Are Liverpool Completely Messed Up Without The Champions League?
With a top 4 finish in the Premier League looking out of reach, and a squad in serious need of rebuilding, are Liverpool and Jurgen Klopp in deep trouble this summer?
Transcript
00:00 Liverpool have dropped out of the race to sign Jude Bellingham owing to a lack of funds
00:07 and barring a miraculous end to the season, look set to miss out on Champions League qualification
00:12 for the first time since 2017.
00:14 Now these are two things that shouldn't be the end of the world but they have led
00:17 to accusations from fans of other clubs that they might be completely f***ed this summer.
00:22 But are they?
00:26 So first of all, what are their problems?
00:28 Well first and foremost the big thing they have to address this summer is their squad.
00:31 If we take a quick look here at all of Liverpool's senior players you can see that they're quite
00:35 well balanced, it's certainly got loads of quality but when we start to organise it by
00:39 age you can see the problems emerging.
00:41 Liverpool have a substantial number of senior footballers who are either ageing into or
00:46 out of their peak years as a player.
00:49 Now before we continue here I just want to say that as somebody in their mid-30s I do
00:52 feel duty bound to say this is a slightly flawed way of measuring stuff.
00:56 Some players obviously go on to play well into their late 30s, some players get bad
00:59 injuries in their 20s and start to decline much earlier but when you're planning on
01:02 building a squad this is a useful thing to look at.
01:05 If we factor in the number of minutes played Liverpool are very dependent on a number of
01:09 senior players who are at a stage in their career now where those minutes should be managed.
01:14 Again there are obviously exceptions to this but once you get into your 30s as a professional
01:17 footballer you shouldn't be playing every single week, especially not if you're part
01:21 of a club that is playing two, sometimes three times a week.
01:23 To get the best out of them you need to start using them a bit more sparingly.
01:27 So if we just highlight the players who are 28 or under you can see that Liverpool currently
01:30 aren't really built around them as a squad and the simple reason for that is because
01:35 they're not as good as the older players.
01:37 Now add to this the fact they've got six of these players who are set to leave for
01:40 nothing in the summer.
01:41 Roberto Firmino, James Milner, Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain, Naby Kate and Adrian all have contracts that
01:46 are expiring at the end of the season and Arthur who's admittedly only managed 13 minutes
01:51 in his time at the club will be returning to event this off his loan.
01:54 And you start to see that this is not only an ageing squad but now quite a thin one as
01:59 well.
02:00 So you want to add quality and you want to add depth.
02:02 Those seem fairly normal things but the thing about both of them is they cost you at this
02:06 level an awful lot of money.
02:08 And Liverpool you see are not a team who will just recklessly spend an awful lot of money.
02:12 Yes they've splashed the cash on a number of players all of whom have done very well
02:15 for them but they do tend to stay within their means and the problem they're about to have
02:19 is that those means are about to shrink dramatically.
02:22 Now Champions League money is worth different things to different teams and if that surprised
02:26 you then well yes it also surprised me but the prize money is divvied out differently
02:29 depending on your coefficient and of course how far you go in the competition is also
02:33 a massive factor.
02:34 But according to UEFA's annual financial report Liverpool have banked an additional
02:38 £70 million in prize money alone every single season Jurgen Klopp's had them in the Champions
02:44 League.
02:45 Now you add to that the size of the TV money which is also massive and the fact that a
02:47 stadium like Liverpool's can generate anywhere between £1.5 and £3 million on a match day
02:52 when it's a big European sellout and that's an enormous chunk of their revenue that's
02:57 soon to go missing.
02:58 We're getting slightly into guesswork territory here but Liverpool broke records with their
03:01 annual turnover last season at just shy of £600 million and a rough estimate would say
03:06 about 20% of that came from their involvement in UEFA competitions.
03:10 Basically to boil it down qualifying for the Champions League is probably worth about £100
03:14 million all in to Liverpool and while yes being in the Europa League will claw some
03:18 of that back it won't claw anywhere near that much back.
03:22 One other thing it has to be said they're quite good at is recouping money from player
03:24 sales.
03:25 This season they spent about £120 million on the arrivals of Darwin Nunes, Cody Gakpo
03:29 and Fabio Carvalho but managed to recoup over half of that back with the sales of Sadio
03:33 Mane, Nico Williams and Takumi Minamino.
03:35 If we just have a quick look at the squad again you can see that unless they were willing
03:38 to part with a player who currently gets a lot of minutes and is thus very important
03:42 to how they play there isn't really a standout candidate that screams sell on value.
03:47 Players like Henderson, Thiago and Mane are arguably too old to command any sort of serious
03:51 transfer fee.
03:52 Players like Eliot, Jones and Bochetich are all academy graduates and thus vital for their
03:55 European squad registration.
03:57 Also it's just obviously important to have academy graduates in your squad.
04:01 That leaves you with players like Jota and Dias who would undoubtedly have played a lot
04:04 more minutes if they'd been available for them and realistically would you replace them
04:08 with better players for the money you'd get?
04:10 I don't think so.
04:11 Which is why these five players leaving represent a bit of a problem because Firmino, Milner,
04:15 Oxlade-Chamberlain, Keita and Adrian, none of them would command a big fee on the way
04:19 out but collectively if you got a little bit for all of them that probably buys you one
04:23 or two decent players.
04:24 So just to get back to the original question, are Liverpool absolutely f***ed this summer?
04:28 And yes and no.
04:30 They're certainly not going to be able to do what they would have wanted to do this
04:33 summer which is go out and get one blue chip player to strengthen the midfield and then
04:37 get a couple of quality additions to sort of pad out the first team squad.
04:41 That's not going to happen.
04:42 But what they have got going for them is that historically Liverpool are very good shoppers.
04:46 Like Mo Salah and Andy Robertson were not considered blue chip transfers when they came
04:50 in and even Virgil van Dijk people thought they paid massively over the odds for them
04:54 and then in 12 months time he looked worth double that.
04:57 So if you haven't got £150 million for Jude Bellingham, £60 or £70 on Alexis McAllister
05:01 is actually pretty good.
05:02 They're also about to finish expanding a part of the stadium which means while they're
05:05 going to lose the Champions League money it will help them wring out a little bit extra
05:08 from the matches they do have.
05:10 And most importantly they still have the manager.
05:13 If the fans had turned on Jurgen Klopp this season this could have been like Chelsea levels
05:17 of catastrophe for Liverpool but they stuck by him and now coming towards the end of the
05:21 season what looked like a really bad campaign might still, it's still a chance, be okay.
05:26 And what it means for next season is there is no horrible poisonous atmosphere at Anfield.
05:30 There are not a few bad results in September away from having to sack the manager and tear
05:34 the whole thing up and just start from scratch.
05:36 They can spend the summer finding the right players and finding the right system and if
05:40 it's a slow start it's a slow start.
05:41 They'll have time.
05:42 So yes bottom line no I don't think Liverpool are completely f***ed here.
05:45 I just think they've got an incredibly difficult summer ahead of them and if they mess it up
05:49 then they might be f***ed.
05:51 But hope springs eternal so if you're a Liverpool fan please let me know what you think is going
05:54 to happen in the comments below and if you're not a Liverpool fan please let me know what
05:57 you think is going to happen in the comments below.
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06:19 I've of course been Adam Cleary, this is 442 and I'll see you soon.