Jurgen Klopp predicted brighter days ahead for his Liverpool youngsters after they fell to an Angelo Ogbonna buzzer beater against West Ham United in their FA Cup fourth-round replay on Tuesday.
A team featuring two players aged 20, a 21-year-old, two 22-year-olds and 18-year-old midfielder Pedro Chirivella stood toe-to-toe with West Ham at Upton Park until Italian centre-back Ogbonna headed home in injury time of extra time to give the hosts a 2-1 win.
Klopp says it is all part of the learning curve for his players.
“We are Liverpool FC and this moment is not the most sunny side,” said the Liverpool manager, who missed his team’s 2-2 draw against Sunderland on Saturday as he was having his appendix removed.
“But tomorrow when we get up ... the sun will shine. And if we want, at Liverpool, altogether, then we can take a lot of positive things out of this game.
“We have to make steps. We don’t like our results too much, to be honest, but it’s the difficult way we have to go. In the end it can be the right way.”
As well as giving more game time to the younger members of his squad, the trip to East London also allowed Klopp to welcome several key players back from injury.
Philippe Coutinho scored a cunning free-kick on his return after a month out with a hamstring injury, steering a shot beneath West Ham’s jumping wall in the 48th minute to cancel out Michail Antonio’s volleyed opener.
Strikers Daniel Sturridge and Divock Origi also made comebacks as second-half substitutes, with the former in particular looking sharp in his first appearance since December 6.
Sturridge has made just four starts this season due to a litany of niggling injuries and Klopp said he would carefully manage the pace of the England striker’s reintegration.
“We have to talk first with Daniel before I make a decision about this,” Klopp said, referring to how much Sturridge plays.
With West Ham due to leave Upton Park for London’s Olympic Stadium at the end of the season, manager Slaven Bilic said that victory had been especially memorable.
“It is a great night for West Ham,” said the former Croatia manager, whose side will visit second-tier Blackburn Rovers in round five.
“It was a late-night kick-off, it was against Liverpool. It’s our last season at Upton Park, it’s over 120 minutes, and we scored a great header in the last second of the game, and we had injuries – and we overcame all of that.
“So that’s why this game will go down in history as one of the greatest nights and games for our club.”
Dimitri Payet set up Ogbonna’s 121st-minute winner with a typically devilish cross from a free-kick, hours after West Ham confirmed they have opened talks with him over a new contract.
The 28-year-old France international, a close-season signing from Marseille, is reportedly the subject of interest from an unnamed Chinese club and Bilic said West Ham were desperate to keep him.
“We should do everything we can to keep our best players,” he said. “Dimitri Payet is our best player.
“I think he’s very happy here and soon we’re going to sort out the situation.”
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Europe’s rearming plan
- Suspend strict budget rules to allow member countries to step up defence spending
- Create new "instrument" providing €150 billion of loans to member countries for defence investment
- Use the existing EU budget to direct more funds towards defence-related investment
- Engage the bloc's European Investment Bank to drop limits on lending to defence firms
- Create a savings and investments union to help companies access capital
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Mercer, the investment consulting arm of US services company Marsh & McLennan, expects its wealth division to at least double its assets under management (AUM) in the Middle East as wealth in the region continues to grow despite economic headwinds, a company official said.
Mercer Wealth, which globally has $160 billion in AUM, plans to boost its AUM in the region to $2-$3bn in the next 2-3 years from the present $1bn, said Yasir AbuShaban, a Dubai-based principal with Mercer Wealth.
“Within the next two to three years, we are looking at reaching $2 to $3 billion as a conservative estimate and we do see an opportunity to do so,” said Mr AbuShaban.
Mercer does not directly make investments, but allocates clients’ money they have discretion to, to professional asset managers. They also provide advice to clients.
“We have buying power. We can negotiate on their (client’s) behalf with asset managers to provide them lower fees than they otherwise would have to get on their own,” he added.
Mercer Wealth’s clients include sovereign wealth funds, family offices, and insurance companies among others.
From its office in Dubai, Mercer also looks after Africa, India and Turkey, where they also see opportunity for growth.
Wealth creation in Middle East and Africa (MEA) grew 8.5 per cent to $8.1 trillion last year from $7.5tn in 2015, higher than last year’s global average of 6 per cent and the second-highest growth in a region after Asia-Pacific which grew 9.9 per cent, according to consultancy Boston Consulting Group (BCG). In the region, where wealth grew just 1.9 per cent in 2015 compared with 2014, a pickup in oil prices has helped in wealth generation.
BCG is forecasting MEA wealth will rise to $12tn by 2021, growing at an annual average of 8 per cent.
Drivers of wealth generation in the region will be split evenly between new wealth creation and growth of performance of existing assets, according to BCG.
Another general trend in the region is clients’ looking for a comprehensive approach to investing, according to Mr AbuShaban.
“Institutional investors or some of the families are seeing a slowdown in the available capital they have to invest and in that sense they are looking at optimizing the way they manage their portfolios and making sure they are not investing haphazardly and different parts of their investment are working together,” said Mr AbuShaban.
Some clients also have a higher appetite for risk, given the low interest-rate environment that does not provide enough yield for some institutional investors. These clients are keen to invest in illiquid assets, such as private equity and infrastructure.
“What we have seen is a desire for higher returns in what has been a low-return environment specifically in various fixed income or bonds,” he said.
“In this environment, we have seen a de facto increase in the risk that clients are taking in things like illiquid investments, private equity investments, infrastructure and private debt, those kind of investments were higher illiquidity results in incrementally higher returns.”
The Abu Dhabi Investment Authority, one of the largest sovereign wealth funds, said in its 2016 report that has gradually increased its exposure in direct private equity and private credit transactions, mainly in Asian markets and especially in China and India. The authority’s private equity department focused on structured equities owing to “their defensive characteristics.”
