Liverpool FC Forum

[bigmick]

Say for instance the Yanks turn round to Rafa and say there is simply no money to spend due to the credit crunch. Nothing. Any money he has to spend must first be generated by player sales (anybody think this is an absolutely impossible scenario in this financial climate?).

Now I think that many clubs are likely to be saying the same thing come the Summer, even if in fact we aren't. Presumaeably because of that, there'll be even more Bosmans and frees flying around than normal.

What the thread is about though isn't free transfers, it's who would you move out if you had a financial gun to your head? How would you generate funds?

My guess is that you wouldn't want to be clearing out too may, or too important players. If it's a financial crisis, you must also consider that players won't be worth as much as normally unless they're absolutely top class.

Most will probably say Babel and Lucas, but my guess is you'd be looking at a combined "low teens" at the absolute most. Given we need at least one striker and possibly two, it might not be enough.

Would people be able to get their heads around considering selling Masherano perhaps, who I'm fairly sure we'd get 18-20 mill for in any market? I'm not saying I want to sell him obviously, but we may be in a position where we have to do something come the Summer.

[dawson99]

Always fringe players we could sell to get money
Babel - 5-8
Masher 18-20
Agger 10-12

Add a few more and we're sorted

[Alex G.]

Voronin 15 m

[Fowler_E7]

Kuyt, Lucas and Babel should be sold regardless of our financial situation. Hopefully theres some mug out there stupid enough to pay the ridiculous fee's we paid for them, thats nearly £30mil in the bank, plenty of money for a top player.Will never happen in a million years though 

[dawson99]

Kuyt, Lucas and Babel should be sold regardless of our financial situation. Hopefully theres some mug out there stupid enough to pay the ridiculous fee's we paid for them, thats nearly £30mil in the bank, plenty of money for a top player.Will never happen in a million years though 

30mil for them 3? You sir, are mental.

[Fowler_E7]

Kuyt, Lucas and Babel should be sold regardless of our financial situation. Hopefully theres some mug out there stupid enough to pay the ridiculous fee's we paid for them, thats nearly £30mil in the bank, plenty of money for a top player.Will never happen in a million years though 

30mil for them 3? You sir, are mental.

well so is Rafa coz thats what he paid for them 

Kuyt £10m
Babel £11.5m
Lucas £8m

[The Good Yank]

Not saying I want to see him gone, but under the hypothetical (albeit possible) scenario that Mick has thrown out here (see what happens when we have no matches to discuss, damn international breaks), I might be tempted to Sell Pepe if a large offer came in for him from a non Prem club.   

My thinking here is that while Reina is one of the top keepers in the world, he is not irreplaceable.  If I'm looking for the largest return of funds in which to secure to improve depth on the team this is where I would have to start.

I'd really have to say the only untouchables are Gerrard, Torres and, Alonso (Key to the season so far IMO).

[NANNY RED]

Mick what your saying is my nightmare but im afraid it could become a reality an id give the betting odds on no money for a top class player 70/30, , id sell Babel antry an get some money ,we wont make much on Lucas so id swerve that one, id have to really think hard though about flogging Masherano, ive thought an the answer is no. Hes young still learning an is already brilliant at what he does , can you imagine what a monster hes gonna be for us in a few years,

The only option for me would be Babel an poss Benayoun an then maybe try an bring in a half decent striker with the money from them.

An that is why the whole point of getting these two out as soon as so our new owners with hopefuly a few bob wont put us in that situation. If you asked me what would my priority be getting rid of them two or winning the prem im afraid id go with getting rid of them. Im going off topic here so ill shut up

[dawson99]

Kuyt, Lucas and Babel should be sold regardless of our financial situation. Hopefully theres some mug out there stupid enough to pay the ridiculous fee's we paid for them, thats nearly £30mil in the bank, plenty of money for a top player.Will never happen in a million years though 

30mil for them 3? You sir, are mental.

well so is Rafa coz thats what he paid for them 

Kuyt £10m
Babel £11.5m
Lucas £8m

[account deleted by request]

If push came to shove I wouldn't hesitate to sell either Masch or Alonso if it meant we could get the creative second striker. Obviously I would look first to offload Lucas , Babel, Kuyt, Benayoun, Dossena and any of the neverwills from the reserves, But IF I had to make a choice I would choose a top quality creative second striker over either Masch or Alonso.

The problem as I see it is if we offload quite a few players to bring in the quality player we all want, we may finish up short on numbers unless a few of our reserves are actually ready to make the step up. So in the event we don't get any money it may be better to bite the bullet and sacrifice one of our "big two" in midfield (they are the only ones likely to bring in significant money). Obviously from my point of view Gerrard and Torres are untouchable. (The frightening thing is maybe even they might be seen as an easy answer to the two tw@ts if money is tight!)

£70million for Torres might be more attractive to them than selling a few players for £20million.

I prefer to believe we will get enough money from the bit part players and we should have around £10 million or so anyway off the return of Keane.

