Liverpool FC Forum

[maypaxvobiscum]

Can we not bring up the fact that that donkey Carroll cost us 35m please. It's a terrible memory that should be erased.

[only me]

Yakka/Only Me - If you both honeststly think that going in at the beginning of the transfer window with a big offer for our target players, that have demonstrated massive potential, then you are even more naive than I initially thought. If we had made an initial offer of £16m for Salah do you honestly believe that the player, his agents and the selling club would have been rubbing their hands with glee. Ffs get real this is big business and it is dog eat dog. The reality is that Chelsea or one of the other rich clubs would have sat up and taken a lot of notice possibly even more notice than if we had gone in with a conservative bid. Of course we are going to struggle to secure our targets. It is not as if we have been going after players that other clubs consider a waste of time. We are seriously challenging for fourth place. Do you think it might be possible that Chelsea and Spurs see us a a viable threat for that position? Both of those clubs are aware that we need to strengthen so do you think they are going to make our task an easy one.

Yakka you also suggest that £35m for Carroll could not be considered to be massive money in the overall scheme of things. Do you seriously believe that the likes of Cavani or Mata would have come to Liverpool at this point in timeeven if the owners had sanctioned a big money spend. I love this club mate but I'm trying to be realistic.

Come on lads you've said it is not rocket science so you can each have £50m to buy the player of your choice. Now just tell me how you are going to convince a top flight player to come to Liverpool ahead of Man City, Chelsea, Arsenal, PSG, Real Madrid or Barcelona. Very easy to criticise people that are doing a very difficult job. As I have previously said I haven't seen one sensible suggestion as to how we improve our performance in the agent infested transfer market.

Dev that's not what we are saying ,i didn't not say meet the ask price at any cost of course not. Fact is we were willing to pay more for our 2nd target then our first if that's not a head scratcher what is?
And beside that i'm complaining on the whole process and questioning the professionalism of those in charge of it. For example i would expect mr AYRE or whoever runs the monkey Biz out here is to either have or get a list of BR wish list and start working on them as soon as possible ,So ok If Salah is a no go on 1st of Feb ,move on to that Kono lad on the 2nd and if that doesn't materialise in the timeline you set for yourself move on to the 3rd. And what about some multi-tasking? Where is our DM or other positions we desperately need ,Did BR say he only wants ONE winger and that's it? i find it hard to believe. What i'm saying is we didn't prepare for the transfer window ,we were late ,we didn't line our objective in order and as a result found ourselves ,in the most successful year in ages ,with no one.
I don't expect AYRE to fight Chelsea and City over who spends more i expect us to be imaginative ,diligent and professional. There are Tons of players out their. Just DO YOUR FCKING JOB.

[ethanr]

If that was all there was to it then we are employing a right bunch of toss.ers    Unlike you I'm prepared to give them a little more credit. I think you're very simple assessment of transfer dealings is naive in the extreme.

I think your the naive one for believing all their spin, signing players isn't rocket science lad, clubs have been doing it since the 1880's. We spent two months negotiating with Basel and then all of a sudden Chelsea come in and do a deal for a player that wasn't even on their radar in two days for £11m?
I know f##k all about baseball but on another forum someone said the boston Red Sox recently signed a fella called Robinson cano on a deal worth $240m, says a lot that does when deals are falling through left, right and center for us because we are trying to lowball everyone.
FSG said they weren't going to sign any marquee names anymore but concentrate on signing the stars of tomorrow, well those stars of tomorrow are still going to cost anywhere between £10m-£20m but it seems we don't even want to do that anymore, what we seem to be looking for are the cheap stars of tomorrow.
Are we realistically going to compete with teams spending £40m on one player doing that? Is Suarez going to hang around a club showing that type of ambition?
Good luck with that Brendan.

First off, that $240 million was his salary for over a 10 year period, so $24 million US/year, which is a high salary, but baseball players make more than footballers. There was no transfer fee tho, and considering top players cost so much, that easily evens out (and probably makes the baseball player cheaper).

Secondly, Robinson Cano went to the Mariners, not the Red Sox. The Red Sox weren't even seriously interested in him, so it's not relevant to this conversation at all.

