Liverpool Football Club has historically been one of the strongest teams in the Premiere League and is still considered one of the league’s giants, but for the past 20 years, they have not seen one title success. John W. Henry, the club’s owner, has attributed this to a lack of strength and lack of emerging stars.
Despite the fact that Liverpool currently lags far behind other well-known football clubs such as Manchester United, Chelsea, and Arsenal, Henry has a long-term vision for his club and has made strengthening the club one of his main priorities.
This week, Damien Comolli, the former director of football for the Spurs, was appointed by Liverpool to assist in this process.
“We’re not deep enough. We don’t have enough youth,” said Henry. “If you look at Manchester United and Arsenal they have depth. They have relative young teams and that’s something that [Comolli] can help us with.”
Henry does not think that Comolli’s appointment will undermine Roy Hodgson’s authority in any way.
“When I first met with Roy it was really clear that he wanted someone in that position, so I really didn’t talk that much with Roy over the week or so before we made the decision to bring Damien in,” said Henry. “So I think he may have been surprised when I brought it up, but he’s fully supportive. He knows Damien. I think that model really requires people of certain personality for it to work and Roy and Damien are two personalities that will mesh well together.”
Henry has insisted that under his ownership, the club will not continue to spiral into debt as it did under the former ownership of Tim Hicks and George Gillett. However, he acknowledges that a new stadium may be a necessity in the long run as opposed to refurbishing the current one.
“We really have to invest in the club. We need more depth. We need to build the squad,” Henry said. “We need stadium changes, whether we build a new ground in Stanley Park or we rebuild and refurbish Anfield. If you build a stadium there’s debt involved in that. Even Arsenal had to borrow to build Emirates. You cannot sustain a club in the long term to buy players. You’re really limited to what your revenues are. That means we have to create revenues worldwide. We have to generate revenues and that’s what we’re really good at.”
