Liverpool & Coutinho: The Predicament Of The Selling Club

Loyalty is a fickle term in modern day football as modern day players are mercenaries, with little to no regard for anything asides their own wishes that sometimes are unfathomable and seem gullible at least — an example is how German players keep trooping to Bayern. What remains is a quid pro quo situation and symbiosis. Clubs have realized that, so they dole out copious leaves of mulla every season and worse, every transfer window.

The clubs who bear the most brunt of this are teams who don’t win league titles and the Champions League as often, players see them as a stepping stone to other teams. The truth however remains, you’ll never really be successful in Europe’s top 5 leagues if you’re a ‘selling club’, regardless of the revenue you generate during transfer windows as quite simply, success isn’t about money but vision, implementation and consistency.

No matter how you want to candy coat facts, Liverpool — on the strength of evidence — belong to the teams who are relative feeders to the more ambitious ones. Not for a lack of will to succeed or a policy of selling as means of generating revenue — even though FSG did this at some point — but because they simply can’t help it. The moment you sell player A, it most likely causes a squad and implementation upset, you will most likely not win the desirable trophies and in turn probably won’t generate as much revenue as the perennial winners. The situation is a rut that starts with the simple clichéd nonsense “no player is bigger that the club” or “no player is irreplaceable”. Those things might be true, but the effects of losing a top player are more devastating than peddlers of those nonsense clichés realize. No single genuinely successful club in Europe in the last 10 years — Asides Man Utd and Inter and even these 2 didn’t have a reputation for selling at the time of their respective successes — has a reputation for selling.

Liverpool football club might have found itself in a ditch over bad financing than a selling policy, but bad decision in sales and a policy of peddling the above mentioned clichés have ensured that Liverpool have remained in the rebuilding phase until now. For the first time in 7 years, Liverpool genuinely look like it could capture national and continental honours if it continues its upward trajectory as it looks to be on one. This however is being severely threatened by the seeming impending sale of Phillipe Coutinho — even though this scribbler harbours faith he will stay — to Barcelona.

First off, Liverpool are making it too easy for Barcelona to sign their player despite their continued insubordination and blatant disrespect of Liverpool football club with incessant media onslaughts and charm offensive. At this time however, it either seems Liverpool are cowering and caving in submission to being bullied by Barcelona or they want the money to offset certain bills of purchases and in turn keep whatever funds might have been earmarked for future purchase between now and the summer. A January sale makes no sense for Liverpool who are in a good place and chasing glory on multiple fronts, with semblance of. having their shit together for the first time in years and could really build a formidable European team.

The player on the other hand has a contract and a world cup appearance on the horizon. Thus, he can’t afford to slip up. This begs the question, why entertain the idea of a January sale? Even if you were to entertain a summer sale, you should get some shred of your tattered red dignity, consistently smeared by false media publications and egotistical ‘time sensitive’ take it or leave it offers like in the summer. You should drill Barcelona to dance to your tunes giving ultimatums on their media conduct, mandatory fees (take it or leave it style) and public arse kissing. After all, Liverpool had to do same with Leipzig and Southampton, to get Keita and Virgil Van Dijk respectively, even paying a combined £20million premium to sign both players. You’d have thought Liverpool and it’s management would have learned something about respect, but it seems they have not. At the moment, it seems they’re allowing Barcelona walk all over them and it doesn’t bode well for the future where a Real Madrid could also engage a similar bully approach for a Salah or Mane. Even if you try shelve those advances at that time, you’d be fighting a subconsciously registered reputation for softness. Barcelona can’t dare this with Daniel Levy, Oliver Mantraff or Les Reed.

The worst part of this is that Liverpool could also lose Emre Can in the summer, leading to a wholesale midfield transformation. For a team that would ordinarily have only needed one or 2 additions to really become arguably the best in Europe, that will most likely be a sticking point. Selling clubs don’t realize they’re selling clubs till its too late. Most of them don’t realize what they’re becoming from the first sale. Liverpool however have enough evidence around — itself included — to grasp some understanding of how this works and that it almost never ends well. Posterity even seems to favour teams with lesser sell rates of star players.