[ycsatbjywtbiastkamb]

Yakka/Only Me - If you both honeststly think that going in at the beginning of the transfer window with a big offer for our target players, that have demonstrated massive potential, then you are even more naive than I initially thought. If we had made an initial offer of £16m for Salah do you honestly believe that the player, his agents and the selling club would have been rubbing their hands with glee. Ffs get real this is big business and it is dog eat dog. The reality is that Chelsea or one of the other rich clubs would have sat up and taken a lot of notice possibly even more notice than if we had gone in with a conservative bid. Of course we are going to struggle to secure our targets. It is not as if we have been going after players that other clubs consider a waste of time. We are seriously challenging for fourth place. Do you think it might be possible that Chelsea and Spurs see us a a viable threat for that position? Both of those clubs are aware that we need to strengthen so do you think they are going to make our task an easy one.

Yakka you also suggest that £35m for Carroll could not be considered to be massive money in the overall scheme of things. Do you seriously believe that the likes of Cavani or Mata would have come to Liverpool at this point in timeeven if the owners had sanctioned a big money spend. I love this club mate but I'm trying to be realistic.

Come on lads you've said it is not rocket science so you can each have £50m to buy the player of your choice. Now just tell me how you are going to convince a top flight player to come to Liverpool ahead of Man City, Chelsea, Arsenal, PSG, Real Madrid or Barcelona. Very easy to criticise people that are doing a very difficult job. As I have previously said I haven't seen one sensible suggestion as to how we improve our performance in the agent infested transfer market.

When we were flying just before Christmas (top of the table, playing great stuff, scoring goals for fun and Suarez signing a new contract) that's when we should have been out and about selling the club to top players.
Someone with a bit of vision would have realised that that was the ideal opportunity to kick on and we had to strike while the iron was hot.
I'm sure if you gave someone who knows what they're doing even half of that £50m you mentioned we could have convinced a very good player to come here, especially with us sitting top.
We should have been bringing in a big name player on January the 1st.
Instead the man who makes our deals (Ayre) was more concerned about signing up Xolo, Dunkin Donuts, Vauxhall and Garuda and quaffing champagne at their functions.
Top of the table and we were haggling over spending £11m? it's a joke TBH.
You can defend them all you want mate but I absolutely guarantee you that in 5 years time you, me and everyone else here will be looking at January 2014 as the big lost opportunity to join the ranks of the major players.
It's practically impossible to be as frugal as we are and compete with teams who are prepared to spend £40m on one player, if you are prepared to spend £20m you may hang onto their coat tails if you have a great manager (which I believe we have) and a bit of luck but to be baulking at paying out £11m on a top prospect when you are top of the league? With that type of philosophy we've got no chance.

[ycsatbjywtbiastkamb]

If that was all there was to it then we are employing a right bunch of toss.ers    Unlike you I'm prepared to give them a little more credit. I think you're very simple assessment of transfer dealings is naive in the extreme.

I think your the naive one for believing all their spin, signing players isn't rocket science lad, clubs have been doing it since the 1880's. We spent two months negotiating with Basel and then all of a sudden Chelsea come in and do a deal for a player that wasn't even on their radar in two days for £11m?
I know f##k all about baseball but on another forum someone said the boston Red Sox recently signed a fella called Robinson cano on a deal worth $240m, says a lot that does when deals are falling through left, right and center for us because we are trying to lowball everyone.
FSG said they weren't going to sign any marquee names anymore but concentrate on signing the stars of tomorrow, well those stars of tomorrow are still going to cost anywhere between £10m-£20m but it seems we don't even want to do that anymore, what we seem to be looking for are the cheap stars of tomorrow.
Are we realistically going to compete with teams spending £40m on one player doing that? Is Suarez going to hang around a club showing that type of ambition?
Good luck with that Brendan.

First off, that $240 million was his salary for over a 10 year period, so $24 million US/year, which is a high salary, but baseball players make more than footballers. There was no transfer fee tho, and considering top players cost so much, that easily evens out (and probably makes the baseball player cheaper).

Secondly, Robinson Cano went to the Mariners, not the Red Sox. The Red Sox weren't even seriously interested in him, so it's not relevant to this conversation at all.

I stand corrected but my general point still stands though, with this penny pinching attitude that we have we have no chance of competing with the likes of City, Chelsea, Arsenal and United over the long term.

[ethanr]

At the rate we're going, I don't disagree at all. It's clear what the modern game has evolved to, and the fact that our owners have admitted they banked on the FFP rules when buying the club, and now that it's completely failed it will make it hard for us to compete.

[SouthCoastShankly]

Also the big points being missed here - what has the Red Sox ability to sign players got to do with us?

