Can we compete?

In the 1970s, the League Championship was won by amongst others Everton, Derby (twice), Leeds and Nottingham Forest and in the 12 years proceeding the start of the Premiership, taking into account Liverpool's dominance during that period, Aston Villa, Everton (twice) and Leeds were still able to win the League.

Since the start of the Premiership, the only club able to win the competition who won the League during the 70's and 80's is Arsenal. Whether we want to use our European ban or unprofessionalism in the boardroom for the lack of success, the overlying criteria for winning the League appears to be a big budget.

Year in year out Man United buy-in at least one marquee signing. At the end of the 2012 season it was van Persie whose goals won them the Premiership last season. Chelsea and Man City having moved in the same strata have pushed even Arsenal out on a limb. So much so, they are now under pressure to revise their transfer action plan.

For Liverpool's own plan of action to work, that is buying young talent and hoping they hit the ground running with enough quality to make a challenge, takes an enormous leap of faith. With Suarez in toe, and a few quality buys, that leap of faith seems as if it has a safety net beneath it.

But, that feeling right now appears on shakey ground. If we loose Suarez does Rodgers have the gravitas to pull in an equally big name? Does an ageing Steve Gerrard, still have leadership powers to make others follow him into the trenches and players want to sign for the club to play alongside him?

Even average British players cost £10 million or so and Rodgers has shown a degree of acumen in the transfer market to pull off some very adept signings, but we need to broker deals for top flight players or that wait for the Premiership will remain a distant dream.

The forthcoming season is pivotal for tha manager. Any falling away, will highlight and be seen as the direct failure of their Moneyball project which is basically changing the historical approach used to look at how players operate, which is seen as flawed.  Using a new method (originated in Baseball) which they appeared to have implemented to enable the team to operate on a level with the top teams, by buying players  using a sabermatic approach based on analytical evidence, FSG seems for now anyway, to be reticent to buy at the top end of the market.  The method was used to good effect by the 2002 Oakland Athletics and since been copied by many competitors in baseball such as the Boston Red Sox.

To understand its use is too look at how to plug the gap between Man United, Manchester City and Chelsea. By employing, this type of reasoning the Athletics, who had a budget of $41 million in terms of players pay for 2002, compared to the New York Yankees ($125 million), more than held their own and managed to get themselves into the playoffs over two successive seasons by looking at players undervalued in the market, but talented enough to compete at the highest level. If Liverpool, can bridge the gap using this method, it would be a miracle of the first order and propel Brendan Rodgers into the big time.

Interesting times at Anfield.