Ian Ayre out - some Aussie Rules guy in

[rampage]

I hope our next jerseys won't look like that.

 

[King Binny]

Liverpool are paying the price for a lack of leadership
Tony Barrett

For a club who place so much emphasis on their own history, Liverpool have somehow allowed themselves to be drawn into a situation in which they all too easily rubbish their own past.

It is something which has been happening since the removal and subsequent unnecessary public criticism of Kenny Dalglish as manager and it was writ large in John W. Henry’s letter from America with its conspicuous reference to “the errors of previous regimes”.

Depending on your preference, that particular dig was aimed at Dalglish and Damien Comolli, Tom Hicks and George Gillett, Rafael Benitez, Roy Hodgson or Christian Purslow. Whoever the target was doesn’t really matter, particularly as Henry himself was unwilling to name names, but the implicit message was that Fenway Sports Group (FSG), Liverpool’s owner, is clearing up a mess that is of someone else’s making.

There was at least an element of mea culpa about Henry’s open letter to the Liverpool fans: he did, after all, admit that the problems FSG inherited upon buying the club almost two years ago “have been compounded by our own mistakes”. Again, though, this was all in the past tense, and while the belated holding up of hands to accept a degree of responsibility is welcome, there was no indication of what FSG will do to ensure such mistakes are not repeated in the future.

For a club that have spent much of the past five years lurching from one crisis to another the apparent lack of direction and leadership is an increasing concern. It is no coincidence that Liverpool’s cack-handed and ultimately self-harming attempt to defend Luis Suarez against allegations of racial abuse has been followed up by a shambolic conclusion to the transfer window.

On the surface, the two instances may seem totally unconnected and it is unquestionably true that the Suarez case was on a different plane altogether when it comes to importance and gravity, but the link that binds them is a chronic failure of clear leadership from within the club who have been without a chief executive since Rick Parry quit the role three and a half years ago.

In itself, the lack of a chief executive is remarkable for a club of Liverpool’s size and stature. Manchester United have David Gill, Arsenal have Ivan Gazidis, Chelsea have Ron Gourlay, Everton have Robert Elstone and Manchester City recently appointed Ferran Soriano to what has long been regarded in football as a key role, one which can define a club’s ability to compete on the pitch and their effectiveness off it.

Liverpool, whose decline now appears increasingly entrenched and who are yet to come up with a solution to their long-running stadium issues, have no-one. All they have is the over-burdened Ayre and a hotline to Boston which did not appear to be in good working order either on transfer deadline day or when the crisis surrounding Suarez was at its peak.

This failing was not caused by “previous regimes”. FSG bought Liverpool on October 15, 2010 and just five weeks shy of their second anniversary as owners they are still to appoint a chief executive despite having a chairman, Tom Werner, who is based in the US rather than on Merseyside. The lack of local leadership is most evident on match days when Ayre is often the only senior figure from the club’s hierarchy present in the directors box.

Towards the end of last season, Dave Whelan alluded to the problem when he claimed that Liverpool “had no heart beating” after being shocked by the lack of directors present at Anfield during Wigan Athletic’s shock win over Dalglish’s side.

Apart from the ever-present Ayre and their then director of communications Ian Cotton, the majority of Liverpool’s board of directors – namely Henry, Werner, David Ginsberg, Michael Gordon and Jeff Vinik – were nowhere near Anfield on the day of the game, they were in the US.

Absentee owners are not necessarily a problem of course. It’s not as if Manchester City needed Sheikh Mansour to be ever present at the Etihad Stadium last season for them to win their first league title since 1968. But a presence is an absolute necessity because, as Liverpool have found out to their cost, without one it is far too easy for dysfunction to set in and for problems that could be resolved, easily or otherwise, to lurch out of control.

That, it is safe to presume, was one of the reasons why Liverpool ended the transfer window with its left hand not knowing – or worse, not trusting – what its right hand was doing. There was no joined up thinking, just a conflict created by divergent and incompatible philosophies which spiralled because there was no-one ready, willing or able to coax management and ownership to reconcile their strategic differences for the good of the club.

Just as they did after the Suarez saga, Liverpool are now paying a heavy price for the absence of such an individual.

