Liverpool owners 'underestimated how poor squad was' when buying club in 2010...

[Windom Earle]

Liverpool owners 'underestimated how poor squad was' when buying club in 2010... with Fernando Torres and Pepe Reina slammed as 'past their prime'

• The quality of Liverpool's squad was 'poor' when FSG took over in 2010
• Owners Fenway Sports Group forced into giving evidence in legal dispute
• Mill Financial opened legal proceedings against RBS and George Gillett
• Gillett and former co-owner Tom Hicks failed to repay £280million loan
• Edward Weiss, FSG's former general counsel, was in attendance at hearing
• Weiss singled out Fernando Torres and Pepe Reina as 'past their primes'

By MATT MALTBY FOR MAILONLINE
PUBLISHED: 12:33, 3 March 2016 | UPDATED: 12:43, 3 March 2016


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Liverpool owners Fenway Sports Group 'underestimated how poor' the quality of the squad was when taking over in 2010 ‒ with Fernando Torres and Pepe Reina slammed as 'beyond their prime'.
A legal dispute between Mill Financial, the Royal Bank of Scotland and the club's former co-owner George Gillett has forced FSG into giving evidence.
Legal proceedings against RBS and Gillett were opened by American firm Mill Financial after the former co-owner and business partner Tom Hicks were unable to repay a £280million loan when FSG replaced them as owners in 2010.

Liverpool owner John W Henry (left) and chairman Tom Werner (right) watch a training session this season

Fenway Sports Group 'underestimated how poor' the quality of squad was when taking over the club in 2010
Current Reds owner John W Henry did not attend but Edward Weiss, FSG's former general counsel, was in attendance and he revealed the team's lack of quality on the pitch at the time of the takeover.
Speaking at the hearing, Weiss said: 'Like trying to catch a knife falling off the table, you're not sure where before it's hit the ground you've caught it.
'You know, I think we underestimated how poor the playing quality of the squad was, and frankly, we underestimated how difficult it was going to be to stabilise the asset.
'We were overconfident in assuming that many of the things that we had done in Boston at Fenway would translate naturally to the Premier League and they just didn't all translate.'
At the time of their takeover, Liverpool had the likes of Steven Gerrard, Jamie Carragher and Dirk Kuyt all starring for the Premier League giants.
However, Weiss ‒ who revealed FSG watched one Liverpool match before buying the club ‒ also admitted that a number of the club's leading names were all beyond their primes and singled out Spanish pair Torres and Reina for criticism.

According to Edward Weiss, FSG's former general counsel, the quality of the squad was 'poor' in 2010

Weiss singled out criticism for former Liverpool striker Fernando Torres (pictured in September 2010)

Ex-goalkeeper Pepe Reina, who made a calamitous error in 1-1 draw with Arsenal in 2010, was also criticised
'We obviously did some due diligence on the playing squad during this process before we closed on the transaction in the middle of October of 2010,' he added.
'What we came to know was that the playing squad was poor.
'While we had a few top players like Steven Gerrard, other players like Fernando Torres and Pepe Reina were probably beyond their primes, and Javier Mascherano was not even on the team.'

Liverpool players cut dejected figures after Reina's mistake gifted the Gunners a draw at Anfield

Chairman Werner, Linda Pizzuti - the wife of Henry - and the Liverpool owner in the stands at Anfield in 2010




Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/fo...-Reina-slammed-past-primes.html#ixzz41qMpuDjw
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Interesting comments. The quote about methods not translating seems to tie-in with what we've seen, there was a definite approach to begin with with Comolli and the age of the signings - the approach seems rudderless now though.

 

[Mors]

So they realised several years ago that their approach to stabilising the asset and the playing squad wasn't working, so I'm not entirely sure what they've done to rectify that? Maybe they thought the fix was the committee and that it wasn't the committee previously? I presume Klopp won't be using the committee, he'll listen to them possibly, but it'll be him and what his guys want.

 

[Rafiagra]

I'd rather still have Reina than Mignolet.

 

[Markeh]

who revealed FSG watched one Liverpool match before buying the club

Thats how much of a no-brainer the deal was, we could have been fielding 11 wheelie bins and they'd still make a killing.

 

[SummerOnions]

Thats how much of a no-brainer the deal was, we could have been fielding 11 wheelie bins and they'd still make a killing.

That was the game they watched Downing play in

 

[Comical Aly]

Thats how much of a no-brainer the deal was, we could have been fielding 11 wheelie bins and they'd still make a killing.

No time to watch actual games when you're spending your days doing due diligence on potential Asian market sizes and new TV deals.

 

[gkmacca]

They went to see one game before they decided to bid. Terrific attention to detail.

 

[Lippy]

And all they had to do was visit any LFC forum to be told how shit the team were and what needed to be done to correct the situation. When will these people learn?