Both Liverpool and Red Sox are legally and financially independent entities. They both run independently within their own framework and rules. We both spend what we earn. We have no bearing on their spending ability and they have no bearing on ours.

How hard os that to understand?

[ycsatbjywtbiastkamb]

There's a piece in tonight's echo about the konoplyanka transfer, we did have to pay the whole €15m (£12.3m) upfront and LFC have shown the echo the paperwork to prove they did that but obviously something pi$$ed the Ukrainians off.
In the echo on Saturday it said that we 'eventually' agreed to meet the buy out clause so it wouldn't surprise me if two days of lowball offers pi$$ed them off.
Rodgers said that he hasn't given up hope of signing konoplyanka but obviously now his relatively cheap buy out clause is in the open we are going to have a lot of competition for his signature in the summer.
Rodgers said he is frustrated himself about everything but he's not the type of manager that leaks snippets to the press he'd rather go and see his boss and have it out with him, he said he's got no other option but to try and do the best he can with the players available to him.

[maguskwt]

There's a piece in tonight's echo about the konoplyanka transfer, we did have to pay the whole €15m (£12.3m) upfront and LFC have shown the echo the paperwork to prove they did that but obviously something pi$$ed the Ukrainians off.
In the echo on Saturday it said that we 'eventually' agreed to meet the buy out clause so it wouldn't surprise me if two days of lowball offers pi$$ed them off.
Rodgers said that he hasn't given up hope of signing konoplyanka but obviously now his relatively cheap buy out clause is in the open we are going to have a lot of competition for his signature in the summer.
Rodgers said he is frustrated himself about everything but he's not the type of manager that leaks snippets to the press he'd rather go and see his boss and have it out with him, he said he's got no other option but to try and do the best he can with the players available to him.

However, the Reds deny that was the case and the ECHO has seen paperwork which confirms the full fee of 15million euros was transferred more than two hours before Friday’s 11pm deadline.

Feck them... I believe in what BR says... don't ever do business with that club again... If Konoplyanka wants to come to us let him put in a transfer request and we'll pay them not more than £ 10m

[red till i die!!]

There's a piece in tonight's echo about the konoplyanka transfer, we did have to pay the whole €15m (£12.3m) upfront and LFC have shown the echo the paperwork to prove they did that but obviously something pi$$ed the Ukrainians off.
In the echo on Saturday it said that we 'eventually' agreed to meet the buy out clause so it wouldn't surprise me if two days of lowball offers pi$$ed them off.
Rodgers said that he hasn't given up hope of signing konoplyanka but obviously now his relatively cheap buy out clause is in the open we are going to have a lot of competition for his signature in the summer.
Rodgers said he is frustrated himself about everything but he's not the type of manager that leaks snippets to the press he'd rather go and see his boss and have it out with him, he said he's got no other option but to try and do the best he can with the players available to him.

looking forward to reading that   
if we are going around trying to sniff out players with minimum contracts and lowball buy out clauses then its no wonder we end up getting shut out. our whole transfer policy is moneyball shyte anyway.
of course brendan is frustrated but who is he going to have it out with    ayre 
even though they might produce some shyte to say we had the money its no guarantee they wont be at the same sheanagans in the summer.

[devaney]

Yakka I totally agree if ever there was a time in the last 8 years to spend some serious money, it was this January and I made that very point before the transfer window opened. Yes we were top of the league with I think at that time nearly 8 teams very close to the top. No guarantees of even a CL qualification place let alone winning the title but I accept that we were showing serious evidence of a team and a club moving in a very positive direction. This simply makes our task in the transfer market slightly easier. It certainly does not guarantee that players with massive potential will suddenly agree to join Liverpool.

Mate on a final note I'm just as frustrated as you are because you may well be right. In a few years time this could be regarded as a huge opportunity missed. January is never an easy time and apart from Mata there were very few major signings. We got very lucky with Suarez, Strurridge and Coutinho who were all signed with Ayres in charge.

Interesting the piece you have published from the Echo. It certainly suggests that we tried everything possible to get the transfer through. Who knows you maybe right that Ayres did something to upset them or he didn't shove a big enough bag of wronga under the table. Hopefully lessons have been learned and it hasn't been to late.

