked squad players can be full internationals (see Nabil El Zhar).

I’ve noted a few times that one of the things that impressed me from my meeting with Rafa Benítez last October was his desire to correct the failing youth system, which had recently fallen under his remit: bringing in Barcelona’s famed youth gurus, and overhauling the archaic local scouting network (almost 100 part-time scouts, aged up to 80, replaced with a dozen full-time professionals). I cannot repeat this often enough.

Now, the parlous financial state of the club makes for a grim outlook in many ways. And there’s little chance of Liverpool ever winning the league again without the funds to compete at the top end of the transfer market. It’s also going to get harder to be part of the top four, although I’m less pessimistic in this sense, obviously because of the greater scope and leeway involved in achieving it.

It’s wrong to expect Liverpool to remain a top four side while the spending dwindles and other clubs grow stronger, but there’s currently enough good players and coaches to make it possible.

And there’s also the correct approach in terms of youth development to make it possible. Until the ownership issue is resolved, the Reds have to make the best use of what resources they have, and what affordable ones can be brought in (such as sports science expert, Peter Brukner).

The drastic improvement in the U18 side – who, like last year’s FA Youth Cup Final team, were well below 18 on average – and the hugely impressive form of the U16 side, bodes well for the future; as does the recruitment policy that has brought Jonjo Shelvey to the club, and which may see Danny Wilson join him.

Three of England’s best U17 defenders are currently at the Reds’ Academy; two – Andre Wisdom and Connor Coady – are currently starring in the European Championships, while the third, Jack Robinson (who misses out due to studies), has already made his Liverpool first-team debut.

With all this is mind, I thought I’d spend the summer (which could be very depressing) picking out those Academy individuals I think might be best suited (in time) to making the step up to the first team ( … but all the while adding the caveat that careers go wrong for a number of reasons.)

And so here is the first instalment:

This series is for Subscribers only.

Magical Mystery Tour

To Celebrate ‘Istanbul Day’, this is an extract from “Golden Past, Red Future“, the book I began writing in 2004, and which culminated in an unexpected trip to Istanbul. Subscribers can download a free PDF of this entire book, along with three of my other titles.

The buzz

Those who travelled in support of Liverpool converged at Taksim Square. The standing area at the top of a parade of shops provided the location to unfurl flags and banners. Below, a crowd of thousands gathered around the bus stops and taxi ranks, spilling onto the road and back around towards the park. Cans of beer were bought from entrepreneurial Turks and a football was repeatedly kicked aimlessly high into the sky; it only needed the presence of Duncan Ferguson to make it feel like watching Everton’s desperate attempts to find an equaliser at Anfield in March. As I attempted to inch through the throng, to rendezvous with my ‘gang’ (who had had the journey from hell to get there –– ‘welcome to hell’, indeed), this ball came sailing down with ice on it, striking a policeman square on the shoulder. Everyone paused, and the surrounding area fell silent, as the policeman stood with the ball in his hand, holding it as if it were the weapon of a crime. Completely deadpan, he then drew back his foot and toe-punted a drop-kick that ricocheted off a tree and hit a bus. Everyone was having a great time, and nothing –– apart from raucous renditions from the travelling Kop’s repertoire –– could disturb the peace. (What a contrast to Heysel, almost 20 years earlier to the day, that there was not one single arrest among the thousands of travelling Reds.)

The sun was shining, there wasn’t a cloud in sight, and this small part of Istanbul felt like the centre of the universe. And so began the mass exodus, as everyone commenced their quest to make it to the other side of the city, and the venue for a certain football match.

My party jumped aboard one of the hundreds of specially laid-on buses from Taksim Square to the stadium. It was a remarkable two hours. Reds were crammed in like the London tube at rush hour. To a man we incessantly sang “Ra-Ra-Ra-Rafa Benitez . . .”, as we stomped our feet and drummed on the metal plates above the window. The noise carried out to the waving Turks lining the streets and applauding from the high-rise blocks, and to those honking horns in passing cars. It was like the semi-final atmosphere from Anfield, generated by 50 (maybe 150!) Reds packed onto one ageing bus. I was sat next to the only Turk onboard –– an elderly man who had decided to take the ride, to experience something unique. Every time anyone put a cigarette to their lips he was offering his lighter; bizarrely, he sat the entire journey with an unlit cigarette in his mouth, and refused the Liverpudlian offers to return the compliment. He only removed it when trying to sing “Xabi Alonso, Garcia and Nunez”, while waving regally to the crowds as if he was the luckiest man alive. We were royalty, greeted by the people of Istanbul as the bus wove through the streets. (Again, how different to years gone by?) Progress was steady, until we got to within a couple of miles of the stadium –– from which point it was gridlock: bus, taxi, bus, taxi, bus, taxi, ad infinitum. Only those on mopeds could make their way through. Oh, and those haring at 70mph the wrong way down the dual carriageway.

There was a party taking place atop the bus in the lane next to ours: John Power, the lead singer of the Scouse band Cast (and before that a guitarist in the legendary La’s), was dancing with four or five others, and jumping from bus roof to bus roof, even on the rare occasion when the vehicles were edging along at 10mph. Eventually everyone lost patience at being stuck in a virtual car park. Bus by bus, fans deserted their inert vehicles and began walking the last two, three, four or five miles, across a barren lunar landscape in the middle of nowhere, toward the party taking place outside the ground in the distance, which was lit by what was either the stadium or, some pondered, a crashed spaceship. A red river ran down the hill, to the sea of red, dancing and singing in the Atatürk car park. It was a pilgrimage –– a kind of worship not made by fans of the club for two decades.

Having been urged to make it to the ground early, we had all skipped eating since lunchtime. Food and drink would be available at the stadium, we were told. They weren’t. Unless, of course, you had access to the hospitality tent: the Champions League Village. How typical of Uefa to take care of all the dignitaries, but ignore the genuine fans. All there was to greet the rest of us was a stage with disco lights and a parade of festering chemical toilets. The weather had turned: it quickly clouded over, and the evening air had a distinct chill. In the circumstances, it was amazing that the travelling Liverpool fans were in such a good mood. And spirits stayed high –– until the first minute of the match put a dampener on proceedings.

The most remarkable comeback of all time

The Golden anniversary of the world’s greatest club competition: 50 years of high drama topped, on 25th May 2005, by the ‘final of all finals’. As with the 2001 Uefa Cup final, Liverpool were tipped to bore the world; now, as then, they thrilled it beyond expectation, beyond belief. Except this time it meant a whole lot more: a bigger competition, better opposition, a more remarkable set of events. No team had ever come back from three goals behind in the previous half-century of the tournament’s finals. And then came Liverpool: how fitting that the Reds should get to keep the trophy, courtesy of their fifth success in 28 years, given the nature of the victory. The turnaround from 3-0 down was enough in itself to merit a permanent housing of the trophy at Anfield.