It was almost one hundred years ago that Theodore Roosevelt, the 26th President of the USA no less, stated that “the best executive is the one who has sense enough to pick good men to do what he wants done, and self-restraint to keep from meddling with them while they do it.”

Having failed to do the former by appointing a top-class chief executive, Henry also found himself unable to do the latter as his restrictions prevented Brendan Rodgers from completing a deal to sign Dempsey on the grounds that he has no interest in “quick-fix” signings who “only contribute for a couple of years”.

As Henry, Rodgers and Liverpool might discover to their cost in the weeks and months to come, though, a quick fix is, by its nature, better than no fix. Maybe that is one of the reasons why Liverpool have become so obsessed with castigating those responsible for the failings of their immediate past – they are increasingly concerned about what the future has in store.

But whatever their worries on the pitch, the reality is that they need a top-class chief executive as much as they are crying out for a top-class goalscorer. To lack one for any length of time might be an acceptable risk but to have neither is at best a huge gamble, at worst outright negligence.

 

[gkmacca]

Good on Tony B for that.

 

[Hansern]

Yep, spot on.

 

[Woland]

I don't get why they still haven't got in touch with me.

 

[Rosco]

People are spectacularly missing the point as usual. No good CEO would have done this deal whether they had authority to or not.

Dempsey was not an option for the owners because the team is a million miles from being competitive and Dempsey would not have made us competitive. If you're not competitive then the idea is to be shit for the cheapest price you can be, but for three years now we've been shit and more expensive than the club could afford.

The same people upset about Dempsey are the same ones that were okay with splashing 20m on Downing last season. And to a lesser extent Dempsey would become the same waste of money that we would want rid of if we signed him to a three or four year deal.

We have a good youngish core to the team right now, the way forward is to play them all let them develop shed the older ineffective players, and use money saved to wisely augment that young core - not the current mess of proven expensive shite.

People never consider the alternatives, they want us to spend every penny no matter how little sense the deal makes. And then they wonder (and moan) about why we can't get deals done when players we actually want come available.

 

[Woland]

So why had the club been unsettling him all summer?

 

[Rosco]

So why had the club been unsettling him all summer?

Cos the club is run by retards.

Me and you Woland, we could make it work. Ryan could sort out the bibs and cones for training.

 

[StevieM]

I'm not sure what Barrett is trying to say or do.

We have a CEO which is the same as the more British term MD - Ayre is the MD.

Fine if you want to make the point that he's shite and not up to the job - make the case - wouldn't disagree with it - but he's pussyfooting around the issue, playing to the gallery by taking potshots at the yanks.

It also doesn't matter a jot whether Werner, as Chairman, doesn't live in Liverpool. Man Utd have the Glazer brothers for joint Chairmen - man city's chairman certainly doesn't live in the UK - and I'd never actually heard of Chelsea's - turns out he's an American Acquisition lawyer - but he does live in London. His first football industry experience was working for Abromovich when he took over Chelsea.

The thing is I could almost guarantee the the mandates that the Board handed down to its MD involved increasing non-football revenue streams, and getting a hold of runaway expenditure levels compared to overall income.

You prime Liverpool for success by getting it in to shape - and it's a fat slovenly fuck at the minute that needs to get all rocky and get its shit together.

Teams emerge slowly overtime, painstakingly put together by investing in quality young players - they maintain challengers by being strong as an organization.

Unfortunately it's a slow process only sped up by Large injections of capital from either a sugar daddy or flogging off all your prime assets when their value is highest and spending wisely.

The money for fast tracking isn't there unless we start looking at selling the likes of Gerrard, suarez, Agger - fuck if Rahen has a good season maybe we can get £30m for him.

Failing that it takes time.

In that period of reorganization, Ayre is probably carrying out his mandate relatively well - deals signed, some decent transfer business concluded, expenditure on wages controlled.

 

[Dahuge]

To be fair to Ayre, it would appear he is having to do multiple jobs. Whilst he is increasing the commercial side it would appear that the core side of the business i.e. the football team is slipping into neglect.

