Don't Point The Finger At Alexander-Arnold. This Is A Mess Of FSG's Making
A column about Liverpool
SOME THINGS ARE boring but need to be addressed. In an ideal world, I’d never write another word about Trent Alexander-Arnold’s contract. Or Mo Salah’s. Or Virgil van Dijk’s.
But these players – along with Alisson Becker – comprise the backbone of a side that is well placed to win the Premier League title. It’s January. They can negotiate with foreign teams and leave for free in June. Imagine Liverpool bring the Premier League trophy back to Anfield. The celebrations would be massive. But so would the hangover if one or more of these three players exit.
It could be that this team is breaking up before our eyes. Surely Arne Slot doesn’t fancy ripping things up and starting again?
The most swivel-eyed, crazed section of the Liverpool fanbase are the FSG Outers. Fenway Sports Group have made many mistakes in their 15 years of ownership but they have delivered a title and a Champions League trophy. In the era of Manchester City and 115 charges, that’s more impressive than it initially looks. In the round, they’ve been very good for the club.
However, they’ve buggered up these contracts in a spectacular manner.
A year ago, the club were telling anyone who’d listen that Alexander-Arnold was the priority. He’s 26, Scouse and prodigiously talented.
Which means his contract extension should have been on the table in the summer of 2023. It’s still hard to imagine why it wasn’t.
There are no excuses. Michael Edwards and Julian Ward, successive sporting directors, left the club and that created a vacuum. Mike Gordon, the FSG man most involved with the club, took a step back. So what? Was there no one left with a brain and authority? Come on, someone senior – even John W Henry, the principal owner – had to see this coming and act. Instead, they’ve sleepwalked into a scenario where they look stupid and could end up with top-class players leaving.
Slot has got them off the hook for the time being. If things had gone wrong and Liverpool were anywhere else but the top of the table, there’d be uproar.
Any explanations are pathetic. Jorg Schmadtke wasn’t a real sporting director, they say. Well, give the assignment to someone with authority.
They wanted to see what the next manager thought after Jurgen Klopp decided to leave. Well, if the German’s successor didn’t want a player like Alexander-Arnold, then he shouldn’t have been in the frame for the Anfield job (yes, I’m looking at you, Sir Gareth bloody Southgate).
I can understand that there’s some reluctance to make a full back the club’s highest paid player. Yet Alexander-Arnold is more than that. Would it have been easier to make a deal had the experiment to use the right back in midfield been continued?
By the time Klopp moved on, most opponents had worked out how to limit the impact of Alexander-Arnold and Andrew Robertson. Under Slot, the full backs are no longer the creative fulcrum of the team. But Alexander-Arnold offers so much. And there was an even more basic reason for signing him up early – to guarantee a fee in the case he does want to move on.
Yep, they’ve ballsed this one up.
There’s more sense in the approach to Salah and Van Dijk. At 32 and 33 respectively, there has to be a little wait-and-see involved. Even then, having two mainstays fall out of contract at the same time isn’t clever. FSG might have got both thirtysomethings to settle for a bit less a year ago in a bid by the players to guarantee some security. There’s no chance of that now.
Salah is having the season of a lifetime. He’s improving, for God’s sake!
Van Dijk looks like a man in his pomp. Neither relies on pace and the chances of their legs suddenly going appear tiny.
Real Madrid trying to push through a January move for Alexander-Arnold is telling. The smart money says he’ll be at the Bernabeu next season.
A Salah deal is still “far away.” The Egyptian won’t come cheap. He’s the best player in the world and knows it.
The captain is the closest to signing. It will be great for Liverpool if Van Dijk stays. But it would be even better if this squad could be kept together for more than one title challenge.
The suspicion is that FSG cannot afford – or are not willing to pay – for all three. The market for the trio could not be higher.
The owners have always had spells where they seemed to lose interest in the club. Henry has had one eye on selling Liverpool for a decade – those are words I heard from his own mouth.
FSG quite fancy the idea of owning the NBA expansion franchise in Las Vegas. The Boston Celtics are available, too, and are an appealing prospect although this would be a less likely move into basketball.
None of this matters. FSG should have done better by Liverpool.
They were asleep at the wheel and then probably expected a prolonged rebuilding period under Slot. The new manager surprised them – and almost everyone.
It’s turned out that this team does not need to be revamped. It would be a shame if it loses key components when, with a bit of forethought, it could have been held together for longer.
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