Too often in football adjectives are cheapened by their use following relatively meaningless endeavours. As a result, there is nothing that can accurately convey the scale of a truly remarkable, fantastic, wonderful, spectacular, inspiring, unbelievable, bewildering, stunning, monumental, momentous and “incRedible” achievement. The only more remarkable comeback imaginable, would be to see the 2006 Grand National at Aintree won by Lord Lucan on Shergar, with Elvis Presley riding pillion.

Possibly the greatest individual talent the world has ever seen was in no doubt as to who deserved to win. Diego Maradona has never been especially fond of the English, and was surely at the final to support the Italians, having spent many years in that country. However, he left a convert. “Liverpool showed that miracles exist. They proved that football is the most beautiful sport of them all. After this game, my English team is going to be Liverpool. I came across some of their fans beforehand and they told me they were going to win, but that they would be made to suffer. It’s just the way it happened. Liverpool are the best team in the world for what they have done in this Champions League. They deserved the Cup.”

He was not finished. “Even the Brazil team that won the 1970 World Cup could not have staged a comeback with Milan leading 3-0.”

Johan Cruyff, himself widely regarded as holding a place in the top five players of all time, said: “There’s not one club in the world so united with the fans. I sat there watching the Liverpool fans and they sent shivers down my spine. A mass of 40,000 people became one force behind their team.”

That is the power of the night: enchanting the game’s legends and enticing a new generation of fans. Perhaps they will be called ‘glory hunters’ by many of their peers, but young boys and girls all over the world will now have a special place for Liverpool in their hearts, if their hearts have not already been won over by another club. As great as Chelsea’s league success proved –– a new highest points tally, and beating, by one, Liverpool’s 1979 record for fewest goals conceded (in four less games, mind) –– it had no single moment to match this night in Istanbul; nothing to quite capture the imagination. As happy as Chelsea fans will have been, none will have experienced the utter delirium of May 25th 2005. No amount of money could buy the drama and excitement tied up in winning number five.

Overcoming power and money was the key: the two most expensively-assembled squads in the world were vanquished, in the semi-final and the final; Fiat-backed Juventus, in the quarter-final, were not constructed on a shoestring budget either. Milan’s owner, the Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, who has bankrolled his side to an extreme degree, proved a laughably bad loser, but his bitter words only make Liverpool’s victory all the sweeter: “Milan played much better throughout. We created move after move while they didn’t create one move worthy of the name. What a shame.”

What a shame indeed . . . Perhaps he missed the three fine moves which led to Liverpool’s goals? He was right to some degree: over the course of 120 minutes, Milan played the better football. No one can dispute that. But who had the greater character? Football isn’t just about creating the most impressive moves. Milan’s defence had kept nine clean sheets in the competition en route to the final. In 180 minutes, Manchester United could not breach that famed rearguard once. Liverpool did not breach it three times courtesy of luck.

The best victories are never the 6-0s; they are the ones where the odds are overcome, and at half time in the Atatürk Stadium those odds were 360-1 against Liverpool emerging victorious. The better the opponent, the more impressive the comeback. But in order to make a remarkable comeback, you need first to make an almighty mess of things. From darkness comes the light, and those first 45 minutes were black.

It’s all gone “Pete Tong”

Fifty-two seconds. That was all it took for the party to be well and truly ‘pooped’ by Milan. As the rhyming slang goes: it all went Pete Tong. The Istanbul evening –– which had grown increasingly dark and sinister as black clouds gathered in bullying formations, with kick-off looming –– was proving ominous. Liverpool were out of their league, and, it was easy to conclude, on their way out of the Champions League –– for both 2005 and 2006.

The game had barely started when Paolo Maldini received Pirlo’s free-kick and struck his shot into the ground. It looped up and arced over Jerzy Dudek’s despairing dive. Was it down to Liverpool’s zonal marking, or the fortunate result of a skewed cross and a miss-hit shot?

The Reds responded with a gutsy few minutes: Riise hit a phenomenal volley that cannoned back off Jaap Stam, and then Hyypia rose to head towards goal, but Dida was equal to his effort. Milan, with Kaká, Shevchenko and Crespo pouring forward, looked dangerous on the break, and ‘Sheva’ had a goal ruled offside –– a warning of what was to follow. Liverpool players were still asking for a penalty –– Nesta going to ground in front of Luis Garcia, and in so doing, unintentionally blocking the ball with his arm –– as Milan strode upfield, Kaká sending Shevchenko through down the inside-right channel. The Ukranian’s pull-back looked scuffed, but it evaded Hyypia and Carragher. Chelsea’s Hernan Crespo, on a season-long loan to the Italians, scooped the ball home from inside the six-yard box.

Within minutes, it got worse. Another stunning break, with Kaká’s sublime through-ball curling around Carragher’s despairing lunge, and Crespo was in again, this time dismissively dinking the ball past Dudek.

We only sing when we’re being humiliated

Half-time provided the reason why Liverpool Football Club is so special. A thrashing –– a meltdown –– was on the cards. It was painful. Losing a game of football is hard at any time. But when you’ve allowed yourself to dream the impossible dream, and in so doing, made an arduous and expensive journey to where Europe ends and Asia begins, as 40,000 Reds had, it hurts. At half-time, perhaps one or two Reds started their journey home. The other 99.9% stayed on, and began a chorus of “we’re gonna win 4-3”. It was brave, it was slightly amusing, but it was not sung with any great belief. Those around me in the East stand –– which was a ‘neutral’ section containing only a handful of Milanese and thousands of Reds –– were signing along, half-heartedly, as texts arrived on their mobile phones suggesting “you’re gonna lose 7-0”. At the time it was hard to disagree.

It’s easy to think of football purely in terms of that rectangle of grass and what takes place within its white lines, but it’s so much more than that; if not exactly life and death, then it can end up representing whatever you want it to.

Inspiration in life can be rare, and at times we are all guilty of taking our football club for granted. In this era when the professional game has been tainted by violence, sex scandals, drink and drug abuse, not to mention the mercenary greed of players and their leeching agents, it was nice to be reminded of the power of sport; indeed, the point of sport. It exists to teach us about ourselves, and about life. Everything is contained within the game of football, providing you are prepared to look for it. It is what it means to us –– not to anyone else –– that matters.

If we cannot learn lessons by participating in the game itself, we experience it vicariously through the exploits of those we choose to worship. But sometimes the lines blur, and a true symbiosis occurs. If it’s obvious to say that the crowd in Istanbul could not have won without the players (the eleven best players plucked from the crowd, even including the likes of Bolton’s Kevin Nolan, ex-Middlesborough star Craig Hignett, and various retired Reds, would not have beaten Milan), then for once it was no exaggeration to say that the players could not have won without the support of the travelling Kop. Just as it had against Juventus and Chelsea in the previous rounds, the noise from the stands affected the outcome of the match.

The first five minutes of the interval saw little activity from the Liverpool fans: a collective too stunned to do anything other than stare at the night sky. And then it all changed. Everything. The atmosphere, the belief. The reason? One song. You’ll Never Walk Alone means more –– so much more –– than any other football song. It can be sung in victory, as the final whistle approaches –– as it so often is. It has also been sung at funerals for the lost souls who supported the club, including those who died in so doing at Hillsborough. Its meaning would transcend any comparable terrace anthem if there existed any other anthems to compare. But none do. Its words have not been altered to fit around the club or its exploits on the pitch: they remain true to those penned by Oscar Hammerstein.

