Liverpool FC Forum

[Ben Patrick]

No mate, what I mean was he was going once we where offered 75 million when he was suspended for 4 months.
We would have had to replace him regardless. If we waited to accept Barcelonas offer while we signed a striker in the meantime we would have paid Suarez almost a million in wages for doing nothing.
Prices seem to be inflated for everyone though to be fair.
Everton just paid 28 for Lukaku.
Bonys release clause is supposed to be 19 million pounds. But various papers are reporting that Swansea are willing to listen to lower offers as the lad wants out.
He cost them 12 million so about 15 might do it.
I'd have him for that personally.

[Red Focus]

Now that our signings for all departments except strikers' seems to be complete, Brendan would better find another striker who is a good alternative to Remy. I thought Balotelli would suit the role but BR said we won't be signing him. Now, I cannot think of any good striker who would be a good addition who is available at the right price and is interested in coming to Liverpool. I am getting concerned about fire power up front. Lambert is just a back up striker and Danny Sturridge is too injury prone. If we have to wait for Jan window to sign another striker, it could be too late for a top 4 finish. Without Suarez, it would be impossible I think to move one place higher in the table any way. If Suarez were still here without the ban, I would have been confident of winning the league but now he's gone, it has set our clock back for 3 seasons.

[7_Kewell]

I've been pretty quiet on the judging our transfer policy this summer....

But I've seen nothing from Lambert to prove he'll be anything more than a 3rd choice striker. That's not a bad thing, we need squad depth, but as things stand - assuming Borini goes - we are now reliant on Lambert for goals. This won't end well. if Strurridge gets injured.

BR has said he wants to sign 4 more this summer, with 2 of those being the Spanish fullbacks. I hope (and pray) that he's saving for a big signing for a world class striker...otherwise we'll be f00ked if Danny gets a lengthy layoff.

[Ben Patrick]

I agree with you 7_Kewell

I am ok with Lambert being the third choice and think he will chip in with goals when he plays.

But I wouldnt fancy him starting regulaly if Sturridge was injured.
He doesnt appear to have the pace or running power to play on his own up top.
I think he would probably do a lot better if we played a diamond and 2 up.
For Southampton last season he dropped off and Rodriguez was the player that was making the runs to get in behind from what I saw of them.

[7_Kewell]

I agree with you 7_Kewell

I am ok with Lambert being the third choice and think he will chip in with goals when he plays.

But I wouldnt fancy him starting regulaly if Sturridge was injured.
He doesnt appear to have the pace or running power to play on his own up top.
I think he would probably do a lot better if we played a diamond and 2 up.
For Southampton last season he dropped off and Rodriguez was the player that was making the runs to get in behind from what I saw of them.

I agree. He'll work well with another striker with pace, but up top in his own he'll look a lot like Kuyt use to when we relied on him for goals on his own.

[eds]

No mate, what I mean was he was going once we where offered 75 million when he was suspended for 4 months.
We would have had to replace him regardless. If we waited to accept Barcelonas offer while we signed a striker in the meantime we would have paid Suarez almost a million in wages for doing nothing.
Prices seem to be inflated for everyone though to be fair.
Everton just paid 28 for Lukaku.
Bonys release clause is supposed to be 19 million pounds. But various papers are reporting that Swansea are willing to listen to lower offers as the lad wants out.
He cost them 12 million so about 15 might do it.
I'd have him for that personally.

I guess we will agree to disagree.

In the grand scheme of things if we verbally agree to sell a player to another club for 75m but tell them we wont finalise anything until we get an adequate replacement, then personally I think Suarez's wages, whatever they are are irrelevant.

In my eyes the risk of having to pay him whatever his salary was (for a few weeks) doesn't come close to the risk or uncertainty of having to sign a striker before the end of August.

The whole point of finding a replacement before we sold him to Barcelona was to ensure no one knew we were in the market to buy a forward to replace Suarez, now that the cat is out of the bag clubs will still try and stitch us up even more.

And I really hope we can bring in a better player than Wilfried f**king Bony.......

[RED BEERGOGGLES]

Slow to the ball earlier ,sluggish, and his first touch frequently let him down ,he also surrendered possession way too easily for a player well versed in holding up the ball
for others to come into play. OK its only pre-season ,but the lad needs to take up better positions as on numerous occasions we got the ball behind the United defence
to hit a pass across the keeper and no sign of Lambert.... Starting with Suso would have given us a lot more options in attack.

