Poll: Grading the Owners’ First Year

Spending,but spending 20m on weak players like henderson is my only concern

Guys.  We are in heaven compared to where we were before.  Plans, funds to invest, a strategy (that will have to change if it doesn't work), business focus as Gano1 says below, owners who see success as the way to protect an investment.

The strategy, like all others, is a risk.  Buying younger players who need developing.  Will it cost us 4th?  

But the squad is pretty balanced between seniors crying out for a game, players at or near a prime age and youngsters with large dollops of EPL promise/experience (and wages that don't break the bank).

If players aren't working out I've no doubt we will buy again.  Sure you would have to say Spurs are further along in their building process where young players have had a chance to settle and develop, but that is only going to instill a sense of urgency into the club.  They can't take anything for granted which is probably why we are winning ugly.

I think the acceptance of players like Carroll and Henderson is an age thing.  Everyone expects them to get better and we have some very fine seniors backing up the squad.

We have to improve and build everywhere (defence, midfield and attack) but I expect a strong run in to the end of the season as the team settles and performances improve not to mention we won't run out of players through injuries.

Today Liverpool announced another sponsorship deal this time with The Radisson hotel group, yet more good news commercially. After signing a deal recently with Honda (Asia), this is just what we expect of FSG. We are in safe hands with business now part of our planning, unlike before!!!!

FSG have been like a lung-full of clean, cool mountain air for us Redmen, after a couple of years choking on the acrid fumes of our club going down in flames. I, for one, have enjoyed breathing deeply, especially since the inspired appointment of Kenny Dalglish.

There is an element of the nouveau-riche spoilt-brat creeping into much of the discourse between 'fans' of LFC which I must admit to finding distasteful. People love to bitch and whine and, Fowler knows, followers of LFC have had ample reason to do both since H'£$%s and Gi£**t began their asset-stripping tenure.

Don't get me wrong, I'm the first to have a wee moan if I don't agree with selection or tactics or if someone in a red shirt isn't doing the crest justice. I also think that forums like this one are hugely important for clued-in fans to learn and discuss and complain and disagree at times.

There are ways of doing things, however, and I just believe that disparaging the integrity and football knowledge of Kenny Dalglish, someone with a far superior Knowledge of the game than me or anyone else riding a keyboard is obscene and absurd...and also plain fucking disrespectful. I also fail to see the benefit in the type of ridicule some players are being held up to. If they're not putting in the effort, by all means have a go but don't bleat about a guy with a Liverbird on his chest just because he isn't in your dream XI.

We are not manc bandwagon 'fans'. We are not the new Chelski fans drunk on purchased success. We are LFC. If you don't see the delineation then you can, politely, fuck off. Hats off to John Henry, FSG and Kenny for restoring our dignity and pride (they matter to proper Redmen) and let's try to be patient with this huge undertaking. It may be a bumpier and longer road than any of us would prefer...but at least we're on it folks.

two thumbs up brother Trev...even if there is a touch of the curmudgeon in there (and it's a nice change up from your usual sunny-side up - and for a good cause to boot). way to try and set a standard.

which reminds me, if those banksters are willing to cough up the loot, i'd be happy with our guys playing home games at The Standard. Chartered at Anfield.

Dude, preach. I have no beef with holding Dalglish and the players up to criticism when warrented, but there are times where that criticism hits a level of contempt that both surprises and disappoints me.

I was angry with Liverpool/FSG purchase of Carroll not that i don,t rate him or the cost, it was irresponsible of the club to gamble on him at that time .We needed a ready to go striker. Carroll should have been picked up in the summer. Other than that top marks form me. Well done and THANKS FSG

I think there are many who think the same as you and that is where you either have to agree with the FSG philosophy or you don't.  You have to forget the price tag as it wasn't ever £35m in the bank.  Torres would never have gone for £50m cash.

While more 26-28 year old (or younger) ready proven players would be attractive from a fans' perspective, the best are certain to go for CL footy and command quite incredible wages.  So who would you have bought?   Odemwingie maybe?  If Suarez types were common everyone would have one.  