I think blaming the Yanks is an oversimplification of the issue, Henry goes on about prudence in the market as does Rodgers, youth is the future. Dempsey is 29 and would have cost a shit load in fees and wages so buying him would have been the wrong thing to do. I would rather they spent £5 million on a 16/17 year old from Europe ready to break through than an average premeir league player who had one great season.

We, as fans, need to look at ourselves. As Ross rightly points out "The same people upset about Dempsey are the same ones that were okay with splashing 20m on Downing last season. And to a lesser extent Dempsey would become the same waste of money that we would want rid of if we signed him to a three or four year deal."

 

[justdoit]

Yeah because it's really smart to spend fucking load of money on Carrol, hendersen and Coates and contribute fuck all to the club on the pitch now. Hey as along as you are young we liverpool club now welcome you to spend your time to warm our bench on 40/60/80K per week. Oh who cares as long as we cut our wage bill!

Every fucking body know that it's better young and good but if you can't have both then good is much more important than young. Just like buying better is much more important than cutting wage bill. Only fucking fool would confuse the priority.

 

[Holle]

I'm not sure what Barrett is trying to say or do.


The money for fast tracking isn't there unless we start looking at selling the likes of Gerrard, suarez, Agger - fuck if Rahen has a good season maybe we can get £30m for him.

I don't think we'd get much for Gerrard anymore.

 

[Molbystwin]

People are spectacularly missing the point as usual. No good CEO would have done this deal whether they had authority to or not.

Dempsey was not an option for the owners because the team is a million miles from being competitive and Dempsey would not have made us competitive. If you're not competitive then the idea is to be shit for the cheapest price you can be, but for three years now we've been shit and more expensive than the club could afford.

The same people upset about Dempsey are the same ones that were okay with splashing 20m on Downing last season. And to a lesser extent Dempsey would become the same waste of money that we would want rid of if we signed him to a three or four year deal.

We have a good youngish core to the team right now, the way forward is to play them all let them develop shed the older ineffective players, and use money saved to wisely augment that young core - not the current mess of proven expensive shite.

People never consider the alternatives, they want us to spend every penny no matter how little sense the deal makes. And then they wonder (and moan) about why we can't get deals done when players we actually want come available.

Just as with the Downing debacle last year I find myself in agreement. Trimming the wage bill is a very VERY good thing considering the shit we have been in in recent years, just as important as making the champs league. Like it or not as it is there is just the one space available for CL qualification and that only if Chelsea or Arsenal have a disaster, with the best will in the world us signing Dempsey would not have changed that, partly because he wouldnt have been enough anyway but also because, IMHO he aint all that great and will not benefit us in the long term which is where we need to be focussing our energy.

Yes obviously it sucks not being in the CL and the shit storm that that creates because of our pedigree, but at the same time unless FFP kicks in or we ourselves sell up to an arab its just not realistic, Dempsey or no. The truth is that even though there is a large amount of schadenfreude and barely hidden glee for many journos and opposition fans in declaring us a mid table team and christening us small fry but thats only half the picture, we still retain a massive following and that wont change, its been 20 odd fucking years already. So much of the hype is just that, hype. 26 years for all the Man U fans in wherever the fuck... it was the loyal hardcore which counted in the long run and the same applies to us. The press might laugh at where we are right now and suckle on the oily champs but still, they are not LFC.

We need to get things right financially and we seem to be making steps towards that, in the meantime we need to get things right on the pitch with the resources we have and right now that means we groom a team and bring through some young players and in honesty im happy with that. I think this man Rodgers seems like he gets that, and he speaks like its an important mission to him unlike fairly recent cunt weve had at the helm*.

If Ayre can manage to keep bringing in sponsors in far flung climes then in all honesty I couldnt give a flying fuck if he wears a logo on his shirt.

OK Maybe Ayre isnt a leader and yes obviously last week was uneccesary and embarrasing but at the same time maybe it was the right call in the long run. A younger hungrier team with it all to prove probably wont do any worse than the fucking shit weve been watching over the last few seasons. You never know IF things start to look up on the pitch maybe just maybe FSG will strengthen us you cant knock them for wasting 100M last time out.

* No before some twerp asks, not Kenny.