Making a break with the past

In the spring of 2004, Jose Mourinho was hugely motivated by the prospect of restoring Liverpool to proper glory.

He even dispatched his representatives to make contact while Gerard Houllier’s position wavered.

“Liverpool are a team that interests everyone,” Mourinho explained. “Chelsea does not interest me so much because it is a new project with lots of money invested.”

How things change. In every sense.

Eight years on, many at the club craved a choice between Mourinho and Benitez. Indeed, amid the general disillusionment surrounding the dismissal of Kenny Dalglish, this is how the process has been framed.

They were the only appointments that could seemingly have soothed so much opprobrium.

This, however, encapsulates the current problem with Liverpool. On the one hand, there is a past that appears to have them going in pointless cycles.

On the other, there is a future that is — as yet — unattainable.

Football has changed too much in the two years since Benitez’s departure, let alone eight. Given his relative failure in the meantime, we don’t even know if the Spaniard would still actually be suited to the Anfield job. We do know, however, that Mourinho would now not even consider an approach. Liverpool are not in that league of super-club.

This is the reality Brendan Rodgers is walking into. But this is also why he might be the right choice.

First off, one thing should be made clear. Liverpool are, obviously, a massive club. Their previous eras of success will always make that so. The problem is that such prestige no longer translates into proper cache. Mourinho hinted at the issue in 2004 when he was railing against it. It’s not even so much that money talks. Status does. The plain fact is most top football people are persuaded by potential for the future, not feats from the past.

If it came to it last summer, for example, would Liverpool really have been able to battle Chelsea for Andre Villas-Boas — without the same funds and a Champions League place?

And, whatever has happened since, Villas-Boas’s Europa League victory was exactly the type of achievement Liverpool fans demanded from this summer’s appointment.

One of the most common questions from fans has been “what has Rodgers done to actually merit the job?”

Chelsea’s pursuit of Villas-Boas, however, arguably proves Liverpool don’t currently have the clout to merit that kind of manager.

Their financial position has often been, well, understated since the original American duo left.

Although Liverpool are still tens of millions behind Chelsea, Manchester City and Manchester United in terms of average wage, they were the fourth highest payers in the Premier League and are ninth in Deloitte’s European Money League.

So, while they are a level below the super clubs, they have still under-performed relative to resources.

And, although there was evidence Dalglish deserved another season, the contrasting success of Newcastle on a much smaller budget put that campaign into a different context.

It was Dalglish’s past achievements, of course, that offered the ultimate caveat. But, after so much revolution — in every sense — it seems the club needs a break with the past; a breath of fresh air.

A young manager like Rodgers provides that; not to mention a solution to many of Liverpool’s problems.

For one, Rodgers may not have delivered a continental trophy in the manner Villas-Boas or Benitez but he has managed the exact same type of feat on a different scale: he lifted a club to an unprecedented new level. That is, fundamentally, good management.

What’s more, he did so by largely defying economics.

And Rodgers is no Roy Hodgson. Whereas the new England manager always attempts to work within the limits of teams, Rodgers tries to push them. That has been seen in how he has got so many players without previous Premier League experience producing football of the purest kind.

Certainly, Rodgers has proved he has the qualities to maximise the club’s resources. After that, they may be able to return to the markets of 2004. By that point, though, Rodgers at least has the potential to ensure they don’t need to.