Will Liverpool really give women’s team serious chance to win trophies?

The imposing image of Liverpool sitting 13 points clear at the top of the Premier League and powering towards a record-equalling 20th top-flight title brings into sharp focus the comparatively dishevelled sight of the club’s women’s team.

Sitting 25 points off the pace in the Women’s Super League, having waited more than a decade to lift a major trophy and almost 30 years without reaching a Women’s FA Cup final, a club that once took a proud role in the women’s game remain light years away from emulating their men’s counterparts, and are now entering a critical phase in their history as they search for a new manager for the first time in four years.

Matt Beard’s exit on Thursday felt remarkably harsh on the 47-year-old, who many feel had worked near miracles on one of the smaller budgets in the division, particularly when finishing fourth last season.

A source at one rival WSL club believes that Liverpool have committed an act of “self-harm” with this decision. To be fair, it is also true that many Liverpool fans were not enamoured of the style of play, and that is understood to be one of the club’s concerns. But in letting go of Beard, who won back-to-back WSL titles with Liverpool in 2013 and 2014 in his first spell in charge and then guided them to the 2022 Women’s Championship title, Liverpool have parted with the only coach in their professional history who has lifted any silverware.

Beard had often hinted that his team’s budget was insufficient to compete with the WSL’s top sides, and it’s widely held that somewhere between sixth and ninth in the table is roughly where Liverpool ought to be right now, pound for pound.

The club, even on the men’s side, are cautious spenders, preferring a different model. In the women’s game, though, there are mounting concerns about the ownership’s ambitions for its WSL side. On the other hand, there have been suggestions that perhaps Fenway Sports Group’s desire to change the manager signals a desire to take things more seriously, that being seventh is no longer acceptable.

Matt Beard was sacked this week despite being the only manager to have guided Liverpool to a major trophy. Photograph: Tim Markland/PA

Even so, Liverpool Women have arrived at a crossroads. The interim manager, Amber Whiteley, is likely to be in charge for the rest of the season. That allows the club the chance to conduct a comprehensive recruitment process to identify Beard’s successor. This will need time, but they also need to find the answer to a bigger question.

What are Liverpool Women for? Is it to challenge for trophies? That looks fiendishly difficult as Chelsea strengthen their grip at the top. Could it be to become a breeding ground for future Lionesses? No Liverpool players were in the England senior squads at any of their past three major tournaments.

Liverpool did have two players in February’s England Under-23s squad, the defender Lucy Parry and the forward Mia Enderby, as well as the defender Zara Shaw in the under-19s squad, which is promising to a degree. However, there were no Liverpool players in the latest England Under-17s squad, which included six Chelsea youngsters and three each from Arsenal and Manchester City. Addressing that gap could take a generation.

They could instead set out to be known as a team with an attractive style of play, and drum up more support through that route, but that will all depend on who takes on the manager’s job. Whiteley said on Friday that she would put her name “in the hat” for the permanent job. She now has a two-and-a-half-month audition for the role, starting at Crystal Palace on Sunday.

Her plans are clear: “We’ll look at trends across the league and then look at our standings, how we fare with and without the ball, in comparison to that across the league, and go from there. We’d like to be more consistent, for definite. There’s lots to play for. It’s important we give some performances that the fans are going to be proud of.”

Whoever gets the job will surely want some guarantees from Liverpool that they are willing to invest to compete. In revenue terms, Deloitte reports that Liverpool are among the top-10 women’s clubs in Europe. But for expenditure, their most recent accounts put them only ninth in the WSL for wages spent.

The club have certainly not ignored the women’s team. The impressive facilities at Melwood show a desire to provide a top-class environment for the women’s side and that has required significant investment. But with so many other clubs now providing elite facilities for their women, too, that’s no longer enough. Top players cost money and over the next few months and in this summer’s transfer window, Liverpool fans will find out how badly FSG wants the women to win.