[devaney]

No mate, what I mean was he was going once we where offered 75 million when he was suspended for 4 months.
We would have had to replace him regardless. If we waited to accept Barcelonas offer while we signed a striker in the meantime we would have paid Suarez almost a million in wages for doing nothing.
Prices seem to be inflated for everyone though to be fair.
Everton just paid 28 for Lukaku.
Bonys release clause is supposed to be 19 million pounds. But various papers are reporting that Swansea are willing to listen to lower offers as the lad wants out.
He cost them 12 million so about 15 might do it.
I'd have him for that personally.

I guess we will agree to disagree.

In the grand scheme of things if we verbally agree to sell a player to another club for 75m but tell them we wont finalise anything until we get an adequate replacement, then personally I think Suarez's wages, whatever they are are irrelevant.

In my eyes the risk of having to pay him whatever his salary was (for a few weeks) doesn't come close to the risk or uncertainty of having to sign a striker before the end of August.

The whole point of finding a replacement before we sold him to Barcelona was to ensure no one knew we were in the market to buy a forward to replace Suarez, now that the cat is out of the bag clubs will still try and stitch us up even more.

And I really hope we can bring in a better player than Wilfried f**king Bony.......

Eds mate give the sum of £75m and the fact that absolutely nobody came in for Suarez apart from Barca a little more thought. Football is a business it's not a game of poker. Due to Suarez's idiotic behaviour in the world cup his price probably went down by as much as £25m. He had his best ever season at the age of 26. He played some fantastic football and he will be missed. He then bites another player for the third time. He is 28 in January. Unfortunately, as much as I love Luis, he is one slice short of a full loaf at times on a football pitch. It is all very well thinking we held all the aces but I don't think that assumption is correct. We had the opportunity to get a very high price for a player who is regarded by many as damaged goods. Yes we could have played hard ball and demanded that Luis stays until a suitable replacement is found but that could have very easily ended in tears as well. Luis stays and has a poor season and ends it with bite number four. What price would you put on his head faced with that scenario. His price increased by £35m due to a good season and it could have been a lot more without the bite. His price could fall by just as much and maybe more if his first season at Barca doesn't work out. Unlikely I admit but possible and for me I don't think Ayres or the owners were in any mood to give up the money considering the way Luis behaved at the end of the last two seasons. Luis could have been a legend instead he will be remembered as a player who simply used Liverpool FC as a stepping stone.

[SouthCoastShankly]

1) Last time I checked the transfer window closes at the end of August.

2) According to Rodgers in a previous interview, the money we've spent so far was not dependent on the Suarez sale. Which provides plenty of opportunity to sign another striker by the end of the window, if the club want to.

[damjan193]

Nobody should believe that we won't sign a striker, Brendan said so himself that we will and I have no reason not to trust him. But my problem is WHO will we sign? I think that there's no one available for us bar Bony (who I rate but he just isn't good enough IMO). Remy would have been great for those money.

As for Lambert, I really feel for the lad. He's a good player with some good qualities but he's very slow and speed is crucial for the forwards in our system. But I think he'll do better once we face a team that won't come out of their own penalty area, those are the games where Rickie will be very useful I believe.

[devaney]

Is the real difference between Carroll and Lambert £31m?  I just hope that Llalana with limited premiership and international experience plus no European experience is up to the job. Same applies to Lovren.

[eds]

No mate, what I mean was he was going once we where offered 75 million when he was suspended for 4 months.
We would have had to replace him regardless. If we waited to accept Barcelonas offer while we signed a striker in the meantime we would have paid Suarez almost a million in wages for doing nothing.
Prices seem to be inflated for everyone though to be fair.
Everton just paid 28 for Lukaku.
Bonys release clause is supposed to be 19 million pounds. But various papers are reporting that Swansea are willing to listen to lower offers as the lad wants out.
He cost them 12 million so about 15 might do it.
I'd have him for that personally.

I guess we will agree to disagree.

In the grand scheme of things if we verbally agree to sell a player to another club for 75m but tell them we wont finalise anything until we get an adequate replacement, then personally I think Suarez's wages, whatever they are are irrelevant.

In my eyes the risk of having to pay him whatever his salary was (for a few weeks) doesn't come close to the risk or uncertainty of having to sign a striker before the end of August.

The whole point of finding a replacement before we sold him to Barcelona was to ensure no one knew we were in the market to buy a forward to replace Suarez, now that the cat is out of the bag clubs will still try and stitch us up even more.

And I really hope we can bring in a better player than Wilfried f**king Bony.......