At 10.40 Istanbul time the Reds in the crowd rose, one by one, to add their voice to the choral harmony that, despite the soulless arena designed to let sound escape into the night air, reminded the team –– and reminded all the fellow fans –– that everyone should keep their head held high. There was nothing to be afraid of any longer: the storm had passed, and of course, after the storm comes the golden sky.

Above all else: hope.

In your heart.

The effect was so strong, it inspired the players as they sat shell-shocked in the dressing room (or possibly lay prostrate, hoping a hole would swallow them), preparing for the second half, or possibly hoping it never arrived. The muffled sound of the crowd drifting down the players’ tunnel lifted them off the ground. Maybe it didn’t have them pounding the walls screaming “We can win this! This Milan side are there for the taking!”, but it registered all the same.

If the crowd weren’t giving up, how could they? If 40,000 people made such a sacrifice, surely there was no option on giving up?

It was hard to avoid imagining how it looked and sounded to the AC Milan fans: how many of them may have paid their money at least partly to hear the legendary rendition? (Especially after their Fossa dei Leoni so amazingly sang it in 1989, following the Hillsborough tragedy.) Liverpool fans singing You’ll Never Walk Alone is one of those things opposing fans –– especially in Europe –– feel a great need to experience. It is like those who paid to hear Sinatra, in his prime, singing My Way. There will be much talk about the downside of vacating the current Anfield, but You’ll Never Walk Alone travels with the Kop, wherever that Kop may be. You’ll Never Walk Alone, it is fair to say, is Liverpool Football Club. It is its philosophy, its belief system. That one song is all you need to know.

It was a very powerful experience, as a fan, to hear the familiar song sung –– and to be part of the choir –– in such footballing adversity. It summed up everything that is good about supporting your team; and in my case, it summed up why Liverpool Football Club is so special. A circle of discovery and inspiration between the players and the fans was completed by the team in the second-half. Believe, and it might just happen . . .

And so it began: the comeback. All credit to the players, for their miraculous contribution. But it started in the North, East and West stands at the Atatürk Stadium, and enveloped the whole of Istanbul. Without that song, the Liverpool players –– described as “dead and buried” –– would, like zombies in ancient myths, have needed to force their way up through the very turf as they fought to exhume themselves.

Dead and buried?

Far from it . . .

The tactical battle

Rafael Benítez received a lot of criticism for his decision to deploy Harry Kewell behind Milan Baros: not just for selecting Kewell, who many felt didn’t deserve his place, but as an overall tactical idea. It did not necessarily tally with the perceived wisdom before the game as to where Milan’s weaknesses lie. In the build up to the match, several pundits pointed out the success PSV Eindhoven had in utilising the space between Milan’s midfield and its ageing defence. Andy Gray, for one, said the best way to beat Milan was to get at them, and attack them with pace. Teams who had been timid and defensive –– such as Manchester United in the ‘Round of 16’ –– were beaten without the Italians even having to break sweat.

Benítez had never forgotten the first time he saw Kewell: how the Aussie had tortured Jaap Stam at Old Trafford in 1999, when playing for Leeds as a striker. Here was the chance to hope he could do the same once again, while being able to drop into midfield to make the most of any gaps. It made sense, especially as Kewell had finally looked fit and sharp in training.

“One small thing can change everything,” said Benítez. “Like when people ask me did I pick the wrong team at the start –– I say why? Because if you have Harry Kewell fit, maybe it would be different. If you don’t concede a goal, it would be different for sure. That’s football. Football is football,’’ he added, quoting Real Madrid’s erstwhile Yugoslav manager, Vujadin Boskov, whose limited grasp of Spanish led to him coining the phrase as shorthand for “anything can happen”.

Tactics play a crucial role in any major game, especially if you are the less-talented side. Milan’s teamsheet is intimidating to say the least, a collection of players on the wishlist of any European manager. Some of Liverpool’s players, it is fair to say, are not even on Benítez’ wishlist. But when you concede a goal in less than a minute against the best collection of players in world football (Milan possess the attacking stars to rival Real Madrid, and the defensive giants the Spaniards lack), it is a blow to the confidence and a blow to the gameplan. Football is football. The tactics had yet to even come into play before the Reds were chasing the game against the big favourites. Milan’s confidence was as boosted as Liverpool’s was shattered. Kewell was looking sprightly and determined until succumbing to yet another serious muscle injury. The Australian received jeers from the Liverpool end and some vitriolic criticism in the papers, and yet in those opening 20 minutes no Liverpool player looked worthy of the shirt: eleven men in red were shell-shocked. Kewell left the pitch at 1-0, not 3-0. Before his abductor muscle snapped, his movement had been bright and lively, but by then the entire Liverpool side had lost their composure, and he wasn’t able to get into the game –– the same as all his teammates. Fortunately, just as in Cardiff, his replacement scored Liverpool’s second goal when chasing three –– only this time it actually counted for something.

It did not need a scapegoat –– in many ways it was no one’s fault. Milan were buoyed by an early goal, and from then on their imperious class was impossible for Liverpool to live with. They became an unstoppable force, and although his omission was seen as key, it’s hard to imagine Didi Hamann making much difference while Milan were so pumped up. (It took half-time for Milan to take their eye off the ball.) It was like a boxer having a fixed idea on how to face Mike Tyson in his prime, but Tyson finding a crushing blow with his very first punch; once hit squarely on the chin, you are entitled to walk for a while on wobbling legs, if not collapse outright. A predator then moves in for the kill, and that is precisely what Milan did; their mistake was to believe the match was over at half-time.

It didn’t help that the occasion got the better of some Liverpool players. It’s easy to be critical of players like Djimi Traoré for nervous displays, but this was the biggest game by far in the lives of the starting XI. These are human beings, not androids.

(As I watched the elaborate pre-match entertainment conclude, and took in the wild array of colours, sights and sounds that greeted the players as they strode out, I couldn’t help but worry for their nerves: it didn’t look like any other game I’d ever been to. It had a sense of occasion dripping onto every inch of the pitch. Even the running track that surrounded the advertising boards –– usually so conducive to a subdued atmosphere –– confirmed it as a major event: only Olympic venues seem to have them these days. And if an Olympic venue is used for a football match, it means it’s of great import.)

Many of those playing in red had experienced cup finals –– after all, this was the sixth the club had reached since the turn of 2001 –– but none had been as momentous as this. Only Didi Hamann, on the Liverpool bench, had played in a game as big –– or indeed, in his case, even bigger: the 2002 World Cup final. Vladimir Smicer, another sub, had played in the final of Euro 96, but it’s harder to judge the importance of that particular competition. Milan were a team who had been there before. Seven of them had won it at Old Trafford in 2003. Paolo Maldini was in his seventh European Cup final; Clarence Seedorf held a record, having already won the competition three times with three different clubs. Others had played in World Cup finals –– and won.