We did well with Bellamy but I believe it was because we couldn't get some 26/27 hr old guy from Italy and even in January we were never going to go for the likes of Adebayour even if he was an option.

FSG have gone for some key players who are still developing due to their age but proven in the EPL and happy to be at the club which is buying for the long term.

Of course the risk is you lose the 4th place because the balance in purchases wasn't correct.  But we've been keeping our strong seniors on the side lines so far.

Personally I think Adam is a far bigger question mark than Carroll but I hope they will both improve.  Adam has to improve his positioning on the pitch and we have to give Carroll better service.

The telling number from analysis by one of the bloggers is it looks like what has cost us points is too many attempts off target (not counting the Spurs game).  But as others have pointed out, we are winning ugly right now - that's not a bad thing as we all expect improvement to come.

The $35 million pound transfer fee for big Andy has done a great disservice to the kid. FSG would have been much better served reporting the Suarez fee as $35 million and the Carroll fee as $27 million. This way we could all focus on how great a buy Suarez was, and he only cost $35 million! Hell, I'd even rather have Suarez than Kun and look what City paid for him. Heck, we sold Torres for $50 million and bought Suarez for $35 million, freaking FSG geniuses.

The truth probably is that FSG were unsure what Suarez would be. He looked great in the Dutch leagues, but what has that ever meant in the past in the EPL? Buying two really good strikers was insurance for losing Torres. If one is great and one is just really good, hey that's fine. Andy is still only 22 and has much potential to develop. The immediate expectations of greatness are just currently overwhelming. And, if they wanted to have too marquee strikers come in at the same time to continue the positive karma at the club, that's fine too. It's their money, after all.

Let's see. We have Suarez, Carroll, Bellamy and Dirky in a pinch. One is world class, one is pretty good and could become great, one is fast, mean and tricky as shit and one has perpetually fully charged batteries. I don't think too many of us will quible with that quartet.

As, some guy once said......NotTooXabi.

I know Henry has explained the Torres + 15 concept, but we can't pretend to know what the outcome would have been had there not been a corresponding move, i.e. if Chelsea had bought Torres outright. There is just no way to know, so we can't pretend like we could not have gotten 50 mil for him. I think the main gripe about the move isn't about Carroll per se, but it's that, if we were that hard pressed to replace Torres that day (to save face, to help the team, whatever), then it isn't logically consistent to buy 'one for the future' who wasn't even fit to play during the time of the transfer.

Forget Carroll ...

I still think we should have signed that Justice Floyd fella....

Joe Janusiewski.

Linda Pizzuti.

Like Hoppe said, I've liked FSG so far, except for some issues with transfers, mainly the Andy Carroll transfer. It's been no secret that my support for Andy Carroll is because he's now a Liverpool player,  not because I have high hopes of him becoming great, for I doubt he will be the man to lead Liverpool forward. I, like many others it seems, are supporting him because "we're stuck with him and we are making the best of it". Which is the best option for us as fans.

I've heard lots of arguments that are pro-Carroll, but they are mainly following the same frame of mind, "we're stuck with him and we are making the best of it". for instance, "give him time to learn the pass and move game, he's young and can adapt to our style of play". Why did we buy a player in the first place that was going to need to learn to adapt so much, when we needed a Torres replacement immediately? And that's not even taking into account that he was injured when we purchased him, which I thought was another big mistake.

Suarez is the polar opposite of Carroll in regards to FSG's good or bad decision making. He was cheap (compared to what we've paid for every other player minus Charlie Adam this year), he was mostly fit and was just as quick-footed as Torres, if not faster. He worked harder than Torres, was more creative; he could fit into any position up top that we needed. Carroll was injured, works less than Torres, had lesser ball skills forward, and like Torres, only played one position well. I thought it was obvious from the first news of him coming to Liverpool that he was only going to halt any kind of pass and move football Dalglish was going to use to rescue the club from being Midtable.