Eds mate give the sum of £75m and the fact that absolutely nobody came in for Suarez apart from Barca a little more thought. Football is a business it's not a game of poker. Due to Suarez's idiotic behaviour in the world cup his price probably went down by as much as £25m. He had his best ever season at the age of 26. He played some fantastic football and he will be missed. He then bites another player for the third time. He is 28 in January. Unfortunately, as much as I love Luis, he is one slice short of a full loaf at times on a football pitch. It is all very well thinking we held all the aces but I don't think that assumption is correct. We had the opportunity to get a very high price for a player who is regarded by many as damaged goods. Yes we could have played hard ball and demanded that Luis stays until a suitable replacement is found but that could have very easily ended in tears as well. Luis stays and has a poor season and ends it with bite number four. What price would you put on his head faced with that scenario. His price increased by £35m due to a good season and it could have been a lot more without the bite. His price could fall by just as much and maybe more if his first season at Barca doesn't work out. Unlikely I admit but possible and for me I don't think Ayres or the owners were in any mood to give up the money considering the way Luis behaved at the end of the last two seasons. Luis could have been a legend instead he will be remembered as a player who simply used Liverpool FC as a stepping stone.

The reason why "no one" came in for Suarez is because there are only a few clubs on the planet that could afford him. That is part in parcel with being the 3rd best footballer in the world. City and Chelsea would not have bothered because they knew regardless how much they threw at us FSG would turn them down. That leaves probably four clubs left, Madrid, Barcelona, Bayern and PSG. I don't think he would have been too keen playing in France and the Bavarians would probably need to sell one of their star players to bid such a ridiculous amount. This left us with Spanish contigent, so in essence your logic is clearly flawed that "no one" was interested in him despite his obvious brain fades......

So what if we had played hard ball with Barcelona?

So what if Suarez had stayed and served his ban?

Suarez having a poor season.......      The chances are of him having a poor season are lower than any of us playing in the premier league this season 

And as for bite number four, I refuse to subscribe to this scare mongering that I heard from most media outlets justifying this sale. We would have the best people in the world to deal with these sorts of psychological problems, if he had stayed all our efforts would have been making sure he didn't do the same thing for our season's sake. And we would be a whole lot closer to winning number 19 as compared to where we are now.

So yes I still fundamentally disagree that we should not have sold him on Barcelona or the main media's terms. At the end of the day I'm shocked that we have (outside of Sturridge) the worst front line in our recent history. Every striker / forward we now look at, their respective clubs will be taking the p**s adding a "Liverpool surcharge" all because we couldn't properly put a contingency plan in place when we sold Suarez. 

[alxy]

Quite startling because as things go, this was our Plan B (i.e. if Sturridge is injured or we want to change things around). This was basically our first team and it seems the team doesn't know how to play with Lambert. Yes, still pre-season but that's the time for you to gel and show what you can do. I doubt BR will want to experiment when the season really starts. Especially with how it has gone so far with Lambert up front alone. I guess we're currently not set up to have a big slow guy up front.

Here's hoping the next signing is a decent quality striker. That would have been Remy. Now? Worrying.....

[devaney]

Eds you're suggesting my argument is flawed and yet you simply assume that PSG and Bayern Munich simply didn't show an interest in buying Luis because of their location. Chelsea and City made no attempt because they assumed it would be a waste of time and no doubt Real Madrid understandably decided to spend their money on Rodriguez. Regardless of who is right and who is wrong the key point that we agree on is that no other club for whatever reason was going to stump up a massive chunk of wonga for Luis so we had very little option other than to sell to Barca or risk further problems as a result of Luis's questionable behaviour.

You dismiss bite number 4 as scaremongering. That's bollux mate. I never thought that bite number 3 would happen as a result of the work that had been done to straighten out Luis's head. He's a loose cannon on the football pitch and as a player he has single handedly caused more embarrassment to the club than almost anybody in the history of LFC. I hate saying that because I am a massive fan but unfortunately it is a fact that cannot simply be dismissed.

It's going to be a different team. Yes we need another striker. Because of injuries fans are understandably worried about the new season however I don't share the general pessimism.

Luis has gone. We move on.

[eds]

Regardless of who is right and who is wrong the key point that we agree on is that no other club for whatever reason was going to stump up a massive chunk of wonga for Luis so we had very little option other than to sell to Barca or risk further problems as a result of Luis's questionable behaviour.

This is pretty much the crux of it mate.

We can argue to the cows come home about other things but fundamentally I believe we should not have sold him on Barcelona's terms, the media's terms or anyone else dictating the move until we had a replacement in place.

No point selling him without having a viable option, which is where we clearly are now.

We are on two sides of the fence, you are happy with the sale and 75m in our pocket, whereas I couldn't give a s**t about the money if its not invested in an adequate replacement......