Editor’s Column: FSG must sell before summer or Liverpool face decade of mediocrity or worse

As soon as Liverpool conceded the first goal at Molineux on Saturday, you knew we’d lose.

That’s how predictably awful we are right now. The Joel Matip / Joe Gomez partnership is so poor. Neither are leaders and both capitulate when they’re not alongside Virgil van Dijk. Next to the Dutchman, both have often looked like elite centre-backs, which probably says more about Van Dijk than them on the latest evidence.

The fact an 18-year-old novice in Stefan Bajcetic is currently our best player says far too much. Yes, it’s nice to have a promising midfielder coming through the ranks. But that’s all be should be right now; probably enjoying a loan move to the Championship next season. Why is he being made to carry us? Could it have negative long-term effects on his progression?

He wouldn’t get in any other Premier League side’s midfield. Wolves, Newcastle, West Ham and even Everton, with Idrissa Gueye, Abdoule Doucoure and Amadou Onana have better, more compact, physical midfields than Liverpool.

Darwin Nunez and Mo Salah have missed plenty of big chances this season, but even if they’d taken them all we’d still be in this mess. If anything, perhaps it’s good that they haven’t been able to hide all our problems before the summer or FSG would probably refuse to open the pursestrings again…

Before we get onto the off-pitch stuff, the current players need to step up. They are hiding. They are feeling sorry for themselves. They need to get a grip.

That being said, FSG have badly let Jurgen Klopp down, although the current shambles on the pitch is not entirely down to them. Klopp is paid £8m/year and frankly the efforts being put in by the many top quality players at his disposal are nowhere near good enough. Klopp would admit as much himself. But the long-term failure to reinvigorate his squad has left him zapped and his supposedly best players on big contracts, without any legs to fulfil his tactical demands. No midfielder has been permanently signed since Thiago in 2020. That is an abomination in planning terms on every level.

The so-called ‘Brain Drain’ is in full effect off the pitch, too. All the best people, those who made the football decisions that helped Liverpool climb to the very top, have left or are leaving. Mike Gordon is trying to sell the club or a percentage of it and his closeness with Klopp day to day has ended. Sporting director Michael Edwards walked, as his successor Julian Ward is doing come the end of this season. Dr. Ian Graham, the best football analyst in the business, is going. Every one of note has decided to leave a clearly sinking ship. Klopp has been given more power over transfer targets and the approach is confusing. Why did we buy an attacker in Cody Gakpo who doesn’t have pace and doesn’t run at defenders? That is the opposite of our identity.

Liverpool need a sporting director of note, but also a team around him who can make the big, bold decisions. It cannot be argued that the choice, driven by Klopp, to award Fabinho and Jordan Henderson big new contracts is looking increasingly sentimental. Remember, Klopp wanted Mario Gotze and Julian Brandt. It was the transfer nerds who persuaded him into buying Sadio Mane instead, the first key signing of his legacy.

But this sporting director requires owners who are willing to financially compete with our rivals. FSG have given up. They don’t want to spend the transfer fees required to rebuild a team and we no longer have young, sellable assets, like Coutinho, who could fund it.

They want to sell and they need to do so quickly, as the value in their asset is dropping with every loss, especially with the increasing possibility that we won’t be playing in Europe next season. They should be congratulated on the things they’ve done well – appointing Klopp, expanding the stadium, building the new training ground – but also judged on their mistakes: trying to trademark Liverpool, furloughing staff during covid and the attempted European Super League coup.

Mentally, I’ve given up on this season, although will still cheer ferociously in the upcoming Champions League ties with Real Madrid, whatever the score this. After all, it might be our last for a while.

What we should be hoping for is progress with the club’s new owners. The reality is there hasn’t been enough concrete interest from realistic buyers, as Liverpool should not and cannot be owned by a government or a regime.

Finding the right billionaire is tough, but the wrong ones are currently at the helm and a root and branch operation is required to give Klopp the best chance of discovering gold a second time.