Abramovitch circa 2002 as the owner instead of Hicks and Gillett.
It's probably too early to come to any conclusions but at the very least we can all stop holding our collective breathes waiting for the money tap to start flowing. To be fair, the new owners did put to plan the oft-delayed proposal for a new stadium. And the recent war of words with Benitez may be just a way of keeping everything behind closed doors and playing the media game. Anyway, it is too early and realistically I'll have to wait about five years, then take a look at the trophy case to assess the success of their reign.
Having said that, I beseech them to not give that bs about having spent the most in club history on transfers. Like Benitez responded the club recovered half of the output from the players sold, even extracting a breakeven sum for the "distinguished" Craig Bellamy - some things in this world are impossible but apparently this wasn't one of them. And I think it's also fair to acknowledge that during Benitez's tenure - I don't know if the fault is with Rick Parry or the board or the manager himself - alot of money has been wasted on mediocre talent. It's not as bad as the Houllier era when Bruno Cheyrou, Le Tallec and Sinama-Pongolle were supposed to be wunderkinds with limitless potential on the level of Zidane, but the haul hasn't been great either.
I remember Benitez rueing about the fact that they couldn't spend like Arsenal when talking about Theo Walcott which kind of neglects the angle that Arsenal has the lowest payroll and transfer kitty of the four giants of the Premiership. They were paying Thierry Henry abouot half as uch as Liverpool were paying Gerrard plus Zenden (no research on this except from the SI's Football Manager 2007 database - good game, but like everyone complains, change the engine once in a decade. And also, you can't do like Bolton to Man U, play rough and disrupt their timing when Man U were in great form. They did rest Rooney and C. Ronaldo, but still Tevez better score some more or he's going to become the next Diego Forlan). Arsenal have the kind of operation that Liverpool should be aiming for.
For reals, if Arsene Wenger left Arsenal, every team on his shortlist should have their fingers on their "Fire the Manager" buttons - hook him back up with David Dein and you'll have a challenger in five years. That would include Benitez - he's been very solid especially in Europe - but Wenger is in another class in the Premiership. Experience apparently matters, I never believed when I sent out those job applications and even when I got no response for like six months - I'm a naivete.
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