Thanks Luke. I was (coincidently) getting on to a reply to Diego's post when I read this.
Now that is a reply... nice one. Before I go any further I just want to say; I hope I'm not putting words into your mouth (tell me if I am) - I just want to be clear what you are 'saying'.
Have I picked it up right that there are, amongst others, two major factors as to why a club might not field it's strongest team? I.E.; 1: without "financial backing" the quality of a squad, by nature, isn't up to the job of competing (at the highest level) in all competitions and... 2: If a small club (Auxerre and Villarreal, for example) don't want to "over-stretch" it's better, long-term, for them to "prioritise". See that I get.
Would I be right in thinking that, (for the time being anyhow), for us Liverpool fans to grasp the concept of 'not fielding our best possible team' we (or me anyhow 
) need a change of mind-set?
Should I now be thinking; "We aren't a big club right now and we won't be until we have the finance in place (to field a quality, in depth, team in all competitions)"? Wow that is going to be hard. 
I appreciate your reply mate; it's definitely given me some food for thought. 
To be honest, mate, I think that's the case. Yeah it's a harsh reality but it's also the nature of the game these days, money speaks more and more every day.
It's not to say we can't be competitive though, nor that "we aren't a big club". I surely don't think a team needs to spend as much as Man City to be successful. But without similar resources, we'll have to spend our money more wisely than our competitors. I'm not expecting us to only win a title again with a sugar daddy type of owner, if FSG themselves are willing to give more financial backing to the manager, I'll be optimistic about the future.
After all, Liverpool FC do have a big payroll (not so big now we got rid of so many players, but we don't have the data about this season so I'm talking about recent past), among the Top 4 or at least Top 5. There's a strong historical correlation between wages and league finish, so in the last few seasons we have been underachievers in this aspect.
Underachieving isn't nice but if we're willing to look at it positively, we can see it as a promising sign - the fact we do have the financial power to be near the top, just need to start spending it better.
That is, of course, if the owners are going to re-invest the money they've saved recently instead of cost cutting for its own sake - I'm still sitting on a fence about them so I'll wait and see.
By the way, my post about "anachronism" (is this word the right one in English?) was more specifically directed to the part of the debate trying to compare players of today with players of decades ago. I love football history and I think I know a little bit about it myself but I think too many people live in the past - complain about today's state of the game without thinking about what made it change.
Yes, in the past players were able to play more games with even greater frequency, but we also had alcoholics among the best players in the world. One of the genius of the Brazilian team of the WC 1970 used to smoke a cigarette before each game. That is simply not going to happen in today's game.
Yes, players used to be a lot more loyal to their clubs, but that was also largely due to the fact there were little more to gain moving clubs. Sir Tom Finney played his whole career for Preston North End, surely because he loved the club, but also because he was already paid the maximum wage allowed at the time at Preston, so moving to, say, Arsenal, would make no difference to his life standards at all. In today's game, a player that has the opportunity to improve his and his family's life standards massively will take it irrespective of the love he might have for his club.
I could go on, I think you'll get what I'm saying about "anachronism" here!
