Defeat at Manchester United in the FA Cup tomorrow would leave Liverpool with a little more time for thought. Only the Europa League and the effort to get into a smarter part of the Premier League would still be ahead of them. For the owners who bought the club in the autumn the work is merely beginning. John W Henry's investment company New England Sports Ventures may now start to demonstrate its approach to re-establishing Liverpool, regardless of who is appointed manager should Roy Hodgson be removed.
The owners' perspective will owe something to the success they have enjoyed in baseball. The Red Sox, unlike Liverpool, are well-off but they do not have the means of the New York Yankees. There was, indeed, a whole culture devoted to the "curse" that was supposed to explain a lack of World Series success since 1918. Under NESV they have triumphed twice, in 2004 and 2007.
By comparison with that 86-year wait in the history of the Red Sox, Liverpool's lack of the league title since 1990 is a mere pause. Although the baseball club generates plenty of cash it was the insight of people such as Theo Epstein that seemed critical. He became the general manager at the age of 28 in 2002. When Epstein left in 2005 the Red Sox got him back three months later.
Baseball, like cricket, lends itself to analysis since each pitch brings about a self-contained episode that can be studied. Games like football, which are meant to be continuous, cannot be broken down in that fashion. Nor is the information so open to the exhaustive study that is the norm in baseball. Nonetheless NESV's policy for the Red Sox is being loosely recreated at Anfield, where Damien Comolli became director of football strategy in November.
The fixation with baseball owes much to Moneyball, the renowned book by Michael Lewis that was published in 2003. Its subject was the Oakland Athletics and, specifically, the general manager Billy Beane. The movie is to be with us at last in the autumn, starring Brad Pitt as Beane. He had the outlook in baseball of a shrewd investor who can spot an undervalued share.
Others have tried hard to emulate that, with Moneyball both reporting on an emerging approach in the sport and popularizing it. The knack lay in seeing a merit beyond the obvious limitations of a particular player – and the chubby Kevin Youkilis of Boston, for instance, has an unusual restraint that means he is less inclined to strike out for the Red Sox. As a single-minded man he quite often gets to first base on a walk after control deserts a frustrated pitcher.
In a sense clubs have always been eager to carry out this sort of recruitment. Every manager hopes to crow over an outstanding player he secured for next to nothing. Beane was different because he was not following a hunch so much as questioning traditional attitudes about what it was that truly made the difference in a game. He also has a passion for football and, specifically, an allegiance to Tottenham Hotspur. Comolli, of course, worked at White Hart Lane as director of football for three years and during that period he came to know Beane. "We have been talking at length since 2006 about data application in both football and baseball," said Comolli. "Everything I've been doing has come from what the A's have been doing in terms of collecting and using data."
The difficulty now is that all those at the top level are out to refine their gathering of information and the analysis of it. Even so, Liverpool seems to be making a start in the refashioning of the squad. Sylvain Marveaux is expected to sign from Rennes and was in the directors' box at Anfield for the match with Wolves last month. Whatever his skills, he appeals, too, for the fact that his contract is coming to an end.
Those who are familiar with Marveaux describe him as more of a midfielder than a true winger and add that he is quick, passes the ball well and can finish accurately. This sounds rather attractive, even if he is injured at the moment, and he may be more alluring still for his cheapness. Liverpool supporters, of course, will wince at the notion of a cut-price plan to rebuild the squad.
NESV, however, has assuredly not been miserly when agreeing or extending the contracts of players at the Red Sox. It would be folly for the owners not to improve Liverpool radically, even if the main part of that endeavour is likely to come in the close season. They are astute and bought the club in what was effectively an enforced sale by Tom Hicks and George Gillett for £300m.
That has the tone of a bargain since NESV was not caught up in an auction. Whatever the potential, there is a great deal to be done at Liverpool. It has to be undertaken, too, when a range of clubs are better-placed to advance, particularly since Manchester City have the means to assume that one of the Champions League slots should ultimately be theirs each year as a matter of course.
For Liverpool the proposals to build a new stadium in Stanley Park or redevelop the existing site cannot be implemented until NESV has examined the issue fully. The Americans have a good track record but making a success of the Reds is a more severe challenge than anything they faced with the Red Sox.
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