Yet, instead of getting him cheap and using him as another tool in the box, we payed an outrageous amount of money for him, completely canceling-out all the profit made off the Torres transfer. I don't know if they jumped the gun because they wanted to show the fans they were willing to spend, or to avoid criticism of leaving us weak in the striker position, although the second point was still not answered because they bought an injured striker. I really hope the were thinking something along the lines of one of those 2 points, and not thinking he was really what the team needed to get back into Europe. When FSG were talking about some of our summer transfers, they mentioned that the players "checked all the boxes". I don't see Carroll checking any of the boxes I would have when looking for a striker replacement, so there is a lot of concern of what they are looking for in players(because I are awesome and play FIFA 12 enough to know what it takes to make or break, yo). A player who's brightest moments came from the 2nd division of English football, and who's recent success in the premier league came from set pieces, good positioning, and luck (not trying to be dog the guy, seriously. I've seen the goals. *snooozeBAM-GOALand the eagle fllllllllliiieeessss ponytail bobble ponytail bobble*), what boxes was he checking, exactly? He must have been really good to spend enough money to break the British transfer record, yet no one else seems to see it but FSG and a few fans "making the most of it".

I think they made the mistake of jumping the gun. Things were looking so positive. Suarez was in, Dalglish was in, the new owners in and everyone loved them, Babel was out, nothing could stop us. So when the opportunity to buy a young English striker came, they chose to finish the winter off with a real bang. Or something like that. It doesn't make sense to me. And yes, being English had something to do with it, it's obvious. You have to be blind or somewhat color-blind to not notice that football talent has been coming overseas the past 10 years, if not longer. But I'm loosing my cool on that matter and I guess that is mostly an opinion of mine. But think about the options we would have had in the summer. For example:

Radamel Falcao. Holy fucking shit. If I know who he is, FSG know who he is. And certainly all of you know who he is. I have some family ties to Portugal, and because of that, I've spent a good amount of my football watching Porto and the like over the years. Therefore, I might be biased for being a Porto fan. I got to cheer and belt out in excitement as Mourinho took the world by storm and won the Champions League. I was much younger then and knew very little about football, other than we were kicking ass and it was awesome. I've seen Porto supply Europe with as much talent as Barcelona. Okay, I went too far, that was a joke. But there would be no Chelsea without Porto, and by the way things are going lately, there will soon be no Chelsea without Liverpool. Falcao is the most recent talent. Him and Hulk were one of the most explosive winger/striker attacking pairs in Europe last season. They were high up on the world stage, an unbeaten league run, Europa league trophy, they were in the champions league this season, up against Barcelona in the supercup.....and he left for Pathetico Madrid.

ATHLETICO MADRID, seriously???! Yes. WHY??! Oh. because he had a 40 million Euro buyout clause(thanks wikipedia). Athletico are not in Europe(sound familiar?), they lost their 2 top strikers (sound familiar?), they are trying to make a comeback after a very bad season (sound familiar?), and they had a huge chunk of change after loosing their best forward to a money-whore English club (SOUND FAMILIAR YET????). If Carroll had not been purchased, we would have the money to purchase him. And if this opens up an argument about which player is better, then,...I don't even know. I find it hard to believe he wanted to join Athletico, and even harder trying to believe he wouldn't have wanted to come to England more, to really prove himself on the second biggest club football stage after the Champions League, especially when he would be pairing up with Suarez, making an attacking force that was equal to Aguero/Silva.

I've wasted too much of your time to talk about the other transfers, but I will eventually. I'll just leave you with this lineup, and try to tell me this wouldn't have been better:

----------------Reina-----------------
Johnson----Carra-----Agger---Enrique-
-------------Lucas----Gerrard--------
----Kuyt---------Suarez-----Downing
------------------Falcao---------------

Bench: Coates, Rodriguez, Bellamy, Henderson, Adam, Doni, Skrtel

Or, if FSG did better in other areas of transfers:

-----------------Reina---------------
Johnson---Coates--Agger---Enrique
------------------Lucas--------------
----------Meireles------Gerrard-----
Downing----------------------Suarez
-----------------Falcao---------------

