Last week, as many of you will remember, esteemed author Arslan Siddiqui wrote on this very website an excellent article about Luis Suarez’s then imminent departure from Merseyside: http://old.lastwordonsports.com/2014/07/09/anfield-alive-liverpool-will-fine-without-luis-suarez/.
In this article, Mr Siddiqui remained bullish about Liverpool’s future without Luis Suarez and firmly believed that, with a few good signings, Liverpool would have enough quality both to stay in the Top Four and sustain another Premier League title challenge, as they did under the Uruguayan’s leadership last season.
He made the comparison between Liverpool’s current situation and Arsenal’s own affairs after the departure of club legend Thierry Henry. Back then, according to the author, “the world declared that Arsenal were finished; nobody would be able to score without Thierry Henry.” However, Arsenal proved these people wrong and, as Mr Siddiqui puts it, “continued to score enough to be one of the top teams in England.”
Now, whilst there are some similarities between Henry and Suarez’s respective moves to Barcelona, it is necessary to point out that Arsenal did not win another trophy for seven years after Henry’s departure and that Arsenal were nowhere near as reliant on the Frenchman in his last season as Liverpool were on Suarez. Unfortunately, Henry spent the vast majority of his final season at Arsenal injured. Arsenal did manage to secure Champions League football for the next season, despite some very poor results and things looked promising for this young Arsenal team.
Contrary to some of the statements in Mr Siddiqui’s article, I do not remember too many people declaring that Arsenal were “finished.” Certainly, questions were being raised as to Robin van Persie’s and Emmanuel Adebayor’s respective abilities to replace Henry-the two managed 19 goals between them in the league during Henry’s last year-but in general, particularly after the signing of right-back Bacary Sagna, respected holding midfielder Lassana Diarra and exciting prospect Eduardo up front, things were looking relatively bright for Arsenal.
To an extent, things went rather well for Arsenal. However, they could’ve gone much better. Title collapses in 2008, 2010 and 2011 as well as a few near misses in various cup competitions meant that Arsenal’s trophy-less run lasted until well after Henry’s departure from North London.
However, are things as bright for Liverpool as they were for Arsenal all those years ago? Siddiqui says in his piece that “a number of decent, but not great, players along with two emerging stars-Van Persie and Fabregas-brought success to Arsenal.”
I think many will agree that the years after Thierry Henry’s departure were not successful by Arsenal’s standards. But the more important question is do Liverpool really have players of the ilk of Van Persie and Fabregas? Are Adam Lallana and Phillipe Coutinho as good as Fabregas was in his last four years at Arsenal? The Spaniard had already been an integral part of Arsenal’s team since his breakthrough aged just eighteen in 2004 and had already made over 100 league appearances before Henry left. What followed were the four best years of Fabregas’s footballing career; his scintillating form carried Arsenal through long periods of the next few seasons and, had he stayed fit the whole way through his penultimate season, there is a great chance that Arsenal would’ve won the league that year. Can Messrs Lallana and Coutinho carry Liverpool like Suarez did?
Many of you will now point to Daniel Sturridge’s excellent goalscoring record last season. However, this was done largely thanks to Suarez. The author mentions the number of goals Suarez scored but does not mention just how many goals and chances he created as well. Not only did Suarez score 31 goals in the league last year, he created twelve assists.
Some of you will point out that during Suarez’s ban Liverpool did well but, apart from a 6-0 win against Newcastle, Liverpool did not score anywhere near as many goals as they did with Suarez and had some very poor results like their 2-2 draw with Swansea and 1-0 loss at home to Southampton. In fact, Liverpool only managed to score multiple times in one game just once in the first five games of the season: the aforementioned draw with Swansea. Just look at Liverpool’s list of results this season and you’ll realise that things transformed with Suarez in the team, not least the number of goals scored.
Daniel Sturridge is not a striker who can create something out of nothing like Suarez and Henry can and could. He finishes off what others create. Just look at his England performances; England fans have not seen his dance celebration anywhere near as often as Liverpool fans. This is because England do not have any players anywhere near as creative as Suarez. What’s more, because opposition defences have to put so much effort into marking Suarez-teams have often resorted to having two men mark the Uruguayan-more space opens up for the other players. Players like Sterling and Sturridge, who both had stellar seasons for Liverpool, would not have been able to play so brilliantly without Suarez and, as it stands, there is not a player in the Liverpool squad capable of doing what Suarez did either in terms of scoring goals or creating them.
