Kenny Dalglish splashes cash but Liverpool spirits rise | Paul Hayward

Kenny Dalglish is rebuilding not for a title push but a solid top-three place from which a proper challenge can then be mounted Photograph: Mohd Rasfan/AFP/Getty Images

The Kop lives in mortal fear of the mediocre buy, the non?Liverpool signing: a dread that dates back to Phil Babb, Neil Ruddock, Julian Dicks and Jimmy Carter. These unwitting souls are among those blamed for the dilution of the great Anfield tradition of recruiting only aristocrats capable of maintaining the lustre of the Shankly?Paisley era.

zThis understandable defensiveness is a problem for modern Liverpool managers because each new acquisition undergoes an especially fierce scrutiny, especially if he is British and therefore known to the Anfield jury. Buying an average player to perform a specific function stirs the anxieties of supporters who can reel off the duds of the past 10 years, from Paul Konchesky to Salif Diao, Fernando Morientes and Andrea Dossena, who still guarantee a rueful shake of the head on Merseyside.

Supporters who have witnessed five European Cup wins are within their rights to demand the highest possible standards, but in the current phase of mass transition there is little prospect of instant elevation to the Premier League's top spot. Kenny Dalglish is rebuilding not for a title push but a solid top-three place from which a proper challenge can then be mounted.

Unless my eyes fail me, Dalglish is organising a staged recovery. And it could be no other way, given the sheer number of passengers and stowaways who packed the squad over a decade of experimentation under Gerard Houllier and Rafael Benitez. The legacy of that transfer trawling still confronts Dalglish, who has so far managed to cull only Konchesky in his summer dealings.

The Englishman, bought by Roy Hodgson to perform a limited service at left-back, was perhaps the unhappiest of all recent temporary Anfield residents. His mother's brief declaration on Facebook that Liverpool fans were "scouse scum" was unlikely to endear her to the locals. This miserable relationship ended when the son trudged off to the King Power Stadium and Sven?Goran Eriksson's Leicester City.

Plainly no tears will be shed if he is joined by Alberto Aquilani, Joe Cole, Christian Poulsen, Milan Jovanovic or David Ngog. For all Dalglish's recent flourishes in the transfer shop, Liverpool's followers will only really relax when they no longer have to look at players who are emblematic of strategic failings stretching back to the Graeme Souness reign.

With Dalglish back in charge and more sensible American owners at the controls, you can sense a burning urge for there to be no more flops on the recruitment front. In that context, the ?20m spent on Stewart Downing this week is bound to seem more risky than Liverpool fans would like. Each new face is cast against the backdrop of Robbie Keane, Ryan Babel and Bruno Cheyrou.

But a clear policy is emerging under Dalglish and Damien Comolli, the director of football whose presence is bound to cause friction at some point between manager and executive floor. First, Dalglish has employed his knowledge of the youth setup to hurry along John Flanagan, Conor Coady, Jack Robinson and probably now Raheem Sterling, a teenage firefly in wide positions.

At the core, Liverpool are investing in mid-twentysomethings, to escape the Europa League trap. Jordan Henderson, 21, and Andy Carroll, 22, are further down that scale, but this summer the main action has come closer to the point of full maturity, with Charlie Adam, 25, joining from Blackpool and Downing, 26, arriving just as his career starts bearing fruit.

To see Liverpool spending ?36m on Henderson and Downing is bound to unsettle the congregation, especially after the ?35m splurge on Carroll, who was listed in Newcastle's accounts only 18 months ago as a ?500,000 asset.

In the deepest recesses of Anfield there is mounting anxiety about Carroll's prospects of graduating to Ian Rush level. Aspects of his "lifestyle" suggest a less than austere approach to life away from the pitch, which may explain the club's interest in the similarly meaty 18-year-old Connor Wickham, who moved instead to Sunderland.

Extending the contract of Glen Johnson, 26, was another act of mid?range consolidation, and while these names are unlikely to revive memories of John Barnes, Kevin Keegan, Souness or Dalglish himself, they are a realistic first response to the might of Manchester United, the capriciousness of Chelsea and the petro-wealth of Manchester City, whose ?400m deal with Etihad Airlines has so upset the Anfield board.

At this moment in their rise from upper mid-table it is less about instant Hollywood sparkle than assembling a core of hardened pros who can lift some of the burden off Steven Gerrard and Jamie Carragher. When John Henry's firm ousted the speculator-clowns Tom Hicks and George Gillett, we all ran off with the Moneyball theory about cheap talent acquisition.

In the event, Liverpool have had to pay well over the odds for players whose price tags massively outweigh their achievements, but it still feels like a shift in the right direction. In this needy age, the CV and star profile are everything but Liverpool are still in the business of restoring something far more precious: their spirit.

Compared to the Rugby Football Union, News International are BMW or Apple. Some weird suicide pact appears to be gripping Twickenham, which is without a permanent chairman and chief executive and almost lost its respected disciplinary officer, Jeff Blackett, until Judge Jeff was talked out of resigning by members.

