Graeme Souness: ‘There’s an obvious reason Liverpool aren’t in the market for many players’
Liverpool manager Jurgen Klopp celebrates a victory with Jordan Henderson
Graeme Souness will tell you there was a voice in Michael Robinson’s head telling him he didn’t really belong at Anfield.
Liverpool were reigning league champions when the Republic of Ireland international made the switch from Brighton & Hove Albion in the summer of 1983 and they already had a pairing of Ian Rush and Kenny Dalglish up front.
Robinson wasn’t shy about suggesting that he was one-paced and lacked a killer touch and, while he had impressed at Brighton with a goal every three games, the £200,000 Liverpool parted with for his services was half a million less than the sum Manchester City had forked out to take him from Preston North End just three years earlier.
But Bob Paisley and Joe Fagan liked what they saw.
One was passing the managerial torch on to the other after the capture of yet another league title when they identified Robinson and Coventry City defender Gary Gillespie as the players to keep the wheels spinning smoothly.
Gillespie was a slow starter who would spend nine years at the club.
Robinson would come and go inside 18 months.
His first nine games passed without a goal, and he fell out of favour towards the season’s end, but there was still a dozen goals and 42 appearances in a campaign which would end with the club claiming a 15th First Division title, a fourth European Cup, and a fourth League Cup.
“He played his part,” said Graeme Souness who bossed Liverpool’s midfield for a seventh season that year and counted Robinson as a lifelong friend, until he passed away earlier this year. “He gave us something different from Rushy and Kenny.
“He chipped in with goals and was great around the place and certainly played his part that year. You wouldn’t find anyone from the squad at that time who’d say anything other than that. He was a valued member of the squad.”
The point of which here and now is to suggest that champions don’t necessarily have to play a blinder in the transfer market to keep their noses in front. More often than not it’s been a tweak here or a minor upgrade there that has been seen to suffice.
It’s an interesting history lesson given Liverpool have yet to really bother their bank manager. The high point to date has been the arrival of Konstantinos Tsimikas from Olympiacos as cover for Andy Robertson and a second choice left-back is no-one’s idea of bling.
Klopp served notice of this inactivity in July when the previous season was still winding down and he could add that their first Premier League success in three decades was achieved on the back of a similarly sleepy summer. Their only arrival of note last term was Takumi Minamino’s in January.
Go back through the last decade and the reigning Premier League champions have, like every other club, registered mixed results in the market. Manchester United’s capture of David De Gea in 2011 stands heads and shoulders above the rest in that bracket and even he wasn’t enough to prevent the trophy from migrating across town to the Etihad 10 months later.
Plenty of former Anfield players have been giving angsty soundbites about this, Gillespie among them, but Souness appears more sanguine. Maybe he recalls 1980 when the extent of their wheeling and dealing was Avi Cohen’s signing from Maccabi Tev Aviv. Or two years later when David Hodgson’s transfer from Middlesbrough was peak splurge.
The club still went on to retain their title both times and what’s noticeable during that period was the lesser-known faces drafted in with longer-term ambitions in mind. Bruce Grobbelaar came in from Vancouver Whitecaps, Ronnie Whelan from Home Farm and Jim Beglin signed from Shamrock Rovers. All would be eased into the system over time.
“If you win the title, it means you’re a really good team anyway,” says the Scot, “and what Liverpool did in those days was to try and cherry-pick the best young players coming through.
“If you look back recently, with Firminho and Andy Robertson, Liverpool did that. The time to buy players, or the best time to buy players, is where you are at the top because those players don’t have to be an immediate success. The pressure is not all on them to come in and be the difference from a team that’s deemed to be a top team.”
Souness, who will be among the Sky analysts this season, compares that to the situation at Old Trafford where players brought in over the past number of years have been expected to pay instant dividends and not everyone can be a Bruno Fernandes. That said, he isn’t blind to the need for Klopp to add a body or two in midfield and as back-up in attack.
The mutual affection between the club and Bayern Munich’s Thiago Alcantara is no secret but for now it looks like Klopp will be looking to the likes of Minamino and Naby Keita to chip in more, especially with Adam Lallana
already departed and suggestions that Divock Origi and Xherdan Shaqiri are not central to future plans.
It may be too that more faith is placed in the hands of a new generation. Curtis Jones, Rhian Brewster, Harvey Elliott, and Neco Williams all look poised to take the next step, especially so if Liverpool’s recent good luck with injuries kicks through to another term.
“There must be a very obvious reason why they are not buying players,” says Souness. “It’s because Jurgen must feel the youngsters coming through are ready to step up.
“It might be the opposite this year or they might continue with that luck but that’s a question that unfortunately no one can answer. Injuries to big players would damage any team. If you are losing your star players, that affects you, whether you are Liverpool, City, United, or Chelsea.”
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