Bad Transfer Windows and Liverpool

 

It's happening to Liverpool. I realise that a lot of their downfalls have to do with bad recruitment. Every time the Livepool football takes a turn for the worse, it's because of one or two infamously bad transfer windows.

During the Graeme Souness era, it was infamous for having a few transfers that didn't work. There were Dean Saunders, Nigel Clough, Julian Dicks, amongst others. This was one of the most significant declines in the fortunes of Liverpool Football club, because it caused Liverpool to fall behind Manchester United. It was only 20 years later, when Alex Ferguson's departure caused a similar decline in Man U, that Souness' taking Liverpool below Man U ceased to matter. There would be a thrilling challenge for the title, under Brendan Rodgers, and that was when Liverpool would overtake Man U again.

It's not a shame for Liverpool to be behind Chelsea and Man City when they were pulling in big bucks, but their real rivals should be Man U and Arsenal, because those are the clubs which are not being bankrolled by wealthy benefactors.

Another bad transfer window is one of the Gerard Houllier's last transfer windows. He had done great things with Liverpool Football club. He ended the Spice Boys era and turned Liverpool into a club where everybody defended well and played tough. He built the team with scrappy players who were tactical. Emile Heskey, Sami Hyypia, Gary McAllister, Jari Litmanen. He promoted young players like Michael Owen and Steven Gerrard to the first team. And for the spice boys who were still out and about, like Robbie Fowler, he showed them the door. He won 3 cups in the 2001 season, and then finished second in 2002. Liverpool were seemingly on the upward trend and could challenge for the title in a few years, seemingly.

But there was that transfer window right after 2002, where he brought in the 2 Senagalese players, Diouf and Diop, as well as Bruno Cheyrou. All 3 turned out to be flops, and Houllier soon had to resign, as much because of this downturn in form, as because of the health problems, revealed by his heart attack.

Liverpool was that classic Northern side, in a part of England which thrived during the industrial revolution, but experienced decline during the 70s. It was remarkable that during the 60s and 70s, Arsenal and Tottenham were not amongst the top sides in England. They won doubles in 1971 and 1961 respectively but were otherwise quite quiet. The league winners were the northern clubs. Burnley. Liverpool, Everton, Man United, Man City, Leeds, Derby, Nottingham Forest, Aston Villa. Not until the late 80s did Arsenal start making their presence felt. They didn't lean heavily on being richer than their rivals or having sugar daddies, especially in the 90s and 00s when their dominance of English football was essentially over. They had to do more with less, and a lot to do with making Anfield a ground which intimidated opponents in European football. And that would explain why, during their title droughts, they still managed to win the champions league twice, in 2005 and 2019.

Rafael Benitez may not be remembered well, but he managed to give them a champions league (albeit a lucky one), an FA cup, another march to the UCL final, and finally a tilt at the title in 2009, before that team was broken up.

After he left, the club was bought out by owners who turned out to be very unpopular. Hicks and Gillett were essentially asset strippers who gave Liverpool substandard players. Roy Hodgson is a very good coach for middle table sides, but Liverpool was too much for him. Then the FSG Boston group came in, and they appointed Kenny Dalglish, which I think was a PR move. They just wanted Liverpool supporters to know that the Dalglish era was well and truly over.

Dalglish did win 2 cups – he was after all, one of the best managers of the 80s and 90s. But his big mistake was to go in hard on British players. His transfer mistakes came from there: Andy Carroll, Stewart Downing, Charlie Adam and Jordan Henderson. In the coming years, Jordan Henderson would grow in stature and importance to become a crucial piece in Klopp's greatest team, but the other 3 would be seen as disappointments.

The 2014 title challenge for Liverpool was exciting. It had been 24 years since Liverpool last won the title. There was a challenge in 1997, when Liverpool was pushing Man U hard, only to collapse at the end and end up 4^th. Then there was 2002, when Liverpool was on the ascendency, only to be derailed by one of the bad transfer windows I had mentioned earlier. Then there was 2009, and Benitez allowed a few crucial players to leave after that. Brendan Rodgers seemed to be a hot talent, who turned Swansea into a mid table side, but he undermined his popularity by talking too much managerial jargon. Still, it was great how he turned Luis Suarez into a world class player. People were looking forward to the new season, until, buoyed by his own hubris, he thought that he was going to be the one to turn Mario Balotelli into a great player. He also brought in Dejan Lovren, Divock Origi, Adam Lallana, Rickie Lambert. Emre Can and Alberto Moreno. They weren't terrible players, but they weren't going to win you the premier league title. Jurgen Klopp managed to cobble a team with those players to qualify for the champions league, but ultimately he had to replace all of them.

We don't have to repeat what a glorious period the Klopp era was. He built 2 great teams – the team from 2018-2020 which won the Champions League and the league. And after that team was dismantled, he left behind from Arne Slot a team which was capable of challenging for the title. He signed Alexis Mac Allister, Dominik Szoboszlai, Cody Gakpo and, Ryan Gravenberch. They helped to make Liverpool another tough side.

