Here is your Liverpool morning digest for Tuesday, July 13.
FSG must not repeat £375m Tottenham mistake
Football is an ever evolving game but there are some things that must remain constant, writes Dave Powell.
Ever since Fenway Sports Group shelved their plans for a new stadium for Liverpool the focus has been on redeveloping Anfield, one of world football's most storied and iconic stadiums.
From the Main Stand development to the forthcoming work on the Anfield Road end, there is a commitment to Anfield, Liverpool's home for the past 129 years, one that remains well into the future.
But with such commitment also comes the caveat of retaining status quo.
For clubs that move into a new stadium, with the shackles of tradition taken off, selling the stadium naming rights is one of the most lucrative revenue streams that can be realised from taking such a step.
A look at the stadiums to have had their naming rights sold in the Premier League and all of them are stadiums to have taken clubs away from their spiritual home in the past 20 years or so.
From Arsenal swapping Highbury for the Emirates Stadium, Manchester City trading Maine Road for the Etihad, and Leicester City's switch from Filbert Street to the King Power Stadium, when a new chapter is written in terms of where clubs play their home games then selling the rights is a far easier task to present to supporters.
Everton's impending move from Goodison Park to Bramley Moore Dock has already seen them realise some financial benefit, with existing club partner USM paying £30m to simply have first refusal on the naming rights of the stadium when it is completed.
It's hard to hand much credit to FSG in terms of trying to preserve traditions after their horrendous misjudgement that saw them drag Liverpool's name through the mud with their failed attempt to join the doomed European Super League plot back in April.
But even after such a move they would be brave, or rather completely foolish, to try and sell the naming rights to Anfield.
There is a potential revenue stream worth hundreds of millions there, but at what cost to the traditions of the football club itself?
READ THE FULL STORY HERE .
Liverpool’s narrow £52m transfer escape
Just over three years ago, a Liverpool transfer deal broke down last minute, writes Matt Addison.
Nabil Fekir was the name on everyone's lips - the player who Liverpool fans, across social media at least, were convinced was the ideal player to move to Anfield - and the move was close to being confirmed.
In a window that saw Liverpool splash around £170m on new recruits, break the world-record fee for a goalkeeper and pull off a shock deal for the excellent Fabinho, it was the one deal the Reds didn't do that left an immediate lasting impression.
Initial reports stated that it was a medical issue that saw the deal for the French forward stopped, but Fekir later denied that was true.
There were other rumours that at the last minute, his representatives had changed the goalposts when it came to the finances behind the move.
One thing we do know for sure is that it was close enough that a signing video had already been recorded with Liverpool’s in-house media channel.
The deal would have been worth £52m , in a summer that Liverpool had already spent heavily. They did not move on to another target.
The attacking midfielder had scored 23 goals, 18 in Ligue 1, during an impressive 2017/18 campaign and Jurgen Klopp saw him as the ideal candidate to add creativity to Liverpool's midfield that Philippe Coutinho's departure saw them lose.
A year later - now two summers ago - Fekir made a £17m move to Real Betis.
READ THE FULL STORY HERE .