If you’re ever going to be a powerhouse, you’ve to stop selling your star players and be perceived as a team where all success is achievable. There are enough evidence to affirm this with Chelsea, Bayern, Madrid, PSG and Barcelona. For a Management that constantly stresses its appetite for success, FSG is doing little in its understanding of implementing that vision. The first rule of same is understanding those teams selling one star player will most likely lead to selling another. Why? You’ll most likely not achieve the desired success and other top teams will have seen you as a hunting ground. Look at Arsenal, Monaco, Porto and a few others. Once you sell one, you might not be able to stop bevase you might have lost control of the situation. You’re either stuck in one place, wrestling to hold on — which you’ll eventually fail at by the way — or get into a regression immediately.

The top teams in Europe asides Real Madrid who don’t need to sell at this time were selling clubs at one point before realizing they needed to stop selling. In 2006, Bayern were selling Roque Santa Cruz, their star striker to Blackburn Rovers, highlighting their slump. When Robben was leaving Madrid in 2009, he felt Bayern was a step down. Bayern realized this, and came up with a plan to stop selling and instead become team that buys from teams like Liverpool. The results are what we see now. In case Liverpool don’t understand, Barcelona’s pursuit of Coutinho is more than one of a quality player, but of a quest to repair damaged reputation after Neymar’s shock exit. They’re just using Liverpool to do paper those cracks, Liverpool should refuse being used. If Liverpool aren’t careful, they might trade places — of a seat at the top of Europe — with them and lose their potential place, back as a European powerhouse.

It’s time for Liverpool to master that dark arts and have a vision towards ending the cycle of their reputation as a feeder club to other top clubs. If Liverpool sell Coutinho, it might reopen a leak of constantly selling star players and by that time, using mantras like “no player is bigger than the club” would be peddling cliché to paper the obvious divide and dearth, except of course, Liverpool sell Coutinho, purchase a replacement, stay on course for European domination and maybe win a Champions League title, proving to players that they can achieve all they want at Anfield, but the chances of those seem remote to the ordinary mind — if we’re being honest.

On the dark arts, Liverpool could stall with tactics mentioned in the latter parts of he 6th paragraph to move any talk of sale to the summer, and/or blatantly refuse to sell Coutinho for whatever price, or put a ludicrous price on Coutinho you know Barcelona won’t pay, then pray, and work for a Champions League title within that period. I’m sure Bayern had a vision to become a European powerhouse again after their doldrums residence in the mid 2000s. The key is making players feel Liverpool is the apex of a career, not a stepping stone and it might just start with playing the dark arts of extreme reluctance and outright unwillingness to sell Coutinho. If Liverpool keep Coutinho, they could very well have the best team in Europe come summer 2018.

As Gary Neville noted and in addition to the dark arts, Liverpool need to start acting like a big club and communicate their wishes to players under contract. There would be nothing wrong with blatantly refusing to sell a player under contract even though that means taking a hit in revenue. Some things are bigger than money. Shelve the potential of being a selling club now, you could open up endless streams of income with the revenue guaranteed to come from success that follows. You can’t keep submitting to the wishes of the player because “you can’t keep an unhappy player” — which is a big lie by the way. If the player realizes he won’t get his desired move because his club sees him as material to their ascension up the ladder too, he’d knuckle down and work hard. No player wants to be an also rans. Manchester City did same with Tevez in 2012 as noted by @thebatmanofbelf on Twitter in a series of brilliant Tweets, in diatribe with another here.

@Afrosox also contributed his bit;

Liverpool need to start thinking this way or they risk losing a future that promises so much. Nothing is given, you take it. Ever since Manchester City took that stance to both address insubordination and losing a star player, they’ve not had a repeat of same.

Teams like Bayern, PSG, Real Madrid, Manchester City, Chelsea and Barcelona — until recently — never sell star players. Any Liverpool fan that uses Barcelona selling Neymar as yardstick for selling Coutinho is ignorant and doesn’t understand success or release clauses. Barcelona have a foundation Liverpool don’t have right now. It’s called 4 Champions League titles in the last 10 years. Liverpool could however do that if they keep their best players and win one. Such could be a precursor to European domination.

If Coutinho leaves now and Liverpool don’t achieve success, who’s next? Salah to Madrid? I’m not God, but I’ve seen this play over and again, it doesn’t end well. A club either goes into stagnation or regression. Becoming a selling club doesn’t come in one day. It’s a rut that starts with one star player sale that accompanies the nonsense rhetorics “no player is bigger than the club” and “no player is irreplaceable”.