[ycsatbjywtbiastkamb]

What is winding me up so much Dev is that surely the club must see that we only have a small window of opportunity?  pretty soon if we don't do something the top 4 is going to be a closed shop.
United aren't going to be this shyte for long, especially if they keep signing players of Mata's quality. They are talking about giving Moyes a £200m war chest for the summer and the way things are going they'll have a new manager who knows what he's doing in place as well.
Arsenal themselves tried to buy Suarez, brought in Ozil for £42m and by all accounts have lined up Draxler in another big money move this summer.
If we don't get into that CL soon and start building a top side I think we'll be left behind and left out in the cold, English football will have 4 uber rich clubs (Chelsea, City, United and Arsenal) who will be buying £40m players while everyone else will be spending £8m.
they will stitch up the CL places for the next decade and we'll be on the outside looking in, trying forlornly to break the monopoly with £8m signings.
That's what's unfolding mate, that's what's going to happen unless we do something, and for us to just sit on our hands last month and not even attempt to try to stop the inevitable is just incompetent.

[Kash_Mountain]

What is winding me up so much Dev is that surely the club must see that we only have a small window of opportunity?  pretty soon if we don't do something the top 4 is going to be a closed shop.
United aren't going to be this shyte for long, especially if they keep signing players of Mata's quality. They are talking about giving Moyes a £200m war chest for the summer and the way things are going they'll have a new manager who knows what he's doing in place as well.
Arsenal themselves tried to buy Suarez, brought in Ozil for £42m and by all accounts have lined up Draxler in another big money move this summer.
If we don't get into that CL soon and start building a top side I think we'll be left behind and left out in the cold, English football will have 4 uber rich clubs (Chelsea, City, United and Arsenal) who will be buying £40m players while everyone else will be spending £8m.
they will stitch up the CL places for the next decade and we'll be on the outside looking in, trying forlornly to break the monopoly with £8m signings.
That's what's unfolding mate, that's what's going to happen unless we do something, and for us to just sit on our hands last month and not even attempt to try to stop the inevitable is just incompetent.

And that's the bottom line..............why is it always lastxxxxxx.com when it comes to the transfer market? Something clearly isn't working!

The mistake with Carroll has been forever burned into the owners psyche. It appears, IMO, that they are running scarred when large amounts of cash is mentioned for football. They know the baseball scene so spend large amounts when they want.

Obviously, they were banking on FFP, but that's gone out the window, so if they are not willing to pump up the cash for really top quality players right now, then as Yakka mentioned, top 4 will be a closed shop. We keep cutting corners, when we want and need quality, you have to pay upand get the deal done quickly (and quietly, if possible).

[Ciggy]

SCS you said Chelsea are complaining about the money City is spending they curretly ave 34 players on loan 

That is not a club worrying about FFP is it? And it shouldnt be allowed even if these regulations where not being brought in I swear till this day Mourhino only let lakkaku go to he bitters to take points off those teams who are a threat to Chelsea yes It was sly and clever from him but really speaking it shouldnt be allowed.  And something should be done about it whats to say he doesnt loan the bitters Salah or other players next season? There should be complaints against it because IMO its breaking the rules !!

[kazza]

I honestly think that FSG are doing an OK job. I believe that the real investment from them will come if and when CL is secured. I also think there is a ingrained business model being implemented around FFPR.

I dismiss anyone who says that FFPR are not going to bite. Look at the evidence. Every club is activity reducing its deficit to meet these regulations, even City. The fact that Man Utd, Liverpool and Chelsea are combining forces to apply pressure on UEFA to act if City fail the FFPR test, is evidence that teams are taking this seriously. Why do you think every team is currently racing to secure even higher revenues from sponsorships? The plug the gap that will be there when the ability to borrow beyond your means is taken away.

FSG's model is at it's sweet spot when the FFPR are enforced to its maximum in 2017 - 100% break even accounts. At that point our heavily invested squad of youngsters will have matured. Our sponsorship revenues will be maximised. Our global brand position will allow us access to markets the other PL clubs (bar Utd) cannot compete with us on.

Now the catch-22 to all this is CL. Without this piece of the puzzle, we will never be able to fulfil those ambitions and FSGs model takes years to establish. However the fact the are not budging from this plan is testament to their business model. They have faith in Rodgers, who is delivering and on course to meet his CL qualification goal.

Is this a nervy time - yes. Is it bad enough to want new owners - NO WAY.

We have seen more than once the instability that new owners or a new manager brings. At some point the fickle fans have to plan the long game and back both the manager and owners for more than a couple of seasons.

Well said!