Use your head like Sadio and subscribe to the Liverpool FC newsletter Sign me up Thank you for subscribing We have more newsletters Show me See our privacy notice Invalid Email

Liverpool owner John Henry must have been feeling a billion dollars this week.

Or to be more accurate, a billion pounds.

For he and his fellow investors at Fenway Sports Group must have been pretty pleased with the value given to Liverpool Football Club in the latest Forbes list of the most valuable sports teams in the world.

It is an estimate of course - every asset is always only worth what anyone is prepared to pay for it - but a valuation of £1.16billion remains fairly remarkable.

Even in a sport awash with TV money and apparently losing further touch with reality with every passing transfer window - how much for Ighalo?! - more than trebling in worth in less than six years marks an astonishing return on your investment.

A return, that is, if you’re interested in cashing in. And despite all the suggestions of interest from wealthy Chinese art dealers and others like him, FSG have never shown any public interest in making a quickish buck (or tens of millions of them) out of their ownership.

Never say never is the maxim but they’ve always spoken of being at Anfield for the long haul.

That approach is to be admired but fans need more than a club which is performing well commercially and acquiring value for its already wealthy owners.

Supporters are always interested in their team’s value. But they’re interested for one reason only - with wealth normally comes success.

There are other factors at work and in this year of all years, when Leicester City after all did the unthinkable, they should not be forgotten.

But Claudio Ranieri’s men were 5,000/1 for a reason and there are plenty of statistics showing the very clear correlations between spending and Premier League success.

So for fans the value of the club will always be nothing more than a means to an end. A valuable club should attract better players and better players in good situations will win more games and more cups.

It’s the same as the Champions League. Qualification for the top four may have become a Premier League obsession but it can only be worthwhile as a path to to either winning Europe’s most prestigious trophy or using the financial boost it provides to improve the team and win trophies in the future.

Just qualifying every year can’t be enough in itself. Just ask Arsenal fans. Only successive wins in the FA Cup were enough to calm the clamour over Arsene Wenger’s future, despite his seemingly inexorable annual ability to secure his team’s place among Europe’s elite.

So where does this leave Liverpool?

A billion pound club with a net spend in this summer window of less than £20m? “A billion pound club still shopping in Aldi” argued one supporter on the ECHO website this week. The possible sales of Christian Benteke and Joe Allen are likely to bring another £40m plus into the kitty yet a young left-back (Ben Chilwell) and an experienced centre-back seem the only pieces of business on the immediate horizon.

Klopp has suggested he is 100% happy with the players he has brought in, His way is training not transfers he has said often enough, stressing a complete team re-bulld is not needed and seeing no point in “going after players the club cannot get”.

Here is where the absence of Champions League football bites hardest - though it didn't stop Chelsea getting N'Golo Kante - and perhaps where Liverpool’s apparent restraint and frugality may hopefully be only required for 12 months.

Klopp has his own way and must be allowed to follow it but if he can bring Liverpool back to Europe’s top table this season, fans will expect to see the club flexing their financial muscles a lot more in the windows to come.

There should be very few "they can't get".

Then we all might be feeling a billion dollars.

Five league titles and a packet of crisps

Tickets are now on sale for the VIP launch of the autobiography of one of Liverpool’s most popular past players, Steve Nicol.

Entitled Steve Nicol – My Autobiography: ‘5 League Titles and a Packet of Crisps’ the book will be launched on Friday, September 9 at the Shankly hotel in Liverpool city centre.

The book’s title is not only a reflection of the Scottish international’s success at Anfield in the 80s but also his reputation for a somewhat unconventional sportsman’s diet.

The book is published by Sport Media (part of the ECHO family) and Nicol - now an American TV pundit - will be in attendance for the launch, discussing some of the stories that made it into the book.

Price for the night is £45 per person which includes a Meet and Greet, show, hot buffet and a copy of the autobiography.

Go to https://5times.co.uk/Nicol for tickets.