Arne Slot replaced Jurgen Klopp, and seemed to be good enough to win the league in his first season. And then he signed a whole clutch of players. He lost some players who were important to his title challenge: Diogo Jota died tragically. Trent Alexander Arnold left for Real Madrid. Luis Diaz left for Bayern. Darwin Nunez will probably not be missed, but who knows? And Mohamad Salah had been a great player for Liverpool right from the moment he arrived from Roma, but he probably has his best days behind him.

It's too early to label players as flops. Remember Jordan Henderson needed time to settle in. But a lot of big money was spent on Alexander Isak, Florian Wirtz, Jeremie Frimpong and Milos Kerkez. So far, the only player who seems to have done well is Hugo Ekiteke. This is a bad sign for Liverpool: are they going to recover and turn into a great side again, or did Arne Slot just dismantle all the good work that Jurgen Klopp has done for the Liverpool side?

So we had a few dodgy transfer windows, in the early 90s, in the wake of Houllier's triumphs, during Kenny Dalglish's second spell, after Brendan Rodger's title challenge of 2014, and now, after Arne Slot's title. It's remarkable how many times this has happened to Liverpool, and it goes to show you that that's a club where the transfer policy is very important. You could have a few great transfer decisions, and that will take the club forward. Gerard Houllier put a very good side together in a short time. Rafael Benitez brought in Javier Mascherano, Fernando Torres and Xabi Alonso to mount a title tilt. Brendan Rodgers had Luis Suarez (signed by Dalglish), Daniel Sturridge, Raheem Sterling and Philippe Coutinho to help him challenge for the title. Jurgen Klopp's success in building not one but two great teams makes him a legend at Liverpool.

But equally, a bad transfer window could set the club back. So while I hope that Liverpool manages to fix their problems (Man City seems to be a better team this year, but they still have some way to go to replace their best players) they will be a great side again some point in the future. But at least let Arsenal break their title drought first.

Pep Guardiola dominated the premier league for so long that it we forget that it took 2 years for him to make his mark. During his first season, in contrast to his successful years at Barcelona and Bayern Munich, it seemed harder to win the Premier League. Man City had already won 2 premier leagues during the Abu Dhabi era, but it seemed that they overpaid for their success. After their last gasp victory in 2012, out of the next 5 seasons, they only won one premier league. The league was dominated by Man City and Liverpool for so long that people forgot those years. 

During those years, the closest anybody had come to dominating the premier league was Chelsea. But it was an in-between era. Carlo Ancelotti had won in 2010, but after that he was sacked. Roberto Mancini won with Man City in 2012, but after that he was sacked. Manuel Pellegrini won in 2014, and after that he was sacked. Jose Mourinho, Claudio Ranieri and Antonio Conte won the next 3 premier leagues, and each of them were sacked. So some part of me wonders if Arne Slot is going to join that club of people who win a title but cannot establish a dynasty and get sacked thereafter. 

Megacity - World of Strangers

There are two dichotomies that came oto my attention recently. People are classified according to whether they are settlers or nomads. Alternately, settlers are farmers and nomads are hunters.

One of the big things in human society is that most human beings now live in cities. So it might seem that people are more connected to each other. This picture is not consistent. In a city, people can be stangers to eacch other. The city is the classic example that youare not alone but you are lonely.

Robern Kaplan has written a lot of books lately largely from the point of view of a geographer. But his “area studies” approach is really interesting, because it forces you to consider the places in their totality. Not to see them through any one intellectual lengs.

Hel's written about the “waste land”, and it proably won't be one of his classics, but it maeks very interesting points about why things are going downhill. One of his mos interesteing points is that he seems to blame the very high rates of urbanisation for the breakdown in society.

In a small down, you're a a settler. Everybody knows everyo=body else. And there is as sense of amiliarity about the place. But cities are a different animal. It's a place where a lot of human driftwood comes together. People are ostensibly close toeach other, but it's such a large community that the vast majority of the people you interact withare strangers. Relationships are largely transactional. There is a sense of decay of community, of values, of shared experiences.

It is not impossible to find your own tribe and your own niche in a place like this, but that requires intellectual sophictiation to pull off.

The city does offer upsides for the nomad. You can meet noew and interesting people quite often. You can enjoy novel experiences. You can find fulfillment and excitement if you like these things. But the price that you pay is in the ties that bind people together. I don't know if the founders of the USA – who were quite liberal for their time – bargained for this. Maybe the closeness of people in a tightly knit community was something that fell on their blind spots.

