I'm not entirely sure I fully understand why some have their pitch forks out ready for the kill when discussing FSG.
There have been mistakes made under their tenure and unpopular decisions made along the way, other issues unresolved. That no doubt creates concern and an element of uncertainty, but we must temper those issues and consider the whole picture.
FSG are a business, ergo their primary concern is to make money for their shareholders, whether that end goal is achieved through yearly dividends or re-sell having made their company more attractive. That is a certainty, they are not a charity nor devout Liverpool fans.
The club was in financial turmoil when they arrived, so there was always going to be a focus to getting the club into a financial sustainable position, the austerity and attempt to get the wages to a suitable percentage of turnover was always going to take place. You can argue that the slashing of the squad is counter productive, but it was inevitable ultimately. FSG have two tools they can attempt to control, 1.) Driving revenues forward and bringing in more money to the club 2.) Looking to cut costs.
They are doing both of these things, they have brought in some fantastic new commercial deals, even in a time when the football is not competitive. Make no mistake securing those commercial deals are not as easy as picking up a phone cap in hand asking for money, it takes long hard work to build up good working relationships and rapport when presenting an opportunity - and it's all proactive work, if it wasn't we'd have had these new long list of companies knocking down our doors back in 2005 / 2007 - they weren't because that is not how these arrangements work, we have to put something saleable together that makes a commercial investment attractive.
So wages - not healthy in % terms of revenue. It needed addressing, they took steps last year to out lots of players and have continued this year, but it's tough when some of the key personnel making the worst ripples in that budget are difficult to offload, it leaves us with little choice, but to consider most of the players as saleable.
We're attempting to pull revenue forward to drag the wage / revenue ratio back into shape, despite all the excellent work done off the pitch, it's still not at a satisfactory level so we needed to continue to trim. This quite conceivably may not have become an issue had we of achieved CL qualification last year, which is possibly why FSG were so quick to take action with the previous management regime, because the repercussions of failure have made them unpopular and forced them to take action on a wage budget that was always going to be controversial as reducing investment is never conducive to improving your competitiveness. But that doesn't mean you can continue to ignore that situation, it had to be dealt with.
The mistakes that were made IMO seem to be a lack of communication and understanding of the full picture, what are the budgets? Is BR fully aware of those budgets... did he know what he had to work with the penny? If so why would he sanction loan moves in the knowledge there was not enough money to replace the players with? Is that Russian Roulette with the owners or was there simply a lack of communication?
This is clearly what Brendan refers to with his 'operational issues' comment in my opinion.
There has to be a strategy, one that targets the growth of revenue (measured) each year against the expected returns of the football (finishing position revenues, Cup wins, European qualification etc) - if you have a plan, stick to it - if it's 2, 3, 5 years - Just make sure there is a plan, transparent and the numbers accurate, because that is all this is, a numbers game. When you have an accurate forecast of what you're able to invest into the playing staff wage budget and transfer budget over the period of 3-5 years the management can put together a progressive strategy and plan to recruit players in terms of priority and allocation of those funds, this isn't rocket science.
The uncertainty however through the requirement to perform 12months into that cycle means you end up having to start from scratch again, that isn't conducive to progressing forward. It's not an efficient approach.
The mistakes need to be learned from this transfer window, the strategy needs to be transparent to everybody involved from owners to board and management and the manager and footballing people need to know they have the full support of that plan / strategy for the period of time it's been set over (2,3, 5 years) That will allow the club to relax, settle down and focus on the job at hand, cut the infighting and focus solely on the execution of the plan at hand, it will also remove some of the pressure - knowing instant results are not expected.
I'm sick to death of all the power plays, struggles and contradictions at our club over the last handful of years, get a F***ing plan on paper, stick to it, see it through.
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