The introduction of Didi Hamann at half-time was rightly hailed as a masterstroke, as the German held the space in which Kaká had previously been running riot, but the change would have meant nothing had Milan kept their professionalism. Any team that celebrates at half-time has lost its focus. The tactical switch was so much more than swapping personnel: the key was the switch to a three man defence, and how Hamann’s introduction liberated others. Gerrard now had the freedom to get forward, but it was no great folly to start him alongside Alonso in the midfield. Why wasn’t Alonso keeping tabs on Kaká in the first half, or Gerrard –– who could match the Brazilian stride-for-stride –– chasing back to snap into those famous lunging tackles? There were two central midfielders in red, and yet neither was anywhere near the back four. The entire team was being overrun. In the first half the game seemed to pass Gerrard by. The weight of the world was on his shoulders. Many experts had called it a ‘waste of talent’ whenever he was employed behind the main striker, and here he was, in what people claimed to be his best position, helplessly watching the game take place around him.

“Game well and truly over”

Andy Gray, commentating on Sky Sports, wasn’t alone in thinking Liverpool were dead and buried. ITV were also reading Liverpool the Last Rites. Perhaps the events of the second half –– when it transpired that the game was anything but over –– can be traced back to west London: not to Chelsea, but to Fulham. That October day in 2004 proved Liverpool could come back from the brink of defeat (after introducing a canny midfielder at half-time), and was used as an inspiration for the even more remarkable Olympiakos recovery in December; which, in turn, will have given the players at least a glimmer of hope, even if Milan were an entirely different proposition to the Greeks.

The rest of this post is for Subscribers only.

Zidane Clustering Theorem, from what I can tell (and while I like numbers, I’m no mathematician), is as follows:

How good a team is depends not on adding their quality ratings (out of 10) together (i.e. 8 + 6 + 9 and so on through all eleven players) but to instead multiply those figures. It is designed to show that teams full of very good players are better than those with a few superstars and a collection of also-rans making up the numbers (the ‘Zidane’ referring to the Real Madrid approach during the time of galácticos.)

So compare these two teams.

7 + 7 + 7 + 7 + 7 + 7 + 7 + 7 + 7 + 7 + 7 = 77

10 + 8 + 6 + 9 + 4 + 5 + 8 + 7 + 5 + 6 + 9 = 77

But when multiplied, the first team, despite lacking the three outstanding (10,9 & 9) and two very good players (8 & 8), is far superior: 1,977,326,743 compared with 1,306,368,000. It works on the theory that the weakest link in a chain is just that: something that dramatically brings down the quality of the whole.

Such ideas are interesting, and fun, but are they conclusive of anything?

However, as they are interesting and fun, why not investigate?

Of course, this whole model is based on knowing exactly how good players are. But how do you assign a definitive numeric value out of ten to a player? And after all, a 10/10 player can have a 5/10 game, and a 6/10 player can play a blinding 9/10.

Of course, the most reliable barometer of effectiveness in football is consistency.  Being world-class one week, Vauxhall Conference-class the next is not the hallmark of outstanding talent but the epitome of inconsistency. A regular and equal mix of 10/10 and 5/10 suggests that the player is, overall, 7 or 8 out of 10; a match-winner one week, AWOL the next – certainly no Zidane.

Then there are those who are described, by way of a compliment, as ‘7 every week’ players. This was often used on someone like Jamie Carragher, in his days as a full-back, before his emergence as an outstanding centre-half.

Every week he’d do a very good job, but rarely deviate from that steadiness due to the fact that he wasn’t really equipped for the overlapping part of the game. (Whereas someone like Roberto Carlos could look like 9/10 or a 2/10 player, often within the same game.)

And let’s face it, Steven Gerrard is as close to a 10/10 player as you’ll get, yet this season, for the first time in memory, his average marks per-game would have him nowhere near that level.

The theory cannot take into account tactics, form, or the balance of a side. But it does give an idea of just how good a team can be when everyone is playing to the best of his ability.

With all this in mind, I’ve calculated what I belief to be the players’ overall ratings, with the help of what a series of long-time Liverpool experts helped me devise for Dynasty.

From this, I have created my own analysis of the Zidane Clustering Theorem, as applied to Liverpool FC teams from the Shankly era to the current day (see below).

What you make of it is entirely up to you (and I’m looking forward to interpretations from Subscribers.)

The rest of this post is for Subscribers only.

By TTT member Andrew Beasley (with additional writing by Paul Tomkins, and with thanks to Graeme Riley for providing the match statistics).

I started the research for this article three weeks ago, but after the criticism of Benítez for his decision to substitute Fernando Torres with 25 minutes to go away at Birmingham, it seems more pertinent than ever to try and assess how much success Rafa has with his substitutions.

Assessing the impact or effectiveness of substitutions can be a difficult task. Some changes that occur are enforced through injuries, or as part of a reshuffle following a sending off. Others are used to give a player returning from injury some game time, or to let a star performer milk the applause of the crowd and get some rest once the game is won.

But most are used tactically to try and improve or protect the result, and I am going to look at how successful Benítez is in this respect, as well as at who Liverpool’s top performing sub is, and whether Andy Gray is right to criticise Benítez for not making substitutions before 65 minutes (and indeed if this is even the case).

So this is not a definitive or flawless study, but will hopefully shed some light.

It will probably come as little surprise to learn that Fernando Torres is Liverpool’s best-performing substitute. A record of four goals from 14 sub appearances in all competitions gives a rate of 3.50 games per goal. But if you break it down to minutes spent on the pitch, then Torres as a sub actually has a goal rate of one every 71.5 minutes. This makes you wonder how good Liverpool could be with Torres on the pitch and something approaching a Torres equivalent to come from the bench with stats like that.

The well-documented financial situation at the club makes this a virtual impossibility. To give this some context, the Manchester United bench in the recent game with Liverpool featured the £30.75m striker Dimitar Berbatov; had United been chasing the game late on, they could have brought him into play (alas, they were not). Liverpool’s entire bench of seven subs that day cost only £43m, but most of Liverpool’s squad money is tied up in the first team.

Players like Crouch, Bellamy, Sissoko, Keane, Arbeloa and one or two others were sold because they didn’t want to be on the bench, and because selling them raised funds to pay for better – but costlier – replacements for the first XI, such as Torres, Mascherano and Johnson.

And this is before even getting onto an übersquad like Man City’s, where two £25m strikers start in tandem, and £18m Santa Cruz warms the bench, while no-one bats an eyelid. Or at Chelsea, where their wealth allows a perennial sub like Kalou to sit on the sidelines pocketing £80,000 a week, along with Michael Ballack, on £121,000 a week, when Liverpool just can’t afford to offer a similar incentive to its own squad players.

(Whether or not Crouch, for example, would have stayed after a season as Torres’ back-up, the chance – or rather, the large finances – to tie him into a lucrative long-term deal in 2006 or 2007 would have prevented him nearing freedom of contract in 2008. Then it becomes a different scenario.)