Bench: Kuyt, Rodriguez, Bellamy, Henderson, Adam, Carragher, Doni

DISCLAIMER: YES I LOVE FSG BEING IN CONTROL, THEY JUST FUCKED UP WITH CARROLL AND MEIRELES, DALGLISH FUCKED UP WITH LETTING HENDERSON AND ADAM PLAY SO MUCH, GERRARD FUCKED UP FOR NOT TAKING HIS PENICILLIN FOR THE GROIN DONG, CARRA FUCKED UP BY TALKING SO MUCH, CARROLL WILL BECOME GOOD EVEN IF ITS NOT NEARLY AS GOOD AS OTHER ALTERNATIVES COULD HAVE DONE, SUAREZ KICKS ASS, KUYT KICKS ASS, AND WOOHOO TO A  POSSIBLE FOURTH PLACE WITH A NEW EXPERIENCED DEFENDER THIS WINTER.

There was a huge issue in January about whether Liverpool had become a second rate selling club and if it really had ambition.

FSG certainly needed to make a statement and "Carroll + £15m" was very clever business for a player who was in demand and was never going anywhere for less than £20m-£25m.  We never had £35m in the bank, in fact that was the most Torres would have gone for as cash.
  
And he was considered a foil for a more creative striker, complete with a goal scoring ability.  Perhaps mobility should have played a higher part in the decision.

The impact was massive at the time and all the media talk about the club turned positive overnight. I have no doubt FSG were worried by Torres leaving and their investment was at risk if liverpool were branded a selling club with no ambition.

Was there an alternative striker they should have gone for?  That's tough.  I'm an Odemwingie fan, but he's only had one EPL season aswell.  

I wouldn't mind betting that we had others on the wanted list but they weren't an option for us.  Bellamy arrived apparently because some guy from the Italian league wasn't an option.

"We never had £35m in the bank, in fact that was the most Torres would have gone for as cash."

There is no possible way you could know that.

Benitez would have bought a falcao but that's another can of worms.

nice take, man and i agree that falcao is a better player than carroll probably will ever be, but i can't help but feel you're being a bit harsh on the big lug.  mainly, i dont buy into the idea that we are asking carroll to turn into david villa all of a sudden with his passing and movement - he's a big lug #9, i think that's exactly the dynamic kenny was looking for to add some aerial/physical dominance in a squad that wasnt the tallest and strongest... now, granted there are other physical #9s out there that are better with the ball at their feet and can be had for the price we paid for carroll, but the fact remains the dude is young yet, he is still developing, and he still has the potential to be england's #9 for the next decade, so he's not the worst player we cuda gotten in our side...

Right on. Like I said, he's a Liverpool player now so I really want him to be the best he can be. I guess I was being so harsh hoping that others would take a closer look at the decision to purchase Andy Carroll than I think people have. I see the positives of the Carroll transfer as well. One of them is that he will loyal to Liverpool. I think most of Liverpool fans realize that Suarez isn't here for life, it's just the way the world is these days. He'll stay until Real Madrid or Barcelona come knocking, and then we'll get a pretty penny for him. I don't think he'll leave in an ugly way like Torres, but he will leave eventually. I don't see Carroll leaving unless we don't want him anymore. English boys don't travel much, and with all the big spending clubs buying up the flashy technical superstars from overseas, I just don't see Chelsea or Arsenal banging on our door for Carroll. The only other major club that would take him would be someone like Manchester United, and I hope to GOD that our rivalry is enough to keep a native from switching sides. But then again, we might get "Michael Pwened" by him. Carroll can only go down in his career by leaving Liverpool. This is as good as it gets for him, so he better make the most of it.

he might get displaced by the likes of Welbeck.  Rooney isn't making way for anyone.

Red mist Rooney has been known to do the disappearing act for England. Look at his world cup play, jeered by the English fans. And the Montenegro red card.  But, yea, his place is probably cemented in. A big physical presence like Andy is a valuable asset for an international side.
 
But, maybe the real question is... what will Woy do next year?

Well, it's an interesting question - will he still be at WBA?  He recently got his first clean sheet, since becoming manager, but only has one win this season - at Norwich.

They were scoring for fun last year, odemwingie was an absolute pain for all defences and getting results all over the place as Hodgson just tigtened their defence enough to not lose all the time.

