Shrewsbury vs Liverpool: FA Cup opponents should serve as a reality check for Reds’ gilded rise

The sight of the League One side on Sunday is a reminder that the majority of football clubs play below a glass ceiling of possibility, something Liverpool are lucky enough to circumvent

Shrewsbury Town's New Meadow Stadium will host Liverpool this weekend (Getty)

When Shrewsbury Town take the pitch at New Meadow to face Liverpool tomorrow in the fourth round of the FA Cup, supporters of the Premier League’s runaway leaders should take a long look at the League One side. There, in front of their eyes, are underdogs. There are no circumstances where Jurgen Klopp’s team can be portrayed as being successful against the odds.

Liverpool’s level of achievement has been spectacular and entirely laudable. Klopp has turned the organisation into a well-run machine. They are superb to watch despite the wave of jealous nonsense from people trying to brand their thrilling approach ‘direct’ and ‘boring’. Their mentality is frightening for opponents. They are never beaten. Their tactics have confounded their rivals. No one is able to stop them. But Liverpool are a super club and are flexing their muscles in the style of one of the ultra elite.

Miguel Delaney wrote a piece on these pages praising Klopp’s team but suggesting their dominance was in part a symptom of one of football’s most significant issues: the concentration of resources at a small number of clubs. It provoked an outraged reaction from a section of the Liverpool fanbase. “We’ve done it the right way,” was a common response. “It’s a self-sustaining model.”

That may be true. Klopp’s handling of the team and club’s dealings in the transfer market – especially in the past three years – have been almost exemplary. Fenway Sports Group (FSG), the owner, has worked hard on the commercial side of the business to improve revenues. Yet it is not like Liverpool are, say, Southampton.

Last week the Deloitte Football Money League placed Liverpool in seventh place. Take out Manchester City and Paris Saint-Germain – teams who have historically made little impact on a global level and whose value and income have been inflated by cash injections from their owners in the past decade – and you are left with five traditional super clubs in the top echelon. These are Barcelona, Real Madrid, Manchester United, Bayern Munich and Liverpool, teams that have won half the 64 Champions League/European Cup trophies between them. Disturbingly, they have been even more dominant in the past 15 finals, winning 12. The Big Five have heritage, huge fan bases and massive income. Any analysis of Liverpool’s performance must be seen in this context.

So why has it taken 30 years for Liverpool to win the domestic title? There’s a simple answer: underperformance. For much of that time, including the first five years of FSG’s period in charge, the club did not make the most of their natural advantages. United adapted to the changing landscape of the game much more efficiently. It is true that Roman Abramovich’s Chelsea and the Abu Dhabi takeover of City skewed the division but, even so, most of Liverpool’s issues were self-inflicted. At times it has been easier to cry poverty than admit a paucity of direction.

John W Henry, FSG’s principal figure, set the narrative of this decade early after the 2010 takeover. The American owner said: “I do not have Sheikh in front of my name.” Everybody knew what Henry meant. City were a danger to competition. In reality, Financial Fair Play rules, while far from perfect, have restrained City from spending as wildly as FSG initially feared. Virgil van Dijk’s signing, under intense competition from Pep Guardiola, proved that it is not simply a case of City financially bullying the rest of the league. Remember, the Dutchman joined Liverpool at a point where winning Champions Leagues and Premier Leagues was just a remote dream for Kopites.

The Van Dijk deal is cited by both sides in the debate to prove their case. Those who say Liverpool are punching above their weight point out that the centre back – and Alisson Becker, the other player who made the crucial difference to the team’s success – were paid for by the money the club received for selling Philippe Coutinho to Barcelona. The Brazilian cost just £8.5m in 2013 and was sold for £142m, including add-ons, two years ago. Liverpool did not know at the time they would receive significantly less as a result of the player’s underperformance.

A record £75m for a defender was invested in Van Dijk and in the next window Alisson cost £65m from Roma, lifting the bar on prices for goalkeepers. Those who think Liverpool are buying glory point to these transactions. To get a better sense of Anfield’s status it is worth looking a bit deeper.

Coutinho was extremely close to joining Southampton from Inter seven years ago. Everything had been agreed and at the last minute Liverpool came in offering more money, better incentives and a chance to play in front of the Kop. The midfielder spurned the south coast and joined a side that had finished seventh in the league the previous season – but the club were still ranked 10th richest in football by Forbes magazine.

It was the sort of gazumping that big clubs regularly inflict on their less powerful and affluent rivals. At the time St Mary’s was considered to be a place with brilliant recruitment methods and an admirable economic philosophy. They were, it was perceived ‘doing things the right way’, which appeared to be ‘self-sustaining’. The truth is that Southampton – who have been almost a conveyor belt for Liverpool recruiters – were always going to have a fallow year in selling on players and would eventually find their level. They were always going to hit a glass ceiling. That is because they will never have the financial firepower of the mega-clubs.

Liverpool will always be among the game’s heavyweights. Their fans should enjoy it. The league is likely to get less competitive as the giants of the sport attract more and more money, like black holes sucking the fans, cash and life out of smaller clubs. It is a natural consequence of the way football is developing. It’s almost impossible to have it both ways.

The chaos at United proves that winning is not just about being wealthy, though. It takes a multitude of good policies and a healthy slice of luck – and that does not mean VAR decisions or the bounce of a ball – to become as comprehensively brilliant as Liverpool.

Just don’t try and sell the Klopp story as a victory for the underpowered outsiders. It’s embarrassing – like Laurence Fox, with his Harrow education, ranting about privilege.

This is what happens when one of the elite gets it right. The sight of Shrewsbury should be a reality check. For the vast majority of clubs in football, it does not matter how splendidly they are run. Their horizons are limited. Liverpool are one of the few exceptions. It should not be surprising that they are exceptional.