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GRAVENBERCH, KONATE INJURIES & 15 YEARS OF FSG.
0 Playsin 10 hours
The international break is over but the injury list is growing as the Reds get ready to return to PL action. Jesse looks at the injury situation as well as marking 15 years of FSG stewardship of Liverpool FC.
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Liverpool's Injury Plight
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Hello and welcome to the Daily Liverpool podcast brought to you by the Global Sports Podcast Network.
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ah International break is pretty much over now, thankfully, and so we can slowly but surely turn our attention to more important things, ah namely the Premier League. um However,
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International breaks always leave their mark with Liverpool Football Club and this one um is no exception. ah There are a few injury concerns for the Reds, so let's just go through couple of the players that look like they're going to be out for one or two games. um Alison, maybe more.
00:01:33
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So we'll start with the keeper, Alison Becker, who... Was injured at the last Premier League game at Stamford Bridge against Chelsea. Pulled his hamstring.
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You could see pretty much immediately that it was not going to be a good one. And it does look like that he's going to be out for quite some time. Maybe not as huge a miss because I do think that Marmadashvili, Georgie Marmadashvili, our backup goalkeeper,
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is a very, very good goalkeeper. And I'm not nervous about him being in goal. However, however, Alison Becker is the best goalkeeper in the world.
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And so him not being there... even if Marmadashvili is a very, very good goalkeeper. He's a very good goalkeeper, but he's not the best in the world. And so there is some drop off there.
00:02:29
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um So that is a bit of a concern, but he's without doubt, um he's not playing on Sunday against Manchester United. So um that's one absence that we can we can say is a definite. The other one is Giovanni Leone. Obviously he's out for the entire season with that ruptured,
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acl But the other injuries that, you know, that they are a bit of a concern ah because they've they've happened over this international break. Let's start with Ibrahima Kanate.
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um He left international duty duty with France um after picking up a thigh injury. He didn't feature for France and over the weekend made a return to Merseyside.
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Him not turning out for France, I think, is a real worry because I just, with a muscle injury, I just don't see how he's going to be ready for Sunday. And I just don't think it's worth the risk, bearing in mind that Lyon is out.
00:03:35
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And if Canate does play on Sunday and he's not 100% fit, and then he really does pull that muscle, well then and he's out for a significant amount of time, that means that Virgil van Dijk and Joe Gomez are our only two fit central defenders. And Joe Gomez doesn't have the best injury record. And so i would say that if there's any doubt whatsoever,
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As much as it would be a blow not to have him turn out on Sunday, I would rather he sat that one out and let Gomez play. He's more than capable as a deputy.
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And that just means that Canate has got a chance to get fit rather than play and then get injured and just add to our um you know injury problems, which are slowly mounting.
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So Kanate is a major doubt for the United game over the weekend. um Wataru Endo, um obviously on international duty with Japan, but it looks like he's got hamstring injury, injury which is going to see him out for a few weeks. um So Kanate,
00:04:53
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It looks like we're looking at November before Endo returns. um Now, obviously, he's a bit part player. He's not a regular.
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But with these um defensive issues, the the injuries in the defensive ah third, Endo is one of our backup players. And so um we've got to be pet careful that we don't kind of exacerbate um any situation that he's got going.
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The other one, which is a real worry, and that's Ryan Gravenberg. Gravenberg was substituted at half time um in the Netherlands game against Finland.
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And that was because um Gravenberg had complained about you know a potential injury to his hamstring. And so he was withdrawn, which, you know, you've got to give credit to, um you know, Ronald Koeman and and ah the backroom staff at the Dutch national team for not risking him any further. But again, it just means that he's coming back.
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with a you know suspected hamstring injury and that is definitely not something that you want to risk because if he pulls a hamstring, well, he's out for a good while and he is so pivotal to how we play in midfield.
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I mean, that said, we do have options. We do have Sabozlai, we've got McAllister, And Vietz. So it wouldn't be the end of the world if Gravenberg sat this one out.
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um But it is ah something that Arnie Slott is going to have to ah be
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wary of. And, you know, these are one of the decisions that he's going to have to make before Sunday when Manchester United come to town.
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um We are going to go on a very, very quick break. And when we come back, We're going to look back at FSG's reign as the owners of Liverpool Football Club.
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FSG's 15-Year Ownership of Liverpool
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This week marks 15 years since FSG, then known as New England's, ah sorry, of New England Sports Ventures, bought the club.
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And what a 15 year reign it has been. Two Premier League titles, a Champions League title, um three Champions League finals, FA Cups, League Cups, UEFA Super Cup, Club World Cup.
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um It's seen us, you know dining regularly at the top end of the table. Now, ownership in football is a topic that really, rarely kind of spawns positive comments from football fans. I think at best, we're quite indifferent to owners.
