Reaching the Champions League group stage provides the illusion of success for Liverpool, but it is just an illusion

There is a timeless and touching routine which often takes place when a football manager finds himself in the company of journalists and complains about a critical newspaper article which may or may not have been written by someone among the party. After venting for a while, the manager will turn his attention to the headline which invariably has upset him most.

Among his audience, there is an anticipation of what might now happen and when it does there is a tangible sense of relief.

“I know you lads don’t write the headlines,” he’ll say, at which point the atmosphere changes and becomes less tense. The journalists who don’t write the headlines, and the journalists who do, will find common ground with the aggrieved manager and the anger and outrage will dissolve into universal tutting at the egregious behaviour of a faceless functionary.

It has been reported that if and when Philippe Coutinho accepts that he will not achieve his move to Barcelona this summer, there will be a need for a similar fall guy so everyone in the room at Anfield can get along once more.

His people are reportedly ready to point the finger of blame at Barcelona for encouraging family members to prompt Coutinho to send an email that functioned as a transfer request, and which is generally considered to have escalated the situation unnecessarily.

Others will point fingers at his people, suspecting that his people are shifting the blame from themselves to other nameless people when his people were as happy for the move to take place as anyone could be. 

But happiness, like everything else in football, is a commodity like and Coutinho’s re-assimilation shouldn’t prove to be too difficult, especially once it is generally agreed that the lad has been “badly advised” by someone. 

Coutinho, as a sentient adult, might also be expected to take some responsibility too, but football doesn’t work like that.

Players know that most things deemed to be disloyal will be forgotten by the only people who considered those actions to be important in the first place: supporters.

His team-mates won’t care, knowing that there may be a time when they, too, will need to push a desire for a move to the most extreme point required and that none of it is personal, it’s just business.

But maybe it is bad business. In this saga, it is not just Coutinho who has been badly advised. After Wednesday night’s emphatic victory against Hoffenheim, Liverpool might be feeling hopeful. 

They can now point to qualification for the Champions League group stage as evidence that they are moving in the right direction. If they resist the increasingly desperate and demented bids from Barcelona, they may be able to state that the resistance demonstrates they are a big club as they resume their position among the elite.

But the real evidence of their status might be found in how badly they have handled the summer and how far they have strayed from the lean and purposeful intentions FSG had when they took over the club.

Their failure to sign Naby Keita and the mess made of courting of Virgil Van Dijk has resulted in Coutinho – a player surely worth selling for £138 million – becoming indispensable.

There may be such a thing as big clubs and small clubs, but the real distinction is between well-run clubs and those who appear to be making it up as they go along. Liverpool belong in the latter camp at the moment, although it may be some comfort for them that Barcelona appear to be in that category with them.

Liverpool have pursued Van Dijk with the subtlety and sophistication of a man who vomits into the hair of his date on their first night out and then pretends he can redeem the situation, even though there is sick on his shirt and the cinema has emptied because of the smell.

They may end up together but the manner of the pursuit wouldn’t lead you to think that FSG’s mission statement when they arrived  to “under-promise and over-deliver” has been established within the club.

On Wednesday Liverpool celebrated qualification for the Champions League group stage, but their presence there may simply demonstrate the gap between illusion and reality.

There was a time when players might have been wooed by the prospect of playing for Liverpool in the Champions League, but that was during a time when English clubs could hope to make an impact on the Champions League.

Financially, it is still appealing, but when Sunderland earn more for finishing bottom of the Premier League than Manchester City did in reaching the semi-final of the previous season’s Champions League then it is easy to see why clubs may not find Europe the compelling attraction it once was.

Under Jurgen Klopp, Liverpool are unlikely to pursue it as half-heartedly as they did under Brendan Rodgers in 2014 when he gave priority to a league game at home to Chelsea ahead of a match against Real Madrid at the Bernabeu. Liverpool lost both matches.

But there is a knowledge gap that may yet prove insurmountable and which will reveal the extent of the work needed on the squad. If Liverpool could be confident how that money would be spent, they might have considered the sale of Coutinho for more than £100 million as not just inevitable, but part of their fundamental duties. Instead they fight an unnecessary fight which has become critical at this late stage against a club who are desperate too. And they hope that victory in this staring match will demonstrate their mettle, when it may have established something else. Klopp will have a fine understanding of the importance of European nights at Anfield but Liverpool now head for that stage unprepared. There are times when emotion can bridge the gap but Liverpool need more than desire to be considered among the big clubs once again. They might need to stop acting as they think a big club should and start behaving like the smart club they once had aspirations to be.