Liverpool FC Forum

Typical Liverpool, it looks like any proposed deal for Bellingham is looking increasingly unlikely but splashed over the back of yesterdays Echo was a story about us possibly signing that Nunez from Wolves on the cheap.
I’m convinced the only reason we signed Gakpo when we really needed a CM was that he was going relatively cheaply given his profile.
How Jurgen is expected to compete with City, United, Chelsea et al shopping in the bargain basement is beyond me.

ycsatbjywtbiastkamb » Tue Mar 21, 2023 10:49 am wrote:Typical Liverpool, it looks like any proposed deal for Bellingham is looking increasingly unlikely but splashed over the back of yesterdays Echo was a story about us possibly signing that Nunez from Wolves on the cheap.
I’m convinced the only reason we signed Gakpo when we really needed a CM was that he was going relatively cheaply given his profile.
How Jurgen is expected to compete with City, United, Chelsea et al shopping in the bargain basement is beyond me.

...and this is the perennial problem with FSG...they are NOT here to challenge every year- their ambition is top 4 and UCL money period.

The mancs look they are going to be sold by the end of the season- we are well and truly stuffed then..

City
Mancs
Arsenal
Chelsea
Newcastle

That's the five that will fight it out for the title/top 4  with us and Tottenham making up the top 6 pretty much on an ongoing basis. Success leave clues...clubs that have bought top players whilst in a position of strength are the ones that have ongoing success...we are going on a wing and a prayer that the best manager in the world can work with miracles with good/very good rather than excellent players... what a waste of Klopp as a manager, I feel gutted for him.

The Bellingham stuff came from David Ornstein at The Athletic yesterday.

As things stand, Liverpool increasingly unlikely to sign Jude Bellingham this summer. Expected price & financial power of rivals puts #LFC hopes in doubt. Pursuit not off & no firm decisions but sense is #MCFC + #RMFC in stronger position
@TheAthleticFC

After getting loads of traffic and hits he said this later that day on a podcast.

“It’s mainly likely to come down to finances, the expected transfer fee, we don’t know what that is going to be at this time. We’ve reported that Borussia Dortmund are looking for around €150m. Liverpool don’t know what competitions they’re going to be playing in, Champions League or Europa League and that will affect budgets.”

“It’s vital to stress Liverpool’s pursuit is not off, but that is our understanding of the current situation, speaking to multiple sources with knowledge of this situation from across the industry. Liverpool would be reluctant to get into a bidding war at that level of finance.

“We’re not saying with certainty how this is going to conclude, we’re trying our best to relay to you what we’re hearing at this moment in time.”

So not really telling us anything we don't know. Basically anything could happen.

And today James Pearce, also of the The Athletic, said this.

“Bellingham is Liverpool’s top target, although as my colleague David Ornstein has revealed, it is by no means certain that they end up getting him given the other clubs interested in doing a deal.

“In Liverpool’s favour is the fact he has a good relationship with Jordan Henderson and Trent Alexander-Arnold. Bellingham is considering his options and I’d expect the picture to be much clearer by the end of the season.”

Again not telling us anything we don't already know.

My read of the situation is that Bellingham has told Dortmund he wants to move to us and last week they put a few things into the press saying the price has been set at 150M Euros. We've looked at that and put something out there suggesting it's too high. This just all seems like transfer theatre at the moment but ultimately we want Bellingham to push Dortmund to do a deal with us which means meeting somewhere in the middle on the price/payment structure. Don't expect anything to be finalised until after both our respective seasons have been decided so we have another 2 months of this with fans losing their Sh*t every time a journalist writes something!

Had a look at a Wolves forum to see what their fans are saying regarding Nunes. They were pretty happy when he signed but now most say they would be happy to get the money back. He's been anonymous or invisible for them in most games and plenty question his attitude. 

Bellingham was just another carrot dangling on a string and we were out of that race a long time ago. Once the big clubs are interested the money goes up and so does his wages. That puts us completely out of a race we just wanted to spectate in anyway.

Our plans are up in the air with no CL next season. The loss of that money alone means FSG will cut costs. As it stands it could be up to 50mil a year which takes a club from just making ends meet to being in serious trouble.

Eagle » Tue Mar 21, 2023 12:16 pm wrote:My read of the situation is that Bellingham has told Dortmund he wants to move to us and last week they put a few things into the press saying the price has been set at 150M Euros. We've looked at that and put something out there suggesting it's too high. This just all seems like transfer theatre at the moment but ultimately we want Bellingham to push Dortmund to do a deal with us which means meeting somewhere in the middle on the price/payment structure. Don't expect anything to be finalised until after both our respective seasons have been decided so we have another 2 months of this with fans losing their Sh*t every time a journalist writes something!

Here's another take: https://twitter.com/TheAnfieldWrap/stat ... 8065481735

Bellingham is another Mbappe, lots of our fans were convinced we were going to sign him as well, Pie in the Sky.

If we actually manage to get Bellingham here it means we will buy a 20-25m squad filler as well and that will be that.

ycsatbjywtbiastkamb » Wed Mar 22, 2023 11:55 am wrote:Bellingham is another Mbappe, lots of our fans were convinced we were going to sign him as well, Pie in the Sky.

Completely different situations. But the other top European clubs were always going to be in for Bellingham too so anyone who has ever been "convinced" that Bellingham is coming here was being optimistic. What's very clear is that we do want him and trying to make it happen, just like several other clubs.

Eagle » Wed Mar 22, 2023 1:09 pm wrote:

ycsatbjywtbiastkamb » Wed Mar 22, 2023 11:55 am wrote:Bellingham is another Mbappe, lots of our fans were convinced we were going to sign him as well, Pie in the Sky.

Completely different situations. But the other top European clubs were always going to be in for Bellingham too so anyone who has ever been "convinced" that Bellingham is coming here was being optimistic. What's very clear is that we do want him and trying to make it happen, just like several other clubs.

No way is he coming here, he may have done 3 or 4 years ago but even thats debateable becuse we always had the air of a club who had stumbled across a good team as opposed to one who was prepared to pull out all the stops and do whatever it takes to consistently compete. All FSG have done since they arