Good morning, Liverpool fans. Here are your morning headlines for Sunday July 19th.
Failed Liverpool train Anelka’s greatest regret
Liverpool fans will not have forgotten the impact Nicolas Anelka had on loan to the club in the 2001/02 season.
He joined the Reds from Paris Saint-Germain in December 2001 and scored five goals in 22 games under the then coach Gerard Houllier.
But his compatriot decided to sign Senegalese international El Hadji Diouf the following summer instead of Anelka.
And within a year, Liverpool has developed from a second place in the Premier League to a missed Champions League football.
“This is also my biggest regret because I knew it was the perfect game,” Anelka told the Echo exclusively.
“Everything was perfect! I loved everything about the club.
“I had an amazing relationship with the fans. I loved them and I think it was mutual.”
Anelka, who played for 12 clubs during his career, also announced that he heard in the news that his move to Anfield would not be permanent.
Beane explains the true FSG moneyball approach
Liverpool owner FSG has joined a recruitment approach to “Moneyball”, a term coined by the author Michael Lewis’ book about the Billy Beane baseball revolution.
But while the usual line of thought with this approach is to spend as little as possible, this is simply not the case, Beane explained in one Exclusive interview with the Blood Red Podcast.
As General Manager of Oakland Athletics in Major League Baseball, Beane Sabermetrics – the empirical analysis of baseball statistics to make recruitment decisions – made the franchise a historic success, as the team won 20 games in a row in the 2002 season after it won Stars had made outdated players.
And Beane explained: “It (Moneyball) has many different meanings. The assumption when using this term is that you always try to spend as little as possible, which could not be further from the truth.
“Some business decisions – or sporting decisions – cost a lot, but they’re worth far more than you put into them. For example: Michael Jordan. Whatever the Chicago Bulls paid for, it was exponentially more valuable.
“We end up trying to find undervalued assets and hope that player value will continue to increase.
“Mohamed Salah is a good example in Liverpool. They spent about 40 million pounds from Italy on him.
“At the time, people thought it was too much, but it turned out he was worth far more money than they paid for him.”
Alisson has proven to be Liverpool’s missing piece
Alisson completed his £ 65 million move to Roma two years ago today, making the Brazilian the most expensive goalkeeper in the world at the time.
And it has proven to be more than well-spent money, as Echo’s chief author, Liverpool Ian Doyle, writes.
“Last season’s glorious Champions League run brought a lot to Alisson” he explains here in more detail.
“From his parade against Napolis Arkadiusz Milik in the last moments of their group decision maker to his stops in the semi-finals against Barcelona to his composed performance to keep Tottenham Hotspur at bay in the final.”
“The Brazilian was no less impressive in domestic matters.
“His goal in a 2-0 home win against Manchester United in January meant a 28th stoppage of Alisson’s 50th league game for the club, which was Pepe Reina’s best record so far.”
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