Perhaps a more appropriate comparison between Liverpool currently and Arsenal historically is Robin van Persie’s departure from Arsenal.
In the 2011-12 season, despite many different players scoring goals, Arsenal were incredibly dependent on the Dutchman. Had van Persie added to his huge injury list in his last season at Arsenal the Gunners may not have been able to close the gap between themselves and their North London rivals Tottenham. Like Suarez not only did van Persie score plenty of goals, he created them and helped the other players in the team gain a lot of space. He is a striker who can create something out of nothing, for example his incredible goal in Arsenal’s comeback from 2-0 down to win 5-2 at home to Tottenham in February 2012.
When van Persie departed for rivals Manchester United it really did seem as though Arsenal were finished. Arsenal had barely managed to get 70 points with one of the greatest strikers in the world carrying their team and, unless they strengthened very well, securing Champions League football for yet another season would prove a bridge too far in 2013.
The same applied to Tottenham’s loss of Gareth Bale just last year. The Lilywhites had failed to finish fourth with the most expensive player in football history and they really had to strengthen if they wanted to challenge rivals Arsenal again. At first it seemed they had as they signed seven players for £100million. However, none of these players have so far reached their full potential and last year was something of a disaster for Tottenham. Arsenal, however, when they lost their talisman managed to replace him with three very solid players in Santi Cazorla, Lukas Podolski and Olivier Giroud. Again neither of these three has really managed to reach his potential so far. However, they did enough to secure two more Champions League seasons and win the FA Cup for Arsenal.
This is the sliding-doors moment Liverpool are presented with. Should they blow the £75million they have received from Barcelona on a bunch of flops like Stewart Downing and Andy Carroll, as they did in the aftermath of Fernando Torres’s departure to Chelsea in 2011 (though they did get Suarez), then they will struggle to challenge for the title for a while yet. However, should they bring in a group of strong players who perform well for them, they may not be able to challenge for the league immediately, but should be able to stay in Europe’s top competition and perhaps cut short their ongoing trophy drought as Arsenal were unable to do.
Another difference between Arsenal and Liverpool is that Arsenal were going through very tough times financially because they were paying off the debts which came from building the Emirates Stadium. If you look at other clubs who have built new stadiums you will see that all have struggled really rather badly. Wenger keeping Arsenal in the Champions League was an incredible achievement, though he could’ve very easily gone a few steps further and brought silverware to the Emirates for the first time a bit earlier.
On the other hand, Liverpool are yet to rebuild Anfield or move to a new stadium, as is planned; the years of paying off debts are yet to come. Arsenal are now a lot richer than Liverpool, which explains why they have been able to sign Mesut Ozil and Alexis Sanchez in the last two summers without selling their best players. However, Liverpool have netted a hefty chunk of money from the Suarez deal and have a chance to keep themselves at their current level if Brendan Rodgers plays his cards right in the transfer market. Liverpool have spent £20million on wonderkid Lazar Markovic, which is a great start, but they need more talent and, more importantly, more experienced and proven talent just to begin their replacing of Suarez.
The seven years after Thierry Henry’s departure were not successful. Finishing fourth every season was a monumental achievement for a club so strapped for cash; certainly their time between 2005 and 2014 was much more fruitful than their North London neighbours’, even though Tottenham managed to win a Carling Cup. However, Arsenal have a long history of winning trophies (not in Europe) and those nine years will not be remembered fondly by Arsenal fans. Liverpool cannot go through a period like that and call it successful: a club which has won eighteen league titles and five European Cups can’t accept long trophy droughts, even though the great Bill Shankly himself went seven years without winning anything. Because Liverpool are yet to make Champions League football as big a priority as Arsenal did, perhaps one of their main priorities should be cutting short this ongoing trophy drought before it can develop into something massive.
Liverpool have only won a solitary Carling Cup in the last eight years and will be desperate to win something more substantial sooner rather than later. However, Liverpool’s main target will be ending the twenty-four year wait for a league title, which could have so easily happened last year. Therefore a few years spent consolidating fourth place and gaining the money which comes from that, as well as rebuilding the squad to replace Luis Suarez, will be very useful indeed for the club long-term.
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