 

[Richey]

Not sure which match they watched but given that it was under Hodgson I don't understand how they didn't realise that the team was bloody awful.

Strange statement about Mascherano too. 'Not even on the team'. Well, no, he wasn't. He wasn't even at the club by then!

 

[tombrown]

What exactly does this have to do with the case? Are they claiming, now, that they were the victims of the same epic swindle as poor ol' Tom & George?

 

[manwithnoname]

What a load of bollocks. They did some due diligence on the squad? What did that involve? Or was it actually that one game?

Who was making these incredibly informed decisions about the quality of the squad? Tom Werner? And how perspicacious of FSG to spot that Torres was past his prime, yet Chelsea didn't, and paid 50m for him, a transfer FSG didn't in any way encourage, despite apparently knowing he was past his best.

transparent, risible, drivel.

They got an asset at a vastly reduced price; Hicks & Gillette know it, FSG know it, and we know it.

The only accurate and truthful bit is how their assumption that a transposed baseball business model would succeed, was totally flawed.

 

[BoysPen]

What a load of bollocks. They did some due diligence on the squad? What did that involve? Or was it actually that one game?

Who was making these incredibly informed decisions about the quality of the squad? Tom Werner? And how perspicacious of FSG to spot that Torres was past his prime, yet Chelsea didn't, and paid 50m for him, a transfer FSG didn't in any way encourage, despite apparently knowing he was past his best.

transparent, risible, drivel.

They got an asset at a vastly reduced price; Hicks & Gillette know it, FSG know it, and we know it.

The only accurate and truthful bit is how their assumption that a transposed baseball business model would succeed, was totally flawed.

Agree with this - and well done for using 'perspicacious' - one of my favourite words of all time - and it appeared in the 'chart topping' single (pop pickers) Lily the Pink by the Scaffold.

Coincidentally, the very same scaffold that should have been used to hang Hicks and Gillett

 

[Oliver Twist]

By MATT MALTBY FOR MAILONLINE

 

[dantes]

What a load of bollocks. They did some due diligence on the squad? What did that involve? Or was it actually that one game?

Who was making these incredibly informed decisions about the quality of the squad? Tom Werner? And how perspicacious of FSG to spot that Torres was past his prime, yet Chelsea didn't, and paid 50m for him, a transfer FSG didn't in any way encourage, despite apparently knowing he was past his best.

transparent, risible, drivel.

They got an asset at a vastly reduced price; Hicks & Gillette know it, FSG know it, and we know it.

The only accurate and truthful bit is how their assumption that a transposed baseball business model would succeed, was totally flawed.

In their position, only an idiot would be accurate and truthful before the court.

 

[Windom Earle]

What a load of bollocks. They did some due diligence on the squad? What did that involve? Or was it actually that one game?

Who was making these incredibly informed decisions about the quality of the squad? Tom Werner? And how perspicacious of FSG to spot that Torres was past his prime, yet Chelsea didn't, and paid 50m for him, a transfer FSG didn't in any way encourage, despite apparently knowing he was past his best.

transparent, risible, drivel.

They got an asset at a vastly reduced price; Hicks & Gillette know it, FSG know it, and we know it.

The only accurate and truthful bit is how their assumption that a transposed baseball business model would succeed, was totally flawed.

Having given this some more thought, they've never fully stuck to what was understood to be the "model" in terms of the manager set up.

Initially it looked like a DoF with a young manager underneath was their ideal. We had Comolli but they abandoned the young manager aspect in favour of giving Kenny a crack of the whip. When they did get the young up-and-comer they abandoned the DoF idea for him (if reports at the time are correct).

Finally, they've tossed out the young up-and-comer idea in favour of an experienced continental manager (albeit one that is still pretty youthful in manager terms).

Obviously, in terms of transposing the model from baseball to football, there's a lot more than just manager and DoF at play or even player recruitment. I'd be keen to know what else they tried to bring over from Boston that didn't work. I'm not a baseball fan so really have no understanding of how the Boston Red Sox operate.

I believe (but maybe wrong) that Rosco and LTW follow some baseball, do you guys have any insight?

 

[localny]

What a load of bollocks. They did some due diligence on the squad? What did that involve? Or was it actually that one game?

Who was making these incredibly informed decisions about the quality of the squad? Tom Werner? And how perspicacious of FSG to spot that Torres was past his prime, yet Chelsea didn't, and paid 50m for him, a transfer FSG didn't in any way encourage, despite apparently knowing he was past his best.

transparent, risible, drivel.

They got an asset at a vastly reduced price; Hicks & Gillette know it, FSG know it, and we know it.

The only accurate and truthful bit is how their assumption that a transposed baseball business model would succeed, was totally flawed.

You're some Son of (Blankety Blank) Brendan.