FSG's Lost Season

There has obviously been a massively, overwhelmingly negative response to the way the club handled the end of the transfer window. Plenty of blame, shouting, disbelief and anger to go around along with calls for accountability for all involved with the buck having been passed between Brendan Rodgers, Ian Ayre, Tom Werner and John Henry. Was it stupidity or naivety? Was it underhanded, evil accounting? Was it Ferguson? Was it a lack of scouting? Was it miscommunication? Was it an overwhelming desire to head home for a cup of tea once the clock hit half nine?

Was it by design?

It is the latter that I'm considering as a possibility and maybe not in the way one might initially think. Firstly, consider last summer. Yes, one can explain away expenditure and look at the net spending on transfers and legitimately say that FSG have not ploughed in that much dough, relatively speaking of course. But it certainly appeared as though they spent, or condoned spending, very much with the intention of making a solid push for a Champions League place last year. That and, of course, they demanded as much when revealing that fourth was a minimum requirement for the season. The requirement wasn't met, several lost their jobs and so on we begin the hunt again with Brendan. But expectations for this season were laid out by the owner once again – fourth place wasn’t one of them.

This summer, spending did not appear geared toward another push for fourth either, even in that period of cautious optimism before the final week of the transfer window, after the arrivals of Joe Allen et al. The sanctioned loan of Andy Carroll and that damned dearth of the final day just compounded this notion. By neglecting reinforcements at the front, those responsible severely compromised Liverpool's entire season. But, possibly, this season was not the primary concern for the owners from the off. It is very possible this season is exactly that - a compromise.

North American sports franchises periodically go through a season, or several seasons, of rebuilding. Owners, managers and coaches know quite well that their teams are not expected to hit the heights during these periods. In a world of salary caps, player exchanges and drafts designed to restore parity, these are normal and expected and accepted periods of mediocrity. These are the seasons of Fulham. Building up a team to perform at the very highest levels and compete for championships often takes years of careful planning, scouting and trading or buying players. Once a team has reached its potential, so goes the push for a championship, which may last for a few years. If it doesn't work, the teams get torn apart and start the process over again. This is also a cycle that FSG is very familiar with.

Last season, Liverpool were supposed to make the push for fourth place, which for now is our "championship," by the way. (It was foolish, in retrospect, to expect or hope for it, really. Long gone is the team that had resulted from the last culmination of careful planning and piecing together – Rafa Benitez’ 2008-09 vintage.) Last season didn't work and now we're starting over again. I don't think owners ever believed they had the resources to go for fourth this year and, post-transfer season, I'm quite positive that very few fans do either. This is a lost season, a season of rebuilding, and the very method by which the end of the window was approached by those that we assume to be in charge speaks to that end. The sooner we accept it, the safer(ish) our livers will be. We'll have to ride this one out and, like fans of teams rebuilding in North America, not expect much of anything this year.

Consider the years to come - which one should probably do now or else this all becomes rather more bleak. All those saved wages for this entire season are, or can be if appropriated, real funds for future transfer windows. This wouldn't be the case if Andy Carroll's wages this season were simply passed onto a Clint Dempsey or a Daniel Sturridge. And, to be honest, I can't image there are many who believe this Liverpool plus Dempsey and/or Sturridge is strong enough for a push for fourth anyway.

Next year, more funds should be made available through the oft-ridiculed, but undoubtedly important, commercial end - regardless of the universal loathing of Pinterest and its siblings. Wages saved this year should accumulate a larger transfer chest for next year. Players like Raheem Sterling and Adam Morgan and new recruits like Oussama Assaidi and Samed Yesil should be that much further along in their development. Freshly re-signed players like Luis Suarez, Martin Skrtel and (fingers crossed!) Daniel Agger should theoretically still be here. Rodgers’ systems should certainly be more entrenched. Next year (or even the year after) we can make that push for fourth, along with all the extra transfer spending that ~~should~~ must go hand-in-hand with it. Fourth is, after all, a colossal achievement and extraordinarily difficult to attain once conceded - that the Big Four sustained themselves so regularly, with little to no cracks for years, is proof.

Of course, this is really all just pure speculation. This may be just an attempt at convincing myself FSG has a far-reaching, logical and achievable plan and that they, because of the nature of said plan, didn't want to reveal it so explicitly to an expectant fanbase. I agree this speaks against everything we've been able to ascertain from what Rodgers had said throughout the transfer window. I agree Nuri Sahin's loan signing certainly goes against this abandonment of the short-term. I agree the longer we wait to go for it, the older Steven Gerrard gets. But I'm an optimist, and, if we're going to make a proper push for the Champions League, I’d rather like to believe FSG, through all their actions and investments, would make damn sure when we did we had the platform to get it and then hold onto it.

We can all agree that's not this season, can't we?

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