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And, you know, particularly with owners who are increasingly, they're based overseas. So there isn't really that kind of connection. But what is the overall feeling about FSG's reign as custodians of the football club?
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I think you've got to start by looking at where we were as a club when John Henry and co bought the club. but um Hicks and Gillette were the two previous American owners and they were an unmitigated disaster.
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They took the club over from the Moores family who had owned Liverpool for for decades. um You know, they oversaw one of Liverpool's most successful periods during the seventy s and the 80s, but they did see oversee the decline of of the club during the 1990s, particularly the 1990s, because I think that's where the club just got left behind by the likes of Manchester United and then the new money that came into Chelsea.
00:09:38
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But even if you were to leave the kind of Chelsea thing to one side, I think Liverpool as a club just failed to recognise where football was heading. They failed to see the opportunities that the Premier League offered and Manchester United were quick to jump on that and they capitalised on that.
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And, you know, we just see the success that comes in the and in the early 2000s. And so,
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and so The Moores family, you know, they they can see that they have they've tried. They've backed manager after manager and they did back managers. They backed Graeme Souness with money. They backed Roy Evans and ah Gerard Houllier with money. But it just wasn't enough.
00:10:28
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um they were They were barely scratching the surface in terms of money that was being spent by Manchester United and increasingly by by Chelsea. And that's when the search in the kind of early to mid 2000s began for a new owner to come in and to try and put the club back to where it belonged.
00:10:54
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And there were two potential buyers for the Moores family to sell the club to. One were the to two Americans, co-owners, um Tom Hicks and George Gillette.
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to owners of sports franchises in the United States. And the other option was to buy, um to buy holdings, I think it was.
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And the Moores family, for whatever reason, um thought that Hicks and Gillette would be the better option. And we were sold to these two owners. And as I said before, their reign was was an absolute disaster.
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um They very famously said that they'd be building a new stadium and. They did spend money, they bought in the likes of Fernando Torres, they backed.
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um um Rafa Benitez. But just the way that the club was being run, it just soon became very apparent that these two guys were not the ones to take the club up back to the next level.
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It didn't help that the two co-owners then fell out and just left the club in limbo and pretty much on the verge of administration.
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um Things on the pitch were not that much better. Rafa Benitez, huge fan favourite after his chamber Champions League win um in Istanbul.
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He was sacked. And in comes Roy Hodgson to really cement the club's kind downward spiral. I think Roy Hodgson, without any question in my lifetime, is the worst player.
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manager to manage at the club um and he's probably possibly the worst ever Liverpool manager. He was just the wrong fit on on every level. He was completely clueless um in terms of understanding the club, connecting with the fans.
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um You know, we were losing to teams that we should just not have been losing to. And he was constantly telling the club's fans that um we had to be realistic in terms of of our ambitions and and that the landscape had changed. And although you could argue that to an extent he was right, you know, the landscape had changed,
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but he was making very kind of David Moyes like public pronouncements, um much like Moyes when he took over from Sir Alex Ferguson.
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He was almost he was almost trying to lower not just the expectations, but the standards, ah because even if even if you're not doing very well, even if.
00:14:03
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um the team is not playing well, you don't have the right players. I think if you're a manager of Liverpool or if you're manager of Manchester United, you can never say that you you're not aiming to to win or you're not aiming to go for it a title or a cup win or a Champions League qualification.
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I think it's just really, really dangerous. And so that's where... That's where we were. And the club were staring at administration. ah Former ah club managing director Christian Perslow said in in an interview years ago that that we were one day away from administration before the deal was agreed with FSG, who were NESV at the time.
00:14:55
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for 300 million pounds. The club was bought for 300 million pounds, which Hicks and Gillette called, quote, an epic swindle. And I suppose if you look at the valuation of the club now, something between four and five billion pounds, according to Forbes.
00:15:16
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I mean, that is some that is some return on investment. But I do remember when FSG came in, there was nervousness about being sold to to and another group of American owners.
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There was this natural distrust that um they were just coming in to... Maybe assets strip the club um just to take money out the club in much the same way that the Glaziers had done to Manchester United.
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um But I think.
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if if we had done our research on John Henry and FSG, I think this is a completely different animal too to Hicks and Gillette. um FSG have got a, I think they've got stellar reputation when it comes to going into sports franchises and, you know, turning them around, um building them up into, you um you know, it's into really top elite level ah sporting organisations and nothing spells that out more than what they did at the Boston Red Sox, which I think...
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if i' If I'm not mistaken, I think it was something like 80 odd years that they hadn't won the World Series and FSG helped them win that World Series. And so they have a track record.
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And although it hasn't all been plain sailing, they they have made a few mistakes. Raising of ah ticket prices, which led to fan protests, was i it was a misstep. It was a miscalculation.
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The failed European Super League was another really bad one. um And Liverpool were kind of front and centre. of trying to launch that.
