Liverpool’s flops

LONDON. — When John Barnes dispatched a penalty beyond QPR’s David Seaman to help seal Liverpool’s 18th league title, the air was thick not only with celebration but complacency, too.

Anfield was not even full to witness a 2-1 victory for Kenny Dalglish’s side that proved enough to propel them to another title triumph as news of Aston Villa’s draw at home with Norwich filtered through.

As the ground emptied that Saturday afternoon on April 28, 1990, Liverpool’s supporters drifted home with a swagger that betrayed the sense they expected to be honouring their heroes next season . . . and the season after that. It is exactly 25 years today since that last triumph.

In fact, yesterday marked 25 years to the day since Liverpool claimed the last of their 18 titles and Anfield legend John Aldridge insists that their transfer market failings are the main reason for the barren spell.

Since that 2-1 victory for Dalglish’s side against Queens Park Rangers on April 28, 1990, the Merseysiders have made 190 signings and arguably wasted close to £800 million on transfer fees for players that have failed to make the grade.

And former Reds striker Aldridge believes his old club have been signing players that wouldn’t get into the “Liverpool reserve team during the 1970s and 80s.”

Speaking in his Liverpool Echo column, Aldridge wrote: “It’s easy to point the finger at individuals, and to look at the various examples of mismanagement, throughout the club, that have gone on in the last 25 years.

“But for me, Liverpool’s demise comes down to one thing above all others; bad recruitment.

“It’s a hot topic at the moment, transfers. It always is, to be honest. But in my eyes, it’s the single biggest reason why Liverpool fell off their perch, and the main reason they have been unable to get back on there.”

From the £1m signing of Ronny Rosenthal in 1990 to Brendan Rodgers’ questionable decision to bring in £16m flop Mario Balotelli last summer, Liverpool have struggled to get the players they need to consistently challenge for the Premier League title.

Of course, there are some quite brilliant exceptions with the likes of Fernando Torres and Luis Suarez enjoying superb spells at Anfield with the latter helping Rodgers’ side to a second-place finish behind Manchester City last term before sealing a big-money move to Barcelona.

There has been a memorable Champions League success and UEFA Cup glory, FA Cup and League Cup baubles, but for an entire generation of fans the wait for the 19th title goes on, just as the money spent on trying to claim what has become the Holy Grail goes up.

So far the figure stands at an incredible £770 340 000 lavished on 190 players, some of them youngsters but many others who were supposed to represent the final piece in a jigsaw that continues to be incomplete.

A hard-core of Liverpool supporters were set to boycott last night’s Premier League match at Hull City in protest at rocketing ticket prices in the knowledge that the amount of money spent on players’ wages in that time will take the figure crashing through the £1billion barrier.

When the unwanted milestone was flagged up to Brendan Rodgers, the man charged with fulfilling owners Fenway Sports Group’s promise they would bring the title back to Anfield, all he could do was to say the right things.

Asked if he still believed he could end the drought, the Liverpool manager said: “Absolutely. When I came in here it was a long way off.

The club was eighth and you’d never have even talked about it. It’s a mark of how the club has moved forward, that there’s such disappointment that we weren’t challenging this year. Of course it’s been disappointing not to have had a challenge this year. But I have absolutely no doubt it will happen.”

Liverpool came close under Roy Evans’ stewardship and, of course, last season under Rodgers, but the landscape has changed dramatically in the intervening years with Roman Abramovich’s billions transforming Chelsea’s fortunes and Manchester City turned into contenders by the money-flushed sheikhs of Abu Dhabi.

Arsenal, too, have been shunted aside in the sea-shift and, as Jose Mourinho revelled in pointing out on Sunday, their own wait to recapture former glories now stretches beyond a decade. Still, Chelsea’s success this season will come with Mourinho having carefully played the transfer market, spending less (£111.6m primarily on £27m Cesc Fabregas and £32m Diego Costa) than he recouped (£113m largely through £40m David Luiz and £28m Romelu Lukaku). — The Daily Express.