So with an uneven match-up like that, Rafa needs to make the most of his substitutions. My research suggests that he does. Using a simple system, applied to league games only, I can prove that Benítez does make effective use of his substitutions. (I have focused on league games only, as in two-legged cup ties, a draw – or even a defeat – in a match, whilst not the desired result, can be suitable to get through, making the impact of a substitution harder to analyse.)

The Record

When a substitute enters the field, there are three potential impacts upon the result: it can improve, stay the same or get worse. Below is a table showing how Benitez has fared:

Put simply, when Benítez brings on a sub, the result improves 14.47% of the time and gets worse only 5.95% of the time – nearly 2.5 times more gains than losses.  The vast majority of games (79.58%) fall into the no-change category - the recent Birmingham away game being an example. Benitez made a controversial substitution, and whilst Liverpool didn’t win the game, neither did they lose.  In that instance, the gamble didn’t pay off, but these figures show that the gambles pay off more than they backfire.

In six years, only once have all 3 points been lost following a substitution, and that was away at Tottenham last year, a game in which Liverpool had the chances to win comfortably and lost only to a last-minute goal. Whilst it is concerning that 80.15% of substitutions in losing games don’t result in any points being gained (and an alarming 100% for this season), the fact that Liverpool drop points from winning positions following substitutions only 5.52% of the time shows how difficult it is for teams to turn games around once that vital first goal has gone in and a lead has been established.

Whilst this method of analysis is simplistic, and doesn’t take into account whether or not the team’s performance gets better without the result improving after a substitution (as is widely agreed occurred at Birmingham), it is at least factually accurate and is based upon results, the ultimate measure of success in football.

I do not have the time to carry out this amount of research into other top teams to see how they make their changes and how it affects results [feel free to let us know if you do, PT], so I don’t know if Benítez fares better or worse than other managers. But I’m certainly prepared to put my faith in someone with these statistics behind them.

Therefore, if Benítez is having this kind of success, does it really matter what time in the match he makes his substitutions? According to some people it does, and he should be making substitutions before the 65-minute mark when Liverpool are struggling. But is the 65-minute figure accurate?

It appears it is. I have compiled figures discounting first-half substitutions, as these would be for injuries rather than tactical changes.

Across all competitions, Benítez averages a first sub time (second half only) of 64.32 minutes. The pundits are broadly correct on this issue then. But are they right to criticise Benítez for it?

I have looked at the average first sub times for the opposition against Liverpool in league matches to see how Benítez compares to other managers.

Surprise, surprise: Benítez is criticised for something which other managers largely appear to also do. The season where Liverpool’s first tactical substitution was on average the latest after the opposition’s (2008/09) was the most successful league season the club has had in years. More relevant to this study, it was the year with the highest number of substitutions that turned losses to wins: six. The other five seasons combined have a total of one. In other words, leaving substitutions until precisely two thirds of the way through a game seemed to work well last year.

Also, with Liverpool, on average, winning/leading a lot more games than they lose/trail in, you’d expect the opposition manager has a need to change the game earlier than Benítez. However, they do not.

So once again, these figures appear to vindicate Rafa’s decisions and methods. But perhaps people get swayed by those ultra-bold souls who make all three changes at half-time; ignoring that one single injury would be the same as having a man sent off.

It would take an absolute age to analyse the same information for all teams, but Rafa’s strategies do appear sound, successful and not dissimilar in principle to those of other managers. It will probably be too much to ask for anyone who is paid to analyse football to pay any attention to this, however.

The following, which looks at specific substitutions and individuals, is for subscribers only.

Apparently, you only have to play Steven Gerrard in central midfield and all problems are solved. If that was the case, why was the Reds’ worst league performance of the season at Wigan, with him in that very position?

Just as that result was down to a number of factors (poor passing from the team which wasn’t helped by an iffy new pitch, no pace to the play, and Torres missing chances he’d usually bury), then the victory against Sunderland was because of pretty much the opposite: great passing on a lovely surface, lots of pace and zip, and Torres sticking a couple away.

It’s flawed logic to say it was simply down to Gerrard being in the middle. Of course, that didn’t stop the usual suspects from taking the opportunity to use it as definitive evidence. Let’s face it: when on form, Gerrard can excel anywhere.

At Wigan, Gerrard had one of his worst games in a red shirt, conceding possession with simple passes. Against Sunderland he was electric, particularly in the first half. But just as we shouldn’t say “Gerrard should never play CM” after the Wigan debacle, we shouldn’t conclude that he only plays well there when he’s on song.

On ‘The Last Word’, Andy Gray could find little reason to explain why anyone would want to use Gerrard anywhere other than in the centre of midfield; ignoring that he was Footballer of the Year, scoring 24 goals, in a more advanced role last season. And he also scored 23 goals in 2005/06, when used mostly on the right.

(It’s fascinating that no-one questions Capello for playing him on the left! Or the fact that Rooney spent two years out there for United.)

The key to Gerrard is not restricting him; and wherever he plays, he has licence to roam. Indeed, you could argue that he has more licence to roam in a more free role, and these are usually given to the world’s best players (see Zidane and Messi).

With Richard Keys doing a pathetic job at challenging Gray (notice how he simply sets Gray up to give us his usual opinion, rather than actually probing the issue), the two Sky stalwarts played their usual game of implying that Rafa doesn’t like the captain ‘emptying the midfield’.

Maybe he does, maybe he doesn’t. But that doesn’t mean that the only reason he’s played further up is because of fears over supposed tactical indiscipline; he’s played there because he spent a lot of the previous two seasons terrorising defences.

The set narrative is that Rafa is negative, therefore any observations regarding Gerrard are placed into this predetermined mindset.

Jamie Redknapp – he of the increasingly bizarre analysis – also tells us that Gerrard wants to only play central midfield, although he may or may not be referring to a lad who was 21 the time they last played together.

Yes, this is the same Jamie Redknapp whose father played Robbie Keane on the left wing, week after week. Surely you don’t get the best out of him there? But that’s never the issue; it’s up to the manager to pick a side that works, not look to please every individual.

Looking at Liverpool’s last 20-or-so games, the following results and performances have been posted:

(Portsmouth away was Lucas and Mascherano, but the Argentine was sent off in the first half, making any comparisons null and void. And in some games, particularly away, it’s hard to say if Gerrard was playing in a five-man midfield or closer to the main striker.)

But of course, as is the case with all these performances and results, there were other players around them, some of whom were only playing because of injuries to the main men. Then there was: the timing of the matches (United away came within a few days of two previous games); the form of the Reds going into the fixture; the failure to take chances… and so on. And that’s before going into the quality and performance on the day of the opposition.

Then there’s the fact that, early season, Mascherano was a shadow of his usual self, and that both Gerrard and Aquilani have not been fully fit during a number of their appearances.

So it’s not an accurate science.

And if anything, that’s the whole point of this piece: you cannot say play Gerrard there, or drop Lucas, and Liverpool play well and win.

As a member of this site said, Gerrard’s best position is wherever is best for the team.

The following is for Subscribers only.

In football, we are always searching the past to predict the future.