If they don't pick up points soon, they could go into the new year feeling very negative, so the England job might be a get out of jail free card for Woy.  Blackburn and Bolton are pretty clueless this year, Wigan pretty weak, keeping them out of the bottom 3.

However  I can't see England going from Capello (£24m richer) to Hodgson.  No idea who the FA will go with but I'm sure they'll fuck it up again.

How hard is it put out 3 or 4 letters to likely candidates inviting them to apply.

Jonny. I actually support England. They better get someone good. Is the FA blind? Did they not see what happened to Liverpool? Woy should stay at WBA or go back to Italy. Or maybe try Spain. The weather is good for an old guy. Stay the fuck away from any teams I like. Please! I was joking about our boy Woy.

And as you mentioned, for the money they're paying, they better get someone really good.

Ha. I picked A, but I suppose the Carroll transfer (if it was FSG-driven, which no one is in the position to know) could be a mark against them. 

That said, while I agree that the Carroll transfer was misguided, bringing up Falcao does a disservice to the argument, as do all those who bring up Aguero. This is a false choice, for a number of reasons. Carroll's wages are much much less than Aguero's and probably much less that Falcao's (couldn't find details, but considering what Athletico were paying Aguero and Forlan, I would expect it's a lot more than 80k/wk). You can't just ignore that by banging on about the transfer fees being close. Furthermore, even if he could have been convinced to play for a team not in the CL, I highly doubt Falcao was going to move in January from a team that had a chance to go unbeaten in the domestic league to a club challenging for nothing more than the Europa League, and looking much worse in it than Porto at that. 

I think it's pretty clear either Kenny, Commolli, FSG, or all badly wanted a Torres replacement in January, and Carroll may well have been the best available. I think that was a mistake from a footballing perspective--it would have made a lot more sense to take a shot on a pacy poacher from a smaller league, and then spend the big money in the summer--but FSG may have thought it necessary from a PR perspective, or Kenny may have thought it was necessary so that a rapport could be built up for the beginning of this season. Both were wrong, IMO, but understandable. 

So, all that said, I sure as hell wish we'd told Mike Ashley to go fuck himself, but I don't think it's nearly so obviously idiotic as you make it out to be. 

Good points, although I will say I wasn't suggesting buying him in the winter, but waiting until the summer, where it would have been a real option. But that said, the wage issue is only really an issue if we can't afford it, because that's the difference between Carroll and Falcao: Falcao is better, therefore he can ask for more money. Theoretically, we could be using the same argument if we having to decide between Suarez and Carroll. Yes, Suarez costs more each week, but his ability earns him more money. And if we could pay Joe Cole to sit on his ass, might as well pay someone who can justify the bill.

Oh, and I voted B. 

FSG have been nothing short of spectacular since taking over. But, my vote went toward "Your'e just here to be a dick".

Honesty got the better of me.

I think on the whole, FSG have done a great job. I might have a few quibbles with one or two of their decisions, but they've done really well on the whole. One thing I think can't be overstated is how open they've been with the fans, which, when you think about the situation they walked into (and the perhaps unfair distrust on the fans' parts) they've done a really good job to reassure the fanbase and leave them feeling more confident and secure with the direction of the club. I hate to compare, but when you think about Arsenal's insane summer, at least some of that could have been mitigated had their new American owner spoken up to calm the fans and give his backing to Wenger at an earlier date.

All in all, I feel very confident with our new owners.

I think as a fan you have to be pleased with how things have changed in the past year. Even if there are individual pieces of business you didn't agree with, I think the positives they have shown with their support of the manager and with the attempt to get the longstanding issue of the stadium moved in at least some direction far outweigh any small objections. Only time will tell if FSG has put the right people in charge to bring LFC back to the top, but I am more than willing to give KK and Comolli a proper chance to turn things around before judging them too harshly... this ain't football manager after all.

