The Community Shield and its predecessor was always a match played in second gear, the sense of detachment from the real stuff emphasised by the early August date when football’s fan base would be either applying the factor 30 on a Mediterranean beach or packing a suitcase.
To borrow a slogan from Liverpool’s marketing department, this means more. Not in the weighty historical sense attached to last season’s title campaign, but as a guide to Liverpool’s potential for growth, and a measure of Arsenal’s progress under Mikel Arteta.
A title surge that saw Liverpool claim their 19th championship by 18 points to Manchester City and 33 to third-place Manchester United suggests Liverpool have enough in hand to blast through the early weeks of the new campaign at the same impressive rate. Jurgen Klopp bears the hallmarks of a dynasty manager, at the helm not only of a fantastic team but an institution with a reclaimed idea of its legacy status.
The issue of renewal is Klopp’s biggest challenge. When to stick with a player or move him on. This was the defining feature that set Sir Alex Ferguson apart, his ability to recycle a squad over an absurdly long 25-year period at Old Trafford.
Let me share with you the first line of a match report I penned for the Sunday Express on the opening day of the 1995-96 season from Villa Park, where United were 3-0 down in the opening 37 minutes. “No Ince, no Hughes, no Kanchelskis, no chance,” it read.
I was so pleased with the way the sentence scanned, so certain of the message it conveyed I spent the second half polishing the definitive account of Ferguson’s folly without noticing the appearance of a kid called David Beckham as a half-time substitute and the transformation he wrought, topped by a goal six minutes from time.
Alan Hansen thought he knew best, too, with his “You will never win anything with kids” oration on Match of the Day. Fergie knew best. United went on to win the title. The regeneration of his team had begun.
Klopp has brought in only one new player, paying Olympiakos £11m for left back Kostas Tsimikas as cover for Andy Robertson.
That Thiago Alcantara remains thus far unclaimed after announcing his departure from Bayern Munich reflects Liverpool’s unity of purpose. At 29 with a price tag of £29m, not to mention a whopping wage, Thiago’s arrival might upset the delicate ecosystem that binds the club.
To leave him out there on the market is thus a reflection of Liverpool’s confidence and belief. In Naby Keita Liverpool already have a replacement for Gigi Wijnaldum. And behind Keita is a cohort of talented nippers aching for a run in the team.
Arteta was one of only three coaches to better Klopp in the league during the post lockdown run-in. The outcome relied more on luck than judgment but that result and the victories over City and Chelsea to lift the FA Cup added impetus to the sense of a club on the move.
Arteta has not had it easy at an institution shorn of its old identity and shape, having to reconcile the divergent forces in play during the epoch of Covid-19. So while the club is able to pay Willian what Chelsea would not and is close to signing off on new terms for Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang at £250k a week, it sees no conflict in making 55 non-playing staff redundant.
The truth is the players at any club are always pegged to a different economic standard that has little relevance to the way the world turns. Arteta is better equipped with Willian and Aubameyang in his team. And there were signs towards the end of last season that Arteta has discovered the triggers to set Pepe free, which will feel like another new signing if he maintains progress. All that remains is to sort the defence, a necessity that might become ever more apparent at Wembley.
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