But rather than suggest things definitely can’t happen – “so-and-so will never be good enough”, “Liverpool will never win the league under X manager”, etc – I like to look for examples that show things can change for the better. No-one is locked in their current situation; people improve all the time.

It’s important to be realistic about your chances of success. But everyone can out-perform what is supposedly their level, and everyone can have dips in form, fitness and/or confidence that temporarily inhibits them from expressing their true worth.

Interpreting the past correctly is the key.

It’s clear that clubs at the top end of the table tend to win more games than they did 20 years ago. Perhaps it’s due to the squad sizes, whereby high-quality replacements can come in, or the possibility of introducing three top-class substitutes, to help win games that, in years gone by, the elite sides would have not had the energy to grab all three points.

Whatever the reason, the average win percentage for the top six sides in the second half of the 1980s was 50%. Two decades on, that has risen to 57% – with the übersquads of recent champions contributing to a higher overall percentage.

So when we compare Rafa Benítez’s record with Alex Ferguson’s from back then, it’s important to acknowledge that more is required now – but also, more is on average achieved by rivals – than in the years when Liverpool were marching towards 18 league titles.

At 44%, Ferguson’s win ratio in his first six seasons at United meant he was winning six fewer (out of every 100) than the top six were on average recording.

By contrast, Benítez’s 56% is just a fraction below today’s ‘elite’ average. So it’s unfair on Ferguson to say that Benítez winning 12% more games equals that exact level of superiority, when on average three extra games per season are now won by the best sides in the Premier League.

However, where it gets really interesting is in comparing how the clubs were faring before each man took over.

In the six seasons before Rafa arrived, Liverpool won 51% of league games. So under the Spaniard, the Reds have won 6 more of every 100 Premier League matches (11.76%).

If that doesn’t sound a lot, then remember that this is 6% within a narrow band of success and failure; no top team wins only 40% of matches, and no top team wins as much as 80% of its matches. Real success lies between those figures.

But contrast this with Alex Ferguson’s first six seasons; he managed to take United’s win rate down from the 49% of between 1980 and 1986 to 44% between 1986 and 1992. So in other words, in his first six seasons, Ferguson took United backwards by roughly the same margin that Benítez has moved Liverpool forward.

Perhaps the difference is that, by the end of year seven, Ferguson could claim a league title, and Liverpool will have to go some to win the title in 2011, especially with the squad being sold off to repay loan debts.

But Ferguson was also helped by the self-destruction of Liverpool from 1991 onwards, and the simultaneous passing of Arsenal from a dominant league force to also-rans in next-to-no-time under George Graham. (The year United finally ended their 26-year hoodoo, the Gunners finished 10th! And Leeds, who were unable to defend their crown with any kind of consistency, dropped way down 17th; one place below where Souness’ Liverpool were sitting after a whopping 30 games.)

It’s all ifs and buts, but if the same had happened in 2009 – the two best teams of recent years (Chelsea and United) losing their way in such dramatic fashion – then Benítez could call himself a champion.

If that sounds far-fetched to some, remember that no runner-up has ever achieved as many as 86 points in a 38-game season. While the champions obviously secured more than 86 points on numerous occasions, they didn’t ‘need’ all of those points.

In other words, hitting the 86-point mark would guarantee the title … except last year. And only the best sides can get up near the 90-point mark.

(Second half of article for subscribers only.)

Following on from other work with Graeme Riley’s Transfer Price Index, which was developed especially for The Tomkins Times, this is the list of all of Liverpool’s Premier League signings, and how much they cost in “today’s money”. Subscribers can also download a PDF of the entire TPI database, which contains the signings of every club between 1992 and 2010.

Explanation of Data

The Key below explains what the different columns refer to. CTPP (Current Transfer Purchase Price) is the crux of Graeme’s system; it takes yearly transfer inflation, worked out in the same way as the Retail Price Index (i.e. based on the average of all purchases), and applies it to each transferred player to give a 2010 value.

It also shows the Relative Transfer System I developed for Dynasty: 50 Years of Shankly’s Liverpool, which lists the original fee as a percentage of the English transfer record at the time.

Each player is listed multiple times, once for every season spent at a club. This then allows us to examine ‘Utilisation’, which takes that current value, and lists the proportion of that money in relation to games started. In other words, if you have a £30m player on your books, did you get the value of a £30m player in that campaign? (Obviously investment in players is not confined to one season.) With this data, we can see (at a later date) if the costliest squads were necessarily the most expensive in terms of Utilisation.

Using the example of Xabi Alonso, the Spaniard cost £10.5m in 2004. This was 35% of the then-transfer record. But by today’s prices, that £10.5m equates to £20.5m. (To put this in perspective, some other signings around the same time now rank at £50m+.)

However, taking 2007/08 as an example – a disappointing season for him, which led to the rift with Benítez – the Spaniard only started 16 games, giving a Utilisation value of £8.6m. A year later, his Utilisation value was £14.6m.

(As the current season is incomplete, there is no Utilisation data for 2009/10.)

Notes: Players bought before 1992 have a D listed in front of their value. As the TPI does not cover pre-Premiership years, an ‘average’ inflation price is added to these players. These values are purely to help with Utilisation studies in the early years of the ‘new’ league.

For the introduction to TPI©, please read this.

“The Benefit of New Players”

While I will cover the more important Net spend in a forthcoming article (to which TPI© will also be applied), looking at a club’s Gross outlay focuses on the value of new blood, irrespective of whether old blood was transfused in the process.

The Premier League kicked off in 1992 with 22 teams, but soon after was reduced to 20. Therefore, between 1992-93 and 1994-95, the average spend by all teams was initially 4.5%, before rising to 5% (one-twentieth).

Some clubs have registered no overall transfer outlay during a season, while in one year, a staggering 39% of the entire top division’s Gross expenditure was down to just one club. In other words, well over a third of every last pound spent on players was in strengthening just one team: Chelsea.

Of course, how much any given club chooses to spend during a season depends on a number of factors.

Has it raised money from sales, which it simply pumps back into the side? (In other words, rather than strengthen, it could simply be spending to replace like-for-like.) Is it desperate, such as when in a relegation battle?

And, of course, there’s the fact that successful clubs don’t have to spend big every year, especially if they’ve splashed out for a few years in a row to assemble a strong squad; while, at the same time acknowledging the football maxim that investing is crucial even when in a position of strength.

Let’s look briefly at Liverpool’s 2009/10 spend: 8.2% of the entire Premier League outlay. And yet Glen Johnson, Alberto Aquilani and Sotiris Kyrgiakos were ‘only’ replacements for Alvaro Arbeloa, Xabi Alonso and Sami Hyypia.

(In the winter, Maxi came in on a free transfer, while Dossena and Voronin left for a combined fee of £6.3m, while the Reds also netted £1.5million from FC Twente for the sale of reserve, reserve, reserve (reserve) goalkeeper Nikolay Mihaylov.)

