Why time is running out for Liverpool and Dalglish
Liverpool to the elite, before Michel Platini’s rules banish them to a relative wilderness.
Financial Fair Play demands that each club lives within its means. So if Manchester United accrue £65m more than Liverpool on match days they have £65m more to spend on players; plus extra from the Champions League and better commercial contracts as a bigger, more successful club.
Soon Liverpool, confined by terraced houses and Thursday night European football, will no longer be able to break the transfer record for a British footballer like Carroll, without incurring the wrath of UEFA. There will be no further recklessness, no way of recovering ground through significant owner investment in the transfer market.
Nor does Henry sound intent on bucking the system. Whatever the previous investment in Dalglish may indicate, the owner values self-sufficiency.
‘Tom Werner and I attended the European Club Association meetings,’ he said recently. ‘There are a number of critical issues such as Financial Fair Play and the economic problems of clubs large and small that need to be addressed. Just as the countries of Europe need a sound financial landscape, so does football.’
All very admirable as a business philosophy, but unless Liverpool can elbow their way through the clamouring mob, they will be as good as locked outside when the FFP door closes. Dalglish could then win a decade of Carling Cups, back to back, and it might not be enough. This season has to be a springboard for a return to the top four next season; yet how easy will that be?
Sir Alex Ferguson had one round of Europa League football with Manchester United before he started moaning about its impact on their Premier League form. Unless Liverpool win the FA Cup, their first Europa League match is a third qualifying round, first leg, on August 2 and, provided they get through, the last group game is on December 6. Dalglish has five months, minimum, of Thursday night football in Europe, probably more if Liverpool are successful.
‘You play on Sunday, Wednesday and Saturday and it is going to take its toll,’ he said last month, blaming domestic cup fatigue after losing at home to Wigan Athletic. Try Thursday, Sunday, Wednesday — a scenario familiar to any Europa League manager — with flights thrown in, for half the season at least.
Indeed, it is hard to see too many of this season’s problems being tackled with ease. Doubts will remain over Carroll, Stewart Downing and Jordan Henderson, and it is fanciful to think there will not be an opportunistic attempt to poach Luis Suarez in the summer, with Roma and Paris SaintGermain already lurking.
Most worryingly, Liverpool have won five of 15 home League games in this campaign, and Anfield’s reputation for fearsome, intimidating noise is increasingly misplaced. For the big matches, yes. When Manchester United visit, or the opponents are one of the clubs the fans regard as parvenus — Manchester City or Chelsea — the energy is there. As it once was even for the likes of Wigan or Norwich City, because invariably Liverpool were challenging for a title or a Champions League place, and the game had edge.
Yet, if Liverpool are just making up the midtable numbers, and the opposition is uninspiring, the mood is subdued. Against Wigan, a conversation between Dirk Kuyt and a linesman was audible in the stands, as were the cries of Jamie Carragher, organising his defence. Without a flying start next season, it is hard to imagine that will change.
Indeed, will anything alter at Anfield as a result of the strategy review? Unlikely, for now. Damien Comolli, director of football, is more vulnerable than Dalglish, possessing none of his local cachet, but having been Henry’s first appointment he will surely be able to plead for more time.
Yet, this is in short supply for Liverpool. UEFA’S clock is counting down to the moment when a provincial club with a midcapacity stadium and a cautious owner will find all manner of regulations hampering its development. Liverpool need to move quickly; above all they need to know whether Dalglish is the right man to orchestrate that leap forward.
‘It was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair,’ wrote Dickens. It is different for Henry. Sooner or later, he has to make his mind up.