Liverpool Football Club, hang your heads in shame. As if the English Premier League standings did not show the club in a poor enough light, another table was published recently that emphasised the depth of underperformance from their expensively assembled squad.
An English newspaper compared the cost of each match day squad for the 20 Premier League teams with points gained, producing a table based on average points won per million pounds spent, and Liverpool were third bottom. In fact, all the big clubs (bar relatively thrifty Arsenal) were in the bottom five - huge-spenders Manchester City were bottom and immediately above them were Tottenham, Liverpool, Chelsea and Manchester United.
The table emphasised the financial advantage enjoyed by the big clubs and an interesting conclusion to be drawn from the figures was that, Arsenal apart, they do not appear to use the money as wisely as they might. Sure, they win the trophies - and, in the end, that may be all that matters to them - but they pay a high price for each point gained.
At the other end of the spectrum, over-achieving Blackpool were way out in front at the top of the table, with the top five completed by Bolton, West Brom, Blackburn and Birmingham. Those clubs are clearly battling against the odds, and in several cases they are winning this season.
Liverpool were one of the clubs who could not look at the table and be proud of themselves. The cost of Liverpool's match day squad was more than ?00 million (HK$1.2 billion), yet they have the same number of points this season as Blackpool, whose squad cost a fraction of that price. Blackpool, just to ram home the point, won 2-1 when they visited in October.
There is no disguising that Roy Hodgson is not getting the best out of his squad. Even allowing for the fact that most of the squad were not bought by him and he is still getting the feel of Anfield, he should be doing better with the players at his disposal. Ten of the 11 players who started last week's defeat at Tottenham are experienced internationals, with around 340 caps between them.