Johnson was a clear upgrade on Arbeloa, but Aquilani was going to have to really fulfil his potential to improve upon Alonso. Kyrgiakos, meanwhile, was never going to get close to Hyypia at his best, although (as has been seen with recent performances) the Greek could at least, if all goes well, fill the role of 4th-choice which, by the age of 36, the Finn had inevitably become. (Yes, he’s doing brilliantly in Germany, but it’s a far less physically demanding league.)

So, despite spending 8.2% of the division’s total outlay, the Reds were merely maintaining the status quo. (The value of the squad actually decreased slightly.)

What’s most interesting is what happens to most clubs in the year or two after a particularly big Gross spend (+10% of the total Premier League outlay).

In total, this figure has been exceeded on 31 occasions over the past 18 years, with 12 different clubs managing to do so at least once, and with two (Manchester United and Chelsea) breaching it on no fewer than five occasions.

The first team to break the barrier twice in a row during the Premier League era was Blackburn, with 16.9% in 1992/93 and 10.9% in 1993/94. In 1994/95 they only spent 5.9%, but of course already had a strong squad; and much of the outlay was the addition of Chris Sutton, a new British transfer record, to add to a side that had just finished as runners-up. With Sutton and Shearer sharing the goals, they won the league that year.

Everton have breached the figure just once – 10.1% in 1994/95; incidentally, the last season in which they won a trophy (FA Cup). Fulham did so in their first season back in the top flight (2001/02, 12.7%), whereby they maintained their status with a respectable 13th place finish, setting them up for a sustained run in the elite division. Since then, they’ve been relative paupers.

Middlesbrough’s 11.1% outlay in 2002/03 was highly uncharacteristic; even in the heady days of the mid-‘90s (Juninho, Ravanelli, Barmby, Emerson, et al) they didn’t go above 7.7%. So what did the spending in the year to July 2003 get them? The League Cup, the club’s first and only major trophy, in the spring of 2004, and a couple of years later, a UEFA Cup Final. But from 2003 onwards, spending only rose above the division’s average on one occasion (and that was only fractionally so), and in the year when they were relegated their spend had fallen to just 1.4% of the Premier League total.

Leeds United spent 9.4% and 8.5% either side of 2000/01, when they registered their personal peak of 11.1%. This was a time of high-flying for the Elland Road club, with a Champions League semi-final; but this was high-flying Icarus-style. Within a couple of years they were totally broke, spending just 1.1% in 2002/03, and a year later were relegated without even registering a purchase.

Talking of relegation, Newcastle, who were promoted to the top flight just after the inception of the Premier League and went down last season, also present a fascinating example, with some striking spending in between.

Having been a whisker below 10% in 1993/94, the money really came out between 1995 and and 2000. Two of those seasons saw figures just below 10%, but three were over: 1995/96 (15.4%), 1997/98 (11.5%) and 1998/99 (11.1%).

So for six out of seven years they were spending at least twice the Premier League average, and on one occasion, three times the average. Newcastle’s best year – 1995/96 – also happened to be when their percentage was at its highest: more than twice that of the next-biggest spender.

It didn’t end there; in 2002/03 the Geordies were once again close to the 10% mark (9.3%), and in 2005/06, registered 11.9%, including the money-vacuum that was Michael Owen. Within three seasons of this they were relegated, after a campaign in which they spent 5.7% – way over the average of a team that’s doomed for demotion. But it was too late to stop the ship from sinking.

All those high spends, and all those managers – which usually means a high turnover of new players and a fire-sale of old ones. But it was often done with a sense of chaos. They had direction under Keegan, albeit on a combustible ride, and direction under Bobby Robson, but even the steady influx of exciting signings failed to spark the club once they panicked, and began sacking at will. Robson was particularly harshly treated, and never adequately replaced.

The one thing Newcastle seem to prove is that money allied to a lack of vision and stability is worthless. But the figures also show that once investment in a team drops, and there is no long-term plan, disaster looms. And even though they spent a relatively high amount the season in which they were relegated (the 5th-highest in the division), in the two seasons prior to this they failed to exceed the Premier League average.

Before getting onto the ‘Big Four’ and the nouveau riche, there’s one more club working its way into the +10% Elite – and that’s Spurs, whose percentage was steady and fairly healthy throughout the whole Premier League era, until 2006/07, when it rose to 10.1% (and led fairly quickly to their one trophy of the decade – The League Cup – in 2008).

Another big percentage followed – 9.5% – before, in 2008/09, they posted a 14.8% figure. Spurs are now widely regarded as having a strong side and a very sizeable squad.

Of the ‘big players’, Arsenal, as you would expect, have been the most frugal. Only twice have they broken the 10% barrier: 2000/01 (10.4%) and 2002/03 (12.3%). The eagle-eyed among you will recognise that the Gunners won the league in 2002 and 2004, the year after each bout of major investment. Coincidence?

(Prior to Wenger arriving, Arsenal’s biggest spending was just before the old First Division was rebranded; players like Seaman, Keown, Dixon, Winterburn and Wright, most of whom Wenger utilised heavily in his first two title successes. Although TPI wasn’t used in this particular study, to give an idea, Ian Wright, for example, has a CTPP of £15.3m, while Seaman’s works out at £7.9m. Surprisingly, Martin Keown’s fee translates to £12.2m in today’s money.)

Manchester City are the latest gatecrashers to the +10% Club, although they do have some ‘previous’.

In 2002/03 they scraped in, with an 10.4% figure. The manager? Our friend to big spending, Kevin Keegan, whose exciting Newcastle side was certainly bankrolled. City were back in the top division, and the outlay secured a 9th-place finish. Unfortunately for Keegan, the pot ran dry and by the time he left, in 2005, the club’s seasonal outlay was 0.0%.

But things are different now. City are back splashing the cash, and then some. In 2008/09 they spent a whopping 17.7%, a figure higher than any of the single-season percentages registered by Arsenal, Liverpool or Manchester United during the entire Premier League era.

Not content at stopping there, City then spent 25% during the current season (the third highest in Premier League history). In other words, a quarter of all money spent between July and the close of the January 2010 transfer window was by City. As yet, it’s not bought them any silverware, but it has made them serious challengers for a Champions League spot.

Alex Ferguson’s spending splits into three fairly distinct periods: his first few years (prior to this study) involved a lot of big spending, so that players like Pallister, Ince, Bruce, Schmeichel, Irwin, Kanchelskis and Hughes were in place by the time the Premier League was formed; the majority of these kept the Old Trafford club ticking over for the best part of the ‘90s, along with the graduation of an unusually large number of gifted youngsters.

Ferguson’s first big ‘new era’ splurge was in 1998/99: the greatest season in United’s history, and arguably the greatest of any English team. (Only Liverpool’s 1984 treble, with one cup final against fierce local rivals and the other in Roma’s home stadium, can compare.)

The 11.2% of 1999 was not matched until 2001/02, when the spending rose to a fairly hefty 16.2%; United’s biggest percentage in the study. A year later, United were champions again.

That 16.2% started off the 2nd-biggest consecutive run of spending seen in Premier League history. It was followed by 12.4%, 13.3% and 13% in the next three seasons; four +10% seasons in a row.