Its quite frightening that our strength in depth of only a season ago seems to have melted away.

[bigmick]

It really would make an absolutely huge difference as well if two or three players could come up through the ranks and become rotational possibilities (assuming Rafa stays as manager). If N'Gog were to develop for instance into a player who you could genuinely consider a third choice option as striker, it would mean that in all probability you only need to buy one. If El Zahar can keep on developing, perhaps he can go past Kuyt at right mid and then maybe Dirk could be first change both there and kind of cover up top. If this Pachecho kid was really something, perhaps we could get him on the bench and give him smidgeons of game time as Gerrard understudy. Perhaps Steven Derby can become a proper option at right back, that way Arbelo could potentially fill the "fourth centre back" slot should Sami choose to move on.

There are in truth three or four signings which in an ideal World we absolutely MUST make IMHO, and they apply whoever is the manager. Should these kids develop and be given the opportunity to develop though, it might just be possible to scrape through with just buying a couple. A striker for me of decent quality who can cover for either Gerrard or Torres reasonably effectively would be the most pressing need.

It may though be a case that the days of having blokes who cost you 6 million quid to buy, and who get paid 50 grand a week but rarely play will become a thing of the past. The rest of the World is changing and although I'm not suggesting it'll all happen this Summer, football must change with it.

[Cool Hand Luke]

To be perfectly our squad is bloated and there are a host of players we could try and sell in order to generate funds, cut wages and make space for youngsters from the academy.

Diego Cavalieri
Philipp Degen
Andrea Dossena
Dirk Kuyt
Jermaine Pennant
Lucas Leiva
Ryan Babel
David Ngog
Damien Plessis
Nabil El Zhar
Charles Itandje
Andriy Voronin
Adam Hammill
Jack Hobbs
Sebastian Leto
Paul Anderson
Nikolay Mihaylov

[NANNY RED]

If push came to shove I wouldn't hesitate to sell either Masch or Alonso if it meant we could get the creative second striker. Obviously I would look first to offload Lucas , Babel, Kuyt, Benayoun, Dossena and any of the neverwills from the reserves, But IF I had to make a choice I would choose a top quality creative second striker over either Masch or Alonso.

The problem as I see it is if we offload quite a few players to bring in the quality player we all want, we may finish up short on numbers unless a few of our reserves are actually ready to make the step up. So in the event we don't get any money it may be better to bite the bullet and sacrifice one of our "big two" in midfield (they are the only ones likely to bring in significant money). Obviously from my point of view Gerrard and Torres are untouchable. (The frightening thing is maybe even they might be seen as an easy answer to the two tw@ts if money is tight!)

£70million for Torres might be more attractive to them than selling a few players for £20million.

I prefer to believe we will get enough money from the bit part players and we should have around £10 million or so anyway off the return of Keane.

Its quite frightening that our strength in depth of only a season ago seems to have melted away.

Nail on head Saint , Frightening . Im watching the Ressies at the mo an not impressed at all , we would not get nothing for any of them, An thats the scarey thing . pound signs infront of them twos eyes if someone came in with 70 million for Torres i really think they would take it an all,

I was talking to my brother a few minutes a go not the bitter one an we were disscussing the lack of star quality  in the reserves , remember years ago when you could go an watch the reserves an you would see a Keegan, Wheelan or a Hieghway or even a Molby play weather coming back from injury or trying to get form back. You could go an watch a reserve team full of stars. Now players like that you could sell an make money but sadly we havnt got 22 quality an i mean quality players anymore,

An no we wont sell Xabi either

[bigmick]

Voronin is a funny one. Don't know how long is left on his contract, but he is by all accounts going really well at Hertha Berlin who are top of the league over there. Even if he's only got a year left, we should be seeking some sort of fee and moving him on if we have no intention of bringing him back. Even 250K is better than feck all.

I don't know much about the reserve and youth players, but there are presumeably quite a few who are now into their 20's and haven't made the breakthrough. As Luke indicates, in many cases if they haven't by now they aren't going to and we should be looking to both make some room and also to get some cash in. We revolve the door with dizzying efficiency at the top, it might be time to introduce the same circular motion in the lower ranks.

Course if the Americans stump up 40 million quid again, all or most of the previous waffle is less relevent. All we've got to do then is try and spend it better than we did last time. It won't be that difficult to achieve that I don't think.

[JC_81]

To be perfectly our squad is bloated and there are a host of players we could try and sell in order to generate funds, cut wages and make space for youngsters from the academy.

Diego Cavalieri
Philipp Degen
Andrea Dossena
Dirk Kuyt
Jermaine Pennant
Lucas Leiva
Ryan Babel
David Ngog
Damien Plessis
Nabil El Zhar
Charles Itandje
Andriy Voronin
Adam Hammill
Jack Hobbs
Sebastian Leto
Paul Anderson
Nikolay Mihaylov

We've bought a hell of a lot of sh.ite over the last few years when you actually look at that list