One of the many myths exposed is that men from Surrey who speak the language of management training manuals are automatically qualified to run a sport. The RFU's obsession with overlapping job titles and corporate-speak is in direct contrast to rugby's love of plain speaking. The assorted Twickenham committees are now lost in a destructively introspective cycle of provincial power struggles and pomposity.

The final folly was to approve an all-black change kit for the World Cup in New Zealand, where the prime minister, John Key, responded by dismissing England as "a bunch of wannabes". Clumsy, embarrassing and counter-productive, England's feeble attempt at psychological jousting neatly expresses the chaos at the heart of the sport.

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Liverpool urge Uefa to rule on Manchester City's deal with Etihad

Liverpool have joined Arsenal in questioning the legality of Manchester City's sponsorship deal with Etihad Airways. Photograph: Ed Sykes/Action Images

Liverpool's managing director, Ian Ayre, has joined Arsene Wenger in questioning the legality of Manchester City's record sponsorship deal with Etihad. Speaking in the Malaysian capital, where earlier in the week the Arsenal manager had said that City's new agreement raised "the real question about the credibility of financial fair play", Ayre also queried the ?400m deal.

Under financial fair play, clubs cannot avoid the requirement to stay below aggregate losses of €45m (?39.5m) a year by effectively sponsoring themselves with what are known as related payments. Since Etihad, an airline that has the same number of aircraft as Flybe and has never declared a profit, is owned by the same Bin Zayed family that rules the emirate and owns Manchester City, Ayre believes it is a related deal and has called on Uefa to investigate the matter further.

"When I spoke at Soccerex earlier this year I was on a panel about financial fair play," Ayre said. "The guys from Uefa said there would be a robust and proper process about related-pay transactions. Is Etihad, Manchester City and Sheikh Mansour a related party? If they are, then it's up to Uefa to rule on them."

The other test the Etihad sponsorship would have to overcome is whether it represents "fair value". Manchester City have pointed out that the ?40m a year arrangement also provides for redevelopment work around Eastlands as well as shirt sponsorship and naming rights. However, Ayre questioned whether the naming rights to any stadium – especially one that already has a name – are worth anything like the money the airline has agreed to pay.

"It hasn't happened in Europe that a football club has renamed an existing stadium and it's had real value," he said. "It was the City of Manchester Stadium or Eastlands for the last nine years and now it's going to be called something different and someone has attached a huge amount of value to that.

"I find that odd because it has never been done before. There is no benchmark that says you can rename your stadium and generate that amount of value. Mike Ashley tried it at Newcastle but nobody called it Sports Direct@St James' Park and it certainly didn't have that kind of value."

Despite arguing that, in Asia, Liverpool and "another team down the M62" were the only two English football brands with a global reach, Ayre said Liverpool would be cautious about signing Asian players simply to reinforce the club commercially, although the club's director of football, Damien Comolli, has overseen trials in China this week.

In May, Gavin Laws, the head of Standard Chartered, Liverpool's main sponsors, perhaps conscious of the fact that Park Ji?sung has helped Manchester United recruit 1.2 million holders of its credit card in South Korea, said he would want the club to sign footballers from the region. "Signing a player because he is Asian wouldn't deliver anything in the long term," Ayre said. "Manchester United have got the best value in Park. He is a player who can perform at the top level and they have got value from his playing ability. There aren't many of them about."

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Liverpool complete signing of Aston Villa's Stewart Downing for £20m

'Kenny Dalglish has pushed the boat out to get me here,' says Liverpool signing Stewart Downing on his move from Aston Villa. Photograph: David Davies/PA

Liverpool have completed the signing of Stewart Downing from Aston Villa for an undisclosed fee believed to be ?20m.

The 26-year-old winger, who becomes Kenny Dalglish's fourth summer signing, said: "It's a great feeling and I'm very happy to be here. It's been a long time coming and I've had to wait a few weeks but I'm really pleased.

"With the tradition, the manager and the players they have here, there was a big temptation and once I knew of their interest, there was only one place I wanted to go. When I wanted to come to Liverpool, it was the first thing I thought of – playing at Anfield in front of those great fans. I'm really looking forward to it."

The prospect of winning trophies on a regular basis also appealed to Downing. "It would be nice to win something. I'm sure that's the same objective for everyone, not just me. My aim is to be in the team, to play well and give something back, because the manager has pushed the boat out to get me here.

Downing's arrival marked the end of a busy day for Liverpool, who also completed the signing of the goalkeeper Alexander Doni from Roma. The 31-year-old Brazilian is thought to have joined on a free transfer after agreeing terms and passing a medical. Doni, who has 10 caps for Brazil, will provide backup and competition for Liverpool No1 Jose Reina, a role he also played at Roma behind Julio Sergio.

Downing and Doni join Jordan Henderson from Sunderland and Blackpool's Charlie Adam as Liverpool's summer recruits.

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