This was the age of the Enlightenment, where people were discovering science for the first time. People were talking about things in an analytic way. They saw society and people as abstractions. Hobbes talked about “freedom” as though people were atoms in a scientific system. Talking about people in a scientific way made it possible for people to miss a few crucial aspects of the human condition, but still be utterly convinced that they're right. People are now jumping on the transsexual bandwagon, and while trans rights are important, they attach far too much importance to it. People don't understand how racism is a very natural condition of life, and even if they decry racism, they don't really talk about how to make a person less racist. It's easy to go after the big things like – you should not be lynching people, putting up burning crosses in your lawn. But the most insiduous parts of racism are the hardest to deal with. The redlining, the denying people of opportunities, the inability to form human connections with people who are different from you. It's the small things which are hardest to deal with.

This reminds me a little of how child sex offenders in prison are usually the ones who get beaten up worst. Their fellow prisoners are not moral people. They're just looking for an excuse to beat you up. So while there is some genuine desire to make the world a better place, some of it is just holier than thou-ness at its best and a desire to break some heads at its worst. I experienced some of this when I was younger. If you were the first people to understand that being gay wasn't a sin, it felt like you were in an exclusive, enlightened club, who “got it” before a lot of other people did.

There were a lot of times when I was a kid and I saw how crazy a lot of adults were. Then I found out that you just had to keep them happy and not prod them too much on you thought was the irrationality of their beliefs. There were people who were nice to you, but they had such horrible things to say about racial minorities and gay people. But you just kept quiet because you didn't want to start a big fight that you didn't have to. Today, everybody says out loud what they are thinking. Society has become much less peaceful because of that. There will always be people who either won't accept gay people or will take a long time to get around doing it. Realistically, there's nothing you can do but to wait for them to come around.

Maybe this is the world that we face today. A world full of strangers. It was a different world when I was younger. I hated the parochialism of what Singapore was like, how stifling and restrictive it was. I hated how people pretended to agree with a lot of things in order to avoid conflict. But now I grew up and I saw that it served a real purpose. People pretended that they were a lot more similar to each other than they really were. I got fed up with a lot of the bullshit and hypocrisy that took place when Singapore was more like a small town. Then Singapore became more like a big city, and there were more divisions in society. It may not have gotten better. People pretended to agree with each other. People avoided having real conversations with each other, and in the end, ended up not really connecting. They only had superficial conversations with each other which didn't add a lot to their understandings of each other. The illusion that Singapore was “one people, one nation, one Singapore” started to fray, because the social divisions and class differences were starting to come to the fore. You added to the mix the issue that Singapore doesn't have a deep indigenous identity, but rather reflects a lot of its own identity through foreign cultures. That Singapore has never not been insecure about its own identity, then that added another wrinkle to the problem.

An eye-watering number of people who lived in Singapore were not born here, and didn't go through school here. They lived some of their most productive years of their lives here, and then they went home. They made grand visions of what Singapore was going to be like, which didn't gel well with what the natives thought about that place.

It used to be that cities of different countries were all different from each other. However, there will be a sameness for cities which have a lot of immigrants. I thought of this as a good thing. There will be big Chinatowns in many major cities. Big Indian enclaves. Kebab shops. Korean supermarkets.

This is the meaning of globalisation. In the US, paradoxically, is where you have the greatest and the worst of the immigrant stories. On one hand, the USA becomes a tech superpower largely on the talents of the best immigrants. On the other hand, the backlash against the immigrants was very powerful. The sheer number of people who could become ICE agents. (Sometimes I wonder why nobody is compiling hitlists of ICE agents so that people could fuck them up once we throw Trump out of office. ) A big source of the unhappiness is that people didn't recognise the USA that they grew up in. Sometimes no amount of the fruits of immigrant's labours can compensate for that. Race relations in the cities are OK, generally. But then the cleavage will be at the rural-urban divide. The small towns, which are now populated by people left behind in the brain drain, will become parochial and increasingly backwards places to live. The romantic charm of the small town that you see in “Our Town” or the “Last Picture Show” is gone.

If the USA is the part of the world where the labour movements were historically violent affairs, it's just a continuation of tradition that the confrontation between the natives and the new arrivals would be more violent than in other countries.

Governance is another problem in immigrant societies. How are you going to police a bunch of transients? Transients are not going to care about this society except in matter which affect them. They're going to impose their own preferences and live their way of life. Which is fine until it affects your way of life. I was driving in a HDB carpark when a guy I knew to be a foreigner drove a car with his family down the wrong way just so that he could jump a queue. I didn't beat him up, but I kinda wanted to.

The other downside of the great cosmopolitan megacity is that every large enough city will now have slums, and they will often be ethnic enclaves. It's not just that people from the third world can escape the third world to try and belong in the new city. It's also that the ones who fall behind will create a small little third world in their corner of the city. And there will be associations between the migrants and that third world enclave, fairly or unfairly.

I remember going to the Little Saigons of southern California, immensely grateful that I had adequate access to good Asian cuisine even though I was in a foreign land. And yet I was a little appalled that they all looked like slums and holes in walls.