What’s interesting is that it didn’t lead to any further titles until 2007. Why? – because someone else (Chelsea) was spending even more, having already embarked on their own run of four consecutive +10% seasons. In fact, percentage wise, they were spending loads more.

It wasn’t until Chelsea’s spending slowed dramatically that United’s investment bore fruit. Much of Ferguson’s spending during this time was on young players yet to peak, particularly Rooney and Ronaldo. Once they came of age, and Chelsea no longer had the investment or stable management to compete at quite the same level, it was United’s time once more. Since 2005/06, the highest figure posted by the now Glazer-owned club has been 8.6%, with the lowest this season’s 4.4%.

For the time being, United are relatively safe with lower spending, having already built a large, expensive squad – the value of which can now be seen with someone like Nani (with a CTTP of £20.3m), after two and a half seasons, finally coming in from the cold. But the challenge will be a few years down the line, when the older generation of players need replacing.

But of course, Chelsea are the Daddies of this debate. Starting with a phenomenal 42% during Roman Abramovich’s first year, the Blues followed up with a further 31.8% of all Premier League spending; the two biggest outlays in the study (and almost certainly of all-time), made between 2003 and 2005.

The result? Back-to-back league titles, and several cup finals were reached. Seasons of 17.9% (2005/06) and 18.3% (2006/07) kept things ticking over to levels that in themselves were above anything the other members of the big four had posted across the 18 years under scrutiny – although by now Jose Mourinho had departed and the managerial merry-go-round was under way.

In the last three seasons, Chelsea’s Gross spending has peaked at just 5.5%, a fraction above the average; and, since 2007, below that of Sunderland.

Thankfully for the Londoners, such was the investment between 2003 and 2007 that the quality could endure, although what happens once an ageing squad (already beyond the point mentioned in reference to United) passes over the hill will be interesting to follow. Will Abramovich dig deep again?

Much of Chelsea’s success – indeed, why they paid a premium on many of the transfers – was because they were buying players already in their peak, who wouldn’t need years of nursing along. The problem now is that these once-26/27-year-olds are now in their 30s. They have little or no resale value, and cannot last forever.

Which brings me onto Liverpool. The Reds have broken the 10% barrier on four occasions, although unlike some clubs, these were all spaced apart.

It began with 11.3% in 1993/94, and rose to its highest peak in 1999/00, at 15.3%, under Gérard Houllier. In 2004/05 the club again broke the barrier, at 12.6%, although this included Djibri Cissé, bought by Houllier but paid for out of Benítez’s budget.

The 4th and final time the Reds spent +10% was in 2007/08, the first year under new ownership; a total of 11.2% was shelled out.

So how did this increased investment help Liverpool? Well, in the season after Houllier’s big cash injection, the Reds won a famous treble and finally qualified for the Champions League, while a further year later, the club registered its best Premier League campaign: 2nd place, and 80 points.

The investment in 2004/05 (Alonso and Garcia, and in fairness even Cissé contributed) led to winning the Champions League, and a year later, the FA Cup and an 82-point finish. But the gross spend over the next two years was nothing more than a little above average; hence why new investment was publicly sought, and when momentum slipped a little.

And maybe that’s the story of Liverpool’s Premier League years: investment one season, little the next; there’s been none of the consecutive seasons of +10% spending that preceded title success by Blackburn, Man United and Chelsea, and which Manchester City are now undertaking.

The arrival of Hicks and Gillett prompted their one big splurge: 11.2% in 2007/08. The season in which Torres, Mascherano, Benayoun, Lucas and Babel arrived actually saw the Reds top the spending charts, as the only +10% club between July 2007 and June 2008. Within a year, the Reds had finished as runners-up, with the best points total for the club during this era: 86.

But investment during the season itself (2008/09) was actually below average (and as mentioned earlier, the 8.2% of this current season has been purely to ‘stand still’).

So, as we can all see, there’s a pretty clear correlation between achievement and spending. It doesn’t guarantee success, but it often leads to noticeable improvement. New players seem to add a boost that cannot be underestimated.

The one time it didn’t follow for Liverpool was in the first year of the Premier League, when the Reds finished 6th for the 2nd season running, having won the title as recently as 1990. The manager, Graeme Souness, had spent 13.5% of the division’s money in the final year of the old First Division (1991/92), but the club was heading down the league rather than up.

But the biggest anomaly during the Premier League era lies with Blackburn, whose spending in the first half of the ‘90s led to the league title. So far so good.

However, in 1998/99 their outlay was 14.9% of the entire division’s; yet they got through three managers and suffered relegation. They are the only club to spend +10% in a season in which they suffered demotion; indeed, it was almost five times the average of teams that are sent down. (But continuing the League Cup connection, in 2002 Rovers, now back in the Premier League, won this competition.)

Seismic Shift

The landscape clearly changed in 2003 (the final year of Houllier’s reign at Liverpool). Even Blackburn at their peak had only spent 16.5% of the league’s outlay. But at the point when Houllier was giving way to Benítez, it went crazy in two ways.

First, there was the rise from a high of 16.5% to a mind-blowing 42% as a record percentage of the league’s outlay by one club; and how, following Chelsea’s first boom budget, the old Blackburn watermark was exceeded on a further five occasions once Benítez was in England. (Chelsea three times, City twice.)

Then there was the consecutive spending seasons: for four seasons running (2001-2005), Manchester United were either 1st or 2nd in terms of % outlay; and between 2003 and 2007, Chelsea topped the listings each and every time.

While Liverpool’s Gross spending since 2004 has been quite a bit above average on the whole, it has not come close the massive percentages of Chelsea and City, nor has the club been able to back the manager with a long consecutive run of high funding.

And when it comes to Net spend, as we will see in an upcoming article, Benítez has been even more hamstrung. But more on that next time.

Averages

The average spend of relegated teams in the year in which they were demoted is 3.3%, which indicates that they under-spent by 1.7% compared with the average. Furthermore, the average in the season before relegation of teams in the Premier League (i.e. not those promoted and then immediately relegated) is 3.2%. Hence if you spend less than 3% in consecutive seasons, you are probably going to be in trouble.

Promoted teams who successfully maintain their status spend an average of 4.6% in their first season. This shows that these clubs can’t easily stay up on the cheap; they need to invest approximately the average of the division and certainly well beyond the 3.3% outlined above.

The average spend by Champions is 8.0% in the season in which they win the league. However, perhaps more interestingly, they also spend 11.1% (i.e. more than double the Premier League average) in the season before they win the league; so that over the course of the two seasons they are spending double the average.

What Does It All Mean?

The notion that individual signings take time to settle (or may never settle) is valid. And this may well be at the heart of why significant investment works so well, and leads, within 24 months, to trophies and higher league positions.

The injection of new blood seems fairly essential to boost a team; but additional riches give more licence for a hit-and-miss strategy. It’s a bit like buying fruit without being able to touch it first; the greater the quantity, the better your odds of a good number of suitable, ripe items.

But not only this, even though you’ve paid for them, you can discard those rotten to the core without going hungry.

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