Beard Out - Rogers Promoted

Guest wrote:I find it hard to believe that amongst all the Kloppmania surrounding Merseyside there has been much noise being made about the ladies side. Is it being leaked to the scads of reporters waiting to write about the Liverpool ladies? Who is making this noise, exactly? 

Beard has had his say, likewise Dowie. They're both saying the same stuff. If anybody else has contributed then I haven't seen it personally. The local papers have always done well to cover the happenings with the women's team. It's a tiny amount in comparison to what the men's team get but it's still something. And besides, it doesn't actually take somebody from the inside coming forth to offer the insight. Any fan with a working pair of eyes can see for themselves evidence of what the likes of Beard and Dowie are highlighting.

Okay, the noise you were referring to was Beard. While I'm sure that Liverpool is probably not going to throw money at the ladies's side like Chelsea and Man City, I think some of Beard's comments were more from bitterness more than anything. At the beginning of last season he signed Oshoala and I can't believe she came cheap, so where did he get the money for her? Was it from Bronze's huge transfer fee? If so that is incredibly poor management/gamble to replace such a key person in defense and the start of your attack with a talented but extremely unproven 20 year old forward and a very raw centre back from America. He also lost DaCosta and Davison and replaced them with a two young Norweigians and then replaced Rosler with White. He was very unfortunate in his injuries this season but some of the signings he made weren't exactly stellar and were too much attack oriented to compensate for an out of form Dowie, when they should have been more defensive minded. I don't blame upper management for not giving him more money for players when Fara and Oshoala went out injured.

Both Staniforth and Rolser sat out injured for practically an entire season and neither were replaced numbers-wise. You could argue that it was due to the fact both got their ACL injuries very late in the winter meaning we had limited time to find replacements and ultimately couldn't--but nobody arrived in the summer window either. We ended up being two senior players down because despite them not playing they still have to be paid and we also had to leave room in the squad for both of them to come back the following year. Only once Rolser left for good and proper (frustratingly at the same time she was finally fit again) did White arrive in her place.

All of that is the series of events which is the big clue as to what is going on. It's not evidence of spending incorrectly, it's a sign of just not having enough to spend. Increased training hours means wages have to go up to reflect that. So you trim the expendable players in order to better pay the ones you need to keep. In principle going down the quality not quantity route is absolutely fine, preferable in fact. But if you want to one day bring some quantity back in, which you will inevitably need to, and the wage budget at your disposal isn't rising then you can't do it because you're already maxed out paying your existing squad. That is why you end up bringing in unknowns while others are signing internationals.