What's the most important decision for you this summer..

I very much doubt the costs of a new stadium will come out of the general income of the club.

The financing of a new stadium is far more likely to be as close to a 50/50 mix of sponsorship and a bank loan.

I'm still very much of the opinion that we don't need too many new players.  Just need that little bit of strengthening in the final third.

Anfield was set up if I remember correctly as a separate entity much like FSG did with Fenway. As such the club itself will lease the stadium and in turn take a % of the gate receipts and merchandise sales where Anfield itself will take the rest.

It would be easy to say stadium if our summer signings had paid off but....

It would be easy to say stadium if our summer signings had paid off but....

.......... Then what would people moan about?

.......... Then what would people moan about?

Getting a stadium done.

Do I shoot myself if the Bitters were to finish above us !

Do I shoot myself if the Bitters were to finish above us !

No unless they beat us in the FA cup semi.

For me,the most important decision is the response from NESV to our season's performance.I would personally prefer them not to throw silly money at "reputation" players.They need to remove under-performing,so called "star" players,re-vamp the squad,and basically do what Shanks did 47 years ago,find the right players from whatever background,to fit our system,not change the system to pander to player's ego's.Reputations are sustained by what you do every week,not what you've done or might do in the future.As Confucious once said,"put up or f&ck off".

Make a move for some world class players!!! We need a stronger squad to compete in the league and so on.Here is a little article i read ........

When Liverpool won their first trophy for six years last month, beating Cardiff on penalties in the Carling Cup final, the club's co-owners John W Henry and Tom Werner were photographed flanking Kenny Dalglish in celebration.

It was the Liverpool manager who placed his arms around them, to bring the three most important men at the club closer together - a picture of unity.

But one month on, with Champions League football for next season now a faded prospect after five defeats in their last six Premier League games, just how long will that triumvirate remain united?

In some respects Henry and Werner might see their first full season in charge as a rerun of their revival of the Boston Red Sox. After all, they won the World Series in 2004, just two years after a takeover.

Only one cup has been handed out so far this season and Liverpool have it. But the Carling Cup is not the World Series. And nor, for all its greater glory, is the FA Cup. And 18 months on from that much-vaunted takeover, after £113million of spending, are Liverpool actually any closer to building a team that might qualify for the Champions League?
 

Are they anywhere nearer building the new stadium the club so desperately need? That is the £65m question that confronts any Liverpool owner, the gap between the £43m Liverpool make each season from matches and the £108m Manchester United make.

In fact, the graph of Liverpool's decline and United's rise correlates almost exactly to the inertia at Anfield over the last 20 years and energy that has been invested in expanding Old Trafford, a 10-year project that started in 1996.

Sources within Liverpool would argue that progress has been made on the stadium since Henry and Werner took over. Two options are being considered: the redevelopment of Anfield or a complete rebuild with a naming rights deal on Stanley Park, for which planning permission has been obtained.


It is said plenty of work is progressing behind the scenes, not least on a naming rights deal. And it is not that the owners are not engaged, despite being in the USA.

Indeed, one of the accusations Henry and Werner face in Boston is that they are spending too much time and money on Liverpool to the detriment of the Red Sox. However, on the day that Liverpool take on Newcastle, there are uncomfortable comparisons they might wish to make with their opponents.

Henry and Werner bought Liverpool evangelising about Moneyball, their baseball philosophy of recognising undervalued talent and using it to bolster both the balance sheet and the trophy cabinet.

They hired a French talent scout in Damien Comolli as director of football to assist Dalglish in spotting such sporting gems and then promptly spent £113m on Andy Carroll, Luis Suarez, Jordan Henderson, Stewart Downing, Charlie Adam, Jose Enrique and Sebastian Coates, as well as obtaining Alexander Doni and Craig Bellamy on free transfers.


Although they have sold players for £69m, Dalglish and Comolli's net spend has been £44m, with only Suarez, Enrique and Bellamy rated successes.

In the same time, Newcastle have spent £22.5m on Demba Ba, Yohan Cabaye, Papiss Cisse, Gabriel Obertan, Davide Santon, Mehdi Abeid and Sylvain Marveaux and have sold players for a total of £48m.

While Liverpool's wage bill was £121m at the last count in 2010, Newcastle's was £53.6m in 2011. And Newcastle are eight points clear of Liverpool. Henry and Werner might be entitled to ask who exactly are the Premier League's Moneyball experts.
 

Observers in Boston say that Henry and Werner are cautious owners, not intemperate hirers and firers in the mould of Roman Abramovich. They did sack Red Sox manager Terry Francona last October but that was after a spectacular end-of-season collapse and after eight years in charge which had elicited two World Series titles.

Dalglish is barely a year into his reign and has already won a cup so it is hardly the time to panic. But after the shambolic 3-2 capitulation at QPR, even Alan Hansen, Dalglish's friend and golf partner, was moved to suggest that Liverpool were becoming little more than a cup team.

Since they last won the title in 1989-90, Liverpool could be said to have challenged in only four title races. And if you are to be a cup team, it does help if one of the cups you win is the Champions League, as Liverpool did in 2005.

Henry and Werner have certainly bought into a famous global brand. But they do not seem much closer to getting the team and stadium to go with it.

great post but i hate all the cup team stuff, why are we "now a cup team", because we won a cup?

it's a long process that will continue this summer. i'd imagine the wage bill will be trimmed down as it was when the new regime came in and we got rid of so many players on obscene wages - although we still have a bunch of them, we're still paying a lot for joe cole aren't we? but if we continue our rebuilding ways it will only get better and we'll only get stronger.

By that reckoning we have been a cup team for some time and not only recently. We have won cups on and off still despite our lack of premier league success. Whilst I am desperate to win the league I would be happy to see us pick up a league and FA Cup win as a consolation, especially during the first full season of a rebuild job.
At the end of the day if we can complete a double then we have still won more than anyone bar whoever wins the league unless Chelsea were to win the CL.....unlikely.
My only concern about no CL football is for attracting players. The likes of Spurs in recent years and Newcastle more recently however have shown that even when you are a team not in the Champions League that you can pick up the players that can improve you and usher you back towards those heights if your scouting team are up to the task.
Im hoping that given this years poor league form that Kenny has learned lessons, be that his own transfers or the fact he has trusted in others making the signings too much.