ethanr wrote:I was happy with what we did. You don't want to go buy 5 players in January, you will be paying too much for too many players. We really needed a second striker, so we bought Suarez. We were looking at Adam because the owners were willing to speed up the rebuilding process a bit. When Torres was leaving, we needed another striker, so we bought Carroll. We still need some other players, but we have people who can hold the positions until summer. In summer, we will invest much more. I'm assuming we will probably be looking at 2 wingers and a CB, if not 2 CB and a LB.
They way I look at it, we spent 58 million pounds in this transfer window. We sold 56 million pounds worth of players, so the owners only spent 2 million pounds.
They basically said we would have up to 35 in January and even more in summer if I'm not mistaken?
So possibly we could have the 33 left from January and 40 more, we could be looking at spending 75 million pounds in the summer, plus the sale of maybe a few deadweight players, we may have 80 million pounds so spend. We could target some great wingers, Ashley Young and maybe a player like Jesus Navas, a great LB and some great CBs and maybe even get a bit of depth in the squad. We could be full ready to mount a title challenge depending how soon we buy the players and how well they gel.
From the 2013/14 season when the rules practically come into force, an owner can invest up to €45m over two seasons in exchange for more shares in the club.
john craig wrote:On the owners and 'backing Dalglish' I'm not convinced either way yet. Our net spend this window was 2 million. Until I see hard evidence of them putting serious quantities of their own money into this club I won't be convinced. Once bitten twice shy. I won't judge them until the close of the next transfer window.
john craig wrote:Until I see hard evidence of them putting serious quantities of their own money into this club I won't be convinced.
Bad Bob wrote:Look, let's be realistic about this okay? First, as noted, it's the January window and no massive squad shake-ups happen in January for all the reasons I've discussed above. Anyone expecting that is not grasping the realities of modern football, IMO.
But, going beyond that for a minute...let's look at our particular situation this transfer window. The club was obviously negotiating to bring in both Suarez and Adam. That much we know for sure. According to rumours, we might well have also been inquiring about Ashley Young and Stephen Warnock but we can't be quite so certain about those. Anyway, we were proceeding as you do in January (and as you do once more under Dalglish at Liverpool): quietly negotiating behind the scenes, trying to get our main targets without giving away the farm. The grumblings coming from both Ajax and Blackpool attest to the fact that we were after their main men in a committed but prudent way, slowly advancing negotiations. Indeed, we accomplished what we set out to do with Saurez and I think we were probably getting close with Adam too.
Then, wham, in comes Chelsea with the Torres bid and he blindsides us with the transfer request with 3 days left in the fooking window. This upset the whole applecart my friends. Now, if Chelsea had really low-balled it, we could have told them to feck off...even with Nando's transfer request. No point letting go of the lad for cheap right? We would have knocked the chavs' offer back and told Torres to get his head down until the end of the season. But, Chelsea's offer wasn't that low-ball and, when you throw in the transfer request, it needed to be taken seriously. We were looking at getting 50 million quid for a lad who's been short of his best for some time now, perhaps on terminal decline and clearly not committed to the cause. Of course we had to take their offer. Of course we did. We might not have had a better offer come summer.
But, the minute we decided to accept the offer, we had to fill the hole Torres would leave. No question about it, finding another striker was top priority given how light we've been up front for a few years now and given that Suarez is untested in England. Everything else on our wish list had to take a backseat to this new priority and the clock was ticking. I'm sure that no one wanted to pay 35 million for Carroll but I think it's interesting we did. Clearly he was the man we wanted and money for once was going to be no object. I suspect we were planning a move for him in the summer but the Torres bullsh!t accelerated that time line. We needed him now and were prepared to pay what it took to pry him lose from the Barcodes.
But, in doing so, I suspect we had to abandon some of our other transfer plans. Other clubs were no doubt starting to take the p!ss with transfer fees once they caught wind that we would have the Torres money to spend. I have a strong suspicion that's what happened with Adam. Sure, we paid over the odds to land Carroll but I don't think the owners were prepared to make a habit of that with every transfer. In addition, you can't juggle too many balls at once: I'm sure that brokering the Torres and Carroll deals ate up most of the time of the last couple of days of the window and left little opportunity to seriously negotiate other deals. Much smarter to get the striker hole addressed and then sit tight until summer, when better prices for a wider pool of available quality players will surely allow us the best opportunity to revamp the squad responsibly.
So, I can understand a little disappointment about the transfer window but I don't think any serious criticism can be directed at the owners, who showed both their willingness to splash cash on a desired target and their discipline to sit tight and wait for better opportunities in the summer. No, if you must criticize someone for our disappointing window criticize Fernando fecking Torres for driving a bus through our transfer game-plan at the 11th hour. Without his selfishness we might have seen a very different set of targets landed on the last day of the window.
john craig wrote: One unproven in this country and one very raw but with huge potential. My guess is one will flop and one will be excellent. Don't ask me which though.
metalhead wrote:john craig wrote: One unproven in this country and one very raw but with huge potential. My guess is one will flop and one will be excellent. Don't ask me which though.
what about both will be excellent
RedSi35 wrote:How tall is caroll?
He looks massive
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