Like I said, I’m not God and realize you need a bit of luck to ascend from a selling club to a powerhouse that players don’t perceive as a stepping stone, but Liverpool need to engage something to shelve this perception they’re about to be thrust into if they sell Coutinho, and I don’t see any solution than a little bit of dark arts. If Liverpool don’t win a serious trophy by the summer, Salah and Mane will almost and sadly inevitably be next, and Liverpool will be bullied into submission again, while being left to repeat the nonsense rhetorics “no player is bigger than the club” and “no player is irreplaceable”, then right back to a rebuilding phase than ends with relegation in 10 years as worst case scenario. It’s time for Liverpool understand how selling key players work and its price, as well as the need and how to become an apex club that players don’t see as a stepping stone. They need to realize selling Coutinho thrusts them into the uncertainty of assurance of success. It’s time to take a stand on what they want to become with cogent vision and understanding of how they get it, no matter the price. If it means keeping an unhappy player through dark arts, so be it. Nothing good comes easy and every vision implementation has a price. Keeping an unhappy player through dark arts is a small price to pay. The revenue generated from constant player sales is nothing compared to the joy of being a European powerhouse with treasure troves of yearly income to boot.

Even though I’m not saying a Champions League win in 2018 is the only way to be a powerhouse, I’m saying it’s probably the only way Liverpool guarantee their chance of being a European powerhouse again if they sell Coutinho. It’s the biggest prize in Club football. It guarantees a significant spike in revenues for Liverpool and it makes players feel that anything is possible especially when sizeable revenue streams guarantee the ability to offer bigger pay packets to players. The sad part is that Liverpool are probably a Champions League win away from genuine positive perception as an elite club again, which would probably lead to those incredible spikes in revenue and elevate the club to one of the big boys, and maybe the required confidence to win more continental and global trophies. A Coutinho sale, especially if one continental or at least national trophy doesn’t arrive in a season will almost inevitably lead to another star player’s exit. Liverpool should wake up and show that it has some understanding and anticipation of potential future occurrences. Now, Liverpool should try and win a Champions League title and leave all Coutinho talk till the summer, after the world cup. Play some fucking dark arts! Don’t sell Coutinho unless you’re sure of winning the Champions League in summer 2018. It’s Liverpool’s “Bayern moment” in 2006 when they signed Luca Toni and Ribery, and then refusing to sell Ribery to Madrid in 2009, only to make the Champions League final in 2010 — which helped a lot. The long term effects of a Coutinho sale is what should be addressed — it’s potential 5 year effect. Even though you buy a player that comes in and succeeds almost immediately, it’d a trap. It breeds the belief that anyone is replaceable. That kind of belief system is risky. Monaco thought so too last season. Atletico used to think so, till they realized they were better off keeping their best players and have made 2 Champions League finals since. The delusion instant success of star player replacement breeds is that anyone is replaceable, when in truth your squad is going through constant upsets and style switches because no two players are ever the same.

Continuous sales of star players never end well. It somehow becomes a culture that’s hard to shake off. Don’t look farther than Arsenal and Monaco for lessons. In the end, if Liverpool sell Coutinho, especially this winter, it’s because they’ve chosen to become a selling club — yes, it’s a choice — especially when you’re so close to having arguably the best team in Europe. In this case, success is a choice and I pray Liverpool choose it, even if it means being petty, ridiculous and unconscionable for a little time.

Selling Coutinho at all is bad precedent. Worse will be selling him in January. It will show a club not big enough to command respect from a player uncertain contract with no release clause. Now, they have a chance to get ahead of it and set a positive precedent. Once this happens, they’re in a race to make things right when they could have solved it the first time it reared its head. No attempt at a reasonable spin by. Liverpool will work as it would represent a Club either lacking in ego, or run by owners who want to grab the money and write off the Van Dijk money — an assurance. FSG have had to contend with this notion from fans and prove them wrong for years. Even though they’ve succeeded in recent times, this will take them back to square one and even worse, show incompetence. The fans are about to turn on them big time because this was their time to seal their positive perception with the Kop for the first time since they arrived.

By PennedMusingsNG for UrbanCentral follow him on twitter @OneMotolani

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