Actually, I've heard from Swansea forums that Rodgers was really desperate for the top job here, but didn't think that it would be vacated this summer so he went with Liverpool. Hey ho. I like Rodgers, I was impressed by Swansea and their acquisitions but I'm happy with AVB too. More of a gamble, but to dare is to do.
I think Liverpool are relatively well off, but they've made a number of expensive mistakes and are now paying for it. Liverpool have recently penned record deals with sponsors (Warrior) so they're certainly boosting their commercial revenues, but they went and spent too much money last year under Comolli's direction - 75m just for Carroll, Downing, and Henderson! And it doesn't sound like their wage bill decreased all that much either, which is why they're really tightening the belt on incomings.
FSG's sabremetrics approach allows them to buy players at relatively high prices so long as the wages are reasonable and the sell-on value is high (young, English, good stats), just as we did in buying the likes of Bentley and Bent for 32m. However, I don't think they anticipated Commolli and Kenny's crap scouting abilities, the lack of value in English players (and the problems with offloading them), and the general craziness of the RAWK crowd. FSG probably thought they could convince the fans to accept Europa results for a couple years so long as the football was alright and they were doing well financially; and then they could sell them on at a healthy profit. But Liverpool fans aren't aboutto accept that, even though I would argue that 3 of the 4 places are already sewn up thanks to overwhelming resources.
A better model would be Saudi Sportswashing Machine - buying abroad, emphasizing talent and technical ability as much as stats, going for the relatively risky (temperament, poor recent form, injury) for lower fees. It's not like players like Ben Arfa, Cisse, Cabaye were not well-known, but Saudi Sportswashing Machine have been doing a very good job at convincing them to come for pretty low fees and wages, which is where Liverpool are failing. Maybe we can try to pinch Carr back?