I think the real test comes if we qualify for the Champions League. IF Kenny gets the team into the top 4, will Henry spend the Cash to land Hazard? Hummels? Cavani wouldn't be too shabby either. If we want to capitalize on the prospect of the Champions league in the way Manchester City has, the real opportunity lies in luring players from beleaguered teams who are looking for greener pastures this summer. Last summer was more of a reshuffling of the personnel and a exodus of the dead weight. Next summer FSG will need to spend big on 2 possibly 3 players and not receive any large income from player sales. Will that happen? Will we even finish in the top 4? Hopefully.

My issue with FSG is the Andy Carroll transfer.  Why was he purchased for £35 million when he was injured?  Couldn't he have been purchased in the summer for a lot less?  I suppose the majority of the responsibility falls on Comolli and Dalglish though.  

my understanding is that the carroll fee was intertwined with the torres transfer, because of the timeframe the deal had to be done in - if chelsea wanted torres, they were going to need to pay 15m more than whatever carroll cost.  henry says he set that caveat himself, so i dont rly have a problem with the fee since it didnt really cost the club anything (other than a misfiring, unhappy torres...)...  and to be honest, if newcastle had requested 20m instead of 35m, we wudnt be having this conversation.

What does bother me about the carroll transfer is that comolli had targeted cavani as torres' replacement, but wud've needed the summer transfer window to realistically steal him from napoli - so, who wud u prefer partnering suarez today, carroll or cavani...?

but, didnt work out that way, so walk on andy!!!

I get angry when I think about what Liverpool could have done this summer with the money they spent on Andy Carroll.

thankfully we have ownership that virtually guarantees us more shots at high profile players in the transfer market, regardless of whether we're in champs league or not.

I hate HATE this meme about the 15 million pound difference. Yes, Henry said it, and I understand bargaining is a complicated process, but if Abramovich was willing to spend 50, he was willing to spend 50. It's not like he got some extra benefit from Carroll being so expensive. What's more, even if it really were as cut and dried as you make it out to be, it DOES cost us, as it's much, much worse for FFP to have sold Torres for 50 and bought Carroll for 35 than to have sold Torres for 35 and bought Carroll for 20. 

hate's a strong word.  besides, doesnt ffp only stipulate you bring in what you spend?  so even if we paid 135m for carroll, so long as we got at least 135m in for torres, its a wash right?  

We would have been able to negotiate a $50 million dollar transfer fee from Abramovich irregardless of whether we brought in any players. He wanted Nando that badly and would have paid that amount for him. I had also heard that some professionals considered that January transfer window was the last window to act and not have the FFP rules affected. Since, the transfer fees were paid prior to the rules going into effect, any fees paid in January would not affect the FFP calculations. That, of course, is now known to be incorrect. The transfer fees are to be amortized over the contract period ane WILL affect the FFP calculations.

The transfer fees paid by us for Carroll would also be amortized over the contract period, 5 years. So, 35 million pounds is 7 million pounds per year of amortization and 20 million pounds is 4 million pounds per year of amortization. The 3 million pound difference is not really that significant in relation to say, 200 million pounds of gross revenues.

The real issues that are going to help with FFP are CL group stage qualification which translates to approx. 35 million pounds of revenues when considering all revenue incentives. Adding 20,000 seats to a new stadium or redeveloped one would increase matchday revenues approx. 20 million pounds with no associated ticket price increase. The naming rights deal with Standard Chartered(?) should bring in 10 million pounds a year for 15 years. The FFP rules allow the inclusion of this revenue in the calculations while excluding the associated financing costs of a new stadium. (A little known quirk in the FFP rules). And, of course there will be some significant increases in commercial revenues from leveraging worldwide and Asian commercial revenue opportunities. I would not be surprised to see the combined revenue increase to be in the neighborhood of 100 million pounds a year.

All of these additional revenues will allow us to be competitive on the pitch and hopefully someday soon challenge for an EPL title. We need to be intelligent with player acquisitions and bring in world class caliber players. But first, we need (and deserve) CL qualification

nice points.  very valid to bring up that 35m to fsg (however its spent) is not the same as 35m was to hicks-gillett... whole different class of businessmen we dealing with here.  thankfully. 

