In the few weeks since Liverpool accepted £75m from Barcelona for the services of Luis Suarez, the British press has been full of accusations that Brendan Rodgers is in danger of “doing a Spurs.” For the uninitiated, “doing a Spurs” means selling your star man for unfathomable amounts of lucre (Gareth Bale and £85m in Tottenham’s case), then spending the dosh on a gaggle of “cheaper” players as replacements. Euphemistically, this strategy has been described as replacing Elvis with The Beatles, though the less generous (i.e. us) would call it scattergun.
For Spurs, the approach was largely written off as a failure. Tottenham chairman Daniel Levy spent £104m on seven players, only one or two of whom – Christian Eriksson, for example – could be considered to have performed even reasonably well. Spurs finished the 2013-14 EPL in sixth: one place lower than the previous year, scoring 15 fewer goals and conceding five more.
So far this summer, Rodgers and Liverpool have followed a similar pattern: £89m has been spent on six signings of middling talent and promise, none of whom are – yet – proven winners at the very top level. However, to say Liverpool is in danger of doing a Spurs is a misnomer: in fact, they’re guilty of reverting to type.
Under successive managers in the 2000’s – Gerard Houllier and Rafa Benitez – Liverpool followed a policy of spending copious amounts of money spread across a battalion of players, very few of whom proved capable of leading the Reds to the top of the EPL. Yes there was the odd exception, but for every Fernando Torres (cost: £26.5m) there was a Bruno Cheyrou, Andrea Dossena and Alberto Acquillani (total cost: £27.7m). During Benitez’s tenure, between 2004 and 2010, Liverpool spent £248m on 54 players. In the same period, Sir Alex Ferguson and Manchester United spent £184m on 27 players: exactly half the number of signings at an average 48% more GBP per player. No-one needs to be told who fared better.
One of Rodgers’ priorities for the off-season was always going to be adding depth to his squad, and The18 said as much back in May. However, we also said he had to keep hold of Luis Suarez. With the Uruguayan gone, it’s imperative that Liverpool spend big on a player equally capable of turning big games against the best opposition, both in the EPL and Europe. To-date, Rodgers has shown little inclination of doing so.
Nobody here is suggesting a Real Madrid or PSG “Galactico” approach to building a club is either sensible or indeed replicable. But diversifying your hard-earned treasure over a dozen different players doesn’t deliver Premier League success: Tottenham proved it last year, and Liverpool proved it again and again through the 2000’s. Liverpool has the money and, perhaps more importantly, they also have, for this season at least, the unquantifiable lure of Champions League football to offer potential signings. They need to go big now, before it’s too late.
