Every close season since Roy Evan’s reign,
Getting the Kop on his side was always going to be easy for a Liverpool legend like Dalglish, but this has been made so much easier by the carefully chosen criteria of his purchases. Buying young British talent is a quick-fire way to win over even the most sceptical of fans – especially after nine years of foreign managers bringing in unproven players, only to witness them fade into obscurity before disappearing back to their homeland at a fraction of the price for which they were brought in.
In Downing, Adam and Henderson, Dalglish has recruited three of the top performing midfielders from last season, and with their reputations already assured, a re-sale price can be competitively negotiated should they feel the need to move on in the future. But in the short term – and that’s all modern-day managers can really bring themselves to think about – he has also brought in Jose Enrique to solve their long-standing problem at left-back and Craig Bellamy as a back-up striker. Already Enrique looks like a well-established member of their back four, and with 20-year-old Sebastian Coates lined up to replace the recently-departed Sotirios Kyrgiakos, they now look like they possess a squad that won’t need major investment to compete year-on-year and whose Premier League odds look favourable.
At right-back they have the impressive John Flanagan and Martin Kelly pushing Glen Johnson hard for a starting place, and up front both Luis Suarez and Andy Carroll will have benefited from a full pre-season under their belts. Already their bench looks infinitely stronger than it did for the majority of last term – against Arsenal last weekend it boasted no fewer than five full internationals.
They may not deliver their long-suffering fans the title this year, or even next – but the football betting suggests they are on an upward curve, and that change was all that was required after the recent stagnation that had set in around Anfield.
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