Their vision for the club is simple really, to create a world class side. That is the driving force in everything they do. The increased "value" will flow from that. They will bring a measured and mature intelligence to everything they do. From the board room to the dressing room. Certainly a different class than H&G. There is no desire to siphon off profits for personal use or payment of interest. It was interesting to hear that Henry and Werner each hold 50% of the voting rights in the club. So, each has an equal voice.

The removal of $280 million pounds owed to RBS and $150 million pounds owed to Grand Cayman, Ltd (H&G) eliminated what would have been $50 million pounds of interest a year. $50 million pounds of interest from $180 million (now) of gross revenues is completely unmanageable. And it was fun to see H&G have to eat $150 million pounds. Yum yum boys. Tastes Great! Eh? What? Hard to digest?

Then to consider everything they've done from the football side... Dalglish, Comolli, Clarke, players, competitive and talented side, etc. and from the business side... equity financing!!!, 
commercial deals, new or redone stadium, etc.; how could you not be happy with these guys?

Now, we need to push on for CL qualification. This one is going to be a real fight. Just the way we like it. It's all about competition on the pitch.

Well in lad.

The organizational moves - transfer policy, fiscal policy, front office, coaching staff and management style - all get an A+ from where i'm sitting.

A year in we still dont have a firm decision on the new ground, and that's been top priority for a decade, so take a little off, but in the same token they're taking their time and "getting it right" - all in all a B+ there.

Perhaps most impressive though has been the effortless manner in which they've run both the sox and lfc at the same time.  Granted, the sox had a shit year and they've got a lot to do over the winter because it looks like theo is following francona out the door, but these problems are more to do with the eb-and-flow of high level professional sports (and in particular in a division where the yankees and sox take turns dominating) as opposed to bad ownership.

not sure what there is to complain about with fsg, but ill be interested to hear if you lot come up with anything...

I think we see at AS Roma in Italy, Thomas R Di Benedetto (FSG) is doing a great job there, as principle owner. Across FSG we see a degree of independence in running teams, basically putting in place the right people to do the job. At Liverpool you can't imagine the dislike of H+G however in 12 short months FSG have been totally transparent with Liverpool fans, we need to trust our owners and they have shown that we can.
We don't want and never did want silly money tossed about, as the £40m net spend shows, you don't need irresponsible spending to achieve. FSG paid £300m for a debt ridden club, yet that investment is now worth a lot more as Liverpool is a debt free club. Now we are bringing in deals across the board, like the Warrior Sports kit deal at £25m a year long-term from 2012/13 season.
Financially Liverpool can exploit our popularity in Asia, which should have been done a decade ago. Now we have total stability in the boardroom these opportunities are being explored, the improvement at the club is astonishing in 12 months, absolutely incredible. We talk only about going forward and don't worry about the (H+G personal debts) which are gone, we have so much to be happy about, thanks to FSG!!!!!!

isnt di benedetto way more loosely tied to fsg than werner and henry, though?  he just became a partner recently or something, whilst henry's basically the don of the group, right?

Yes that is correct however it is a huge group in total, J W Henry is the figurehead!!!!

I'm delighted with FSG and J W Henry, they said 'judge us on our actions' and im very happy with those actions thus far. Money has been invested which was needed but sensible spending with a net spend of £40m which is well within financial fair-play rules, also taking their time on the stadium issue has been sensible.
Setting up an 18 member fans committee has been good news, as well as trying to get a dialogue going with the council in Liverpool. I think the stadium issue is very close to being decided with Standard Chartered very keen to get the naming rights for a new stadium and Carlsberg the pouring rights too, building a new stadium is more sensible business wise as we can offset a lot of the cost by sponsorship alone.
Leaving Anfield would be heartbreaking but if the council won't budge we have to be realistic, moving will transform the clubs future financially. I'm one of 70,000 on the season ticket waiting list, which has been closed until the list is up-dated currently, we know how much money we can generate from increased capacity but hopefully we can expand Anfield??? All in all i think FSG have been fantastic in letting Liverpool operate without interference from the USA.........so for me, great things are happening!!!

nice one. well put.

I'll be completely happy when our midfield sorts itself out.