The Anfield Opinion

Luis Suarez - £22m. Andy Carroll - £35m. Jordan Henderson - £16m. Charlie Adam - £7m. Stewart Downing - £20m. Since acquiring the club in October, FSG have spent over £100m in the transfer market.

A senior debut goal for Conor Coady sealed a win for Liverpool in an action packed game against Guangdong in what was the first tie of the 2011 Asia tour.


Christian Poulsen opened the scoring for Liverpool midway through the first-half, connecting with a chipped ball from the right by Joe Cole, which alluded both Liverpool and Guangdong players before falling at the feet of Poulsen who placed it confidently.

The Reds Asian supporters only had to wait a couple of minutes before the second goal of the game, with David N'gog waiting for the goalkeeper to rush off his line before firing home after connecting with a well placed ball from Jonjo Shelvey.

As the first period was coming to an end Guangdong got their first goal of the game, with Lu Lin breaking well down the right hand side before playing a brilliant ball into Ricardo Steer, who's powerful header got the best of Peter Gulacsi to half the deficit for the hosts.

It was debutant Conor Coady who scored Liverpool's third in the second-half, latching on to a well-placed ball from Andy Carroll before breaking into the box and placing his shot well to re-establish Liverpool's two goal lead and get his first senior goal for the Reds.

With less than ten minutes remaining Liverpool got their fourth, with Maxi Rodriguez playing a great one two with Carroll, with the England international playing it out to the left before the Argentine returned the favour, playing it into the box for Carroll to blast into the back of the net.

Just when it looked like Liverpool were going to win comfortably Guangdong scored two goals in quick succession, with Lu Lin getting a deserved goal, cutting in and placing his shot well with his right foot before Yin Hongbo got the better of Agger and beat Martin Hansen to get the third.

Fans are split on whether Liverpool should move to a new stadium or redevelop Anfield. The financial analysis suggests it's not an easy decision to make. 



It's been one of the longest running issues in the history of Liverpool Football Club, the desire for a new stadium often being kept at bay by poor designs, a lack of funds and neglectful owners. But now Liverpool have the boardroom setup to proceed, but there's still a lot of factors to consider before Liverpool begin to build a new home or renovate their current one.

In a recent press release Ian Ayre, Liverpool's recently appointed managing director, suggested that regardless of whether a new stadium is built or the current one is refurbished the capacity will only come to 60,000 - a total increase in capacity of 16,000 on what Anfield can currently hold.

However further analysis would suggest it isn't just a simple case of 16,000 extra seats. The value of the additional seats varies when considering an all-new stadium or a refurbished Anfield, with a new stadium offering the opportunity for more corporate hospitality situated in modern, state-of-the-art, facilities which will attract more affluent clients.

General admission tickets also tend to be higher after a new stadium has been developed. Arsenal, who moved from their long-time home at Highbury to The Emirates Stadium, were the first club in the history of English football to announce a general admission ticket that costs over £100 after all taxes and charges were included - £52 higher than the most expensive Liverpool tickets for the 2011/12 season.

The club would make further financial gains by selling the naming rights to a new stadium, something they cannot do at Anfield due to strong supporter disapproval of such an idea. Arsenal sold the naming rights to their new stadium, originally named Ashburton Grove, to Emirates Airlines for 15-years at £100m, one of the major contributing factors to the stadium having already taken in enough revenue to cover the cost of the build.

If Liverpool did move to a new stadium than the area currently occupied by Anfield could also be profitable for the club, with the potential to build luxury real estate set around open public areas as has happened at Arsenal's Highbury stadium. Should the development of the current Anfield stadium area, along with the building of a new stadium, also be perceived by the local council to considerably add to the local economy there is also the potential that any project could be subsidised, further increasing potential profitability.

John W Henry, Liverpool's principle owner, also stated that in order to compete at the top level Liverpool needed as big a stadium as Manchester United, with the current league champions ground Old Trafford currently holding 75,000. The expansion of Anfield to 60,000 has already been questioned due to the difficulty with securing residential land around the ground, going even further - beyond - 70,000 could be much easier in a new stadium rather than a refurbished Anfield.

But despite the difficulties of both expanding and achieving substantial increases in revenue at a redeveloped Anfield it isn't something which should be written off.

On the whole, it is much more affordable to expand Anfield to 60,000 rather than build a whole new stadium of the same size, building work could begin relatively soon, whereas with a new stadium it is likely that the current plans for a new stadium - set out by the former owners- will likely have to be reviewed by the new regime.

Fenway Sports Group - the clubs owners - are publicly known to want to be as popular as possible with the supporters, and staying at Anfield helps achieve that goal. What wouldn't however help their cause is building Hicks and Gillett's stadium, not only were fans split on its design in the first place but building it now would be a disheartening reminder of the previous owners and all the wrong they did at the club.

This could mean a total new design is needed for the stadium, meaning more architects and, most importantly, more costs to the club. Hicks and Gillett spent £50 million on their stadium plan which never saw a spade in the ground. The question is how much more would it cost for a new, fully functional, design in comparison to the cost of redeveloping Anfield?

Also, whilst the ability to raise ticket prices at a new stadium increases revenue for the club, it can lead to more supporters being left behind, unable to afford to see their team play. Liverpool is a club which is deep-rooted in the local community yet even the current ticket prices have forced many to make the decision to no longer go to the game. continuous, above inflation, ticket increase will only speed up the process of the match day crowd becoming unrecognisable from those that made the old standing Kop famous throughout the clubs history.

Anfield itself is also a profitable asset. People want to be part of the history, it's why stadium tours are so popular and places at corporate events so scarce. For many Anfield is the one of the only remaining things - aside from the man in the dugout - which still represents old Liverpool FC, the one that won trophies year-on-year and went about things in the Liverpool Way - set out by Bill Shankly.

It has been suggested that the argument to stay at Anfield is purely a sentimental one, but clearly there is some serious financial factors that suggest otherwise. John Henry and the rest of the board have a major decision to make in the near future, one which, whatever way it goes, will not be met by unanimous approval and will change the image of Liverpool Football Club.

With the arrival of Charlie Adam, Liverpool have a host of options in the centre of midfield. With such an abundance of players Kenny Dalglish may look at who is surplus to requirements.