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um But to their credit, you know, they retreated very quickly and they publicly apologised very quickly in much the same way that they did when they tried to trademark the word Liverpool, which looking back again, it just um ah you do wonder why they did that.
00:17:46
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ah You know, if you if you're looking charitably at it um as as owners, I suppose you do have a responsibility to look at every available option to try and get an advantage, to try and increase the club's revenues, because unfortunately that's what football is now.
00:18:09
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You know, it it is a huge commercial thing. juggernaut and if you're not getting your piece of that juggernaut then you're just going to be overrun by it and so you know Liverpool going in to try and create that Super League was a big miscalculation not just by them but all of the English clubs that were involved and they saw that through the the fan protests that broke out across the country but apart from that um
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They have, I would say, in the modern era, I'd say that they have been almost my flawless club owners. They have invested massively massively in the infrastructure industry.
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of the club first off by deciding that Anfield would not be knocked down. There would be no new, you know, shiny stadium ah in Stanley Park.
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You know Anfield was something special and in In much the same way that FSG did the same um to ah the Boston Red Sox with, i think it's Fenway Park.
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That is not um one of the biggest stadiums in America when it comes to baseball. But it does have a history. And I like the fact that John Henry and co, they they looked at that stadium and said, you know, this is this is too much of a plus point for us.
00:19:43
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You know, by getting rid of this stadium, we we we lose something. and And I think that that was such a good decision to expand the stadium and not to get rid of it.
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And so the main stand expansion happened in 2016 and for road um extension in 2024. And that brought the ah stadium capacity up to 61,000, which, you know, that's where it should be. It should be no less than 60,000. I mean, it should be more, but as a minimum, that should be the right level. And You know, I just think that, you know, you improve the atmosphere of the stadium.
00:20:23
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More people come to see you got increased gate revenues. And so I think that was the first thing that they did, which I think was a really, really good decision. decision The new training facility, they invested 50 million pounds developing the AXA training centre, which was completed in 2020.
00:20:42
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And that is a world class facility. um And so I think FSC's focus, you can see, has been on whatever they do, it's got to be best in class. So whether it's the manager, whether it's training facilities, the backroom staff, the recruitment,
00:21:05
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um both of players, but also the actual recruitment process and the recruitment team, um the analytics, the data guys, all of that has got to be um the best in class. And and that's been apparent with the ah the people that have been running those departments.
00:21:27
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um I think they've got probably pound for pound... um some of the the best investment, the best um decisions in football over the last 10 years.
00:21:40
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If you look at some of the players that we've signed, you know, Mohamed Salah was around about the 30, 35 million pound mark. um Bobby Firmino is 30 million.
00:21:52
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Sadio Mane, 30 million. um And then even the likes of Andy Roberts was, I think, about six or eight million pounds from from Hull City. And yes, we we spent big when we had to, the likes of Virgil van Dijk and Alison Becker, well-known signings.
00:22:09
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after selling for Felipe Coutinho. um But I think that the the watershed moment for both FSG and the club was...
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Jurgen Klopp coming to the club and that's got to go down ah you know to some part ah to FSG and their ability to attract Jurgen Klopp to the club, which was, you know, was was not in a great state when he took over, um but they identified the right man and...
00:22:43
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They identified the right man for the model that they wanted for the club as well. A modern football structure with a sporting director and a manager that can help the club maximise um the player potential.
00:22:59
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And that was the idea behind Brendan Rodgers' appointment. you know, it was a modern coach and his remit was to get the best out of these you young players. And it looked like it was going to work in that season where we nearly won the title, but it was a failed title bid.
00:23:17
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And quickly after that, you know, it spiralled fairly quickly after that. And so Klopp coming to Liverpool, it was the personality that FSG needed to really kind of cement those structural changes um that meant that that would be translated onto the pitch as well.
00:23:40
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And when it comes to money, I think FSG, I think we've always been very conservative ah in terms of spending. You know, Liverpool have always been um supporters of financial fair play and, you know, PSR, unlike some clubs that we could mention you You know, we've never looked to bend or outright break the rules in order to spend money. What we spent, you know, we earned, we spent within our means.
Liverpool's Promising Future
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And for me, that is the absolute embodiment of a well run club. So 15 years of FSG, I think you've got to say that overall it's been a very, very successful period and it doesn't look like they're going away any time soon. and I think that's got to be a good thing.
00:24:36
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We've got a very, very stable club. We've got a very, very good manager. We've got a great set of players. And i i think that the next five to 10 years, I think we're looking to um cement the success that we've enjoyed over the last decade or so.
00:24:57
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OK, that is all for today. You've been listening to the Daily Liverpool podcast brought to you by the Global Sports Podcast Network. Subscribe to the show wherever you get your podcasts.
00:25:08
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ah Join us again tomorrow as we begin the build up to the return of the Premier League and the visit of Manchester United at the weekend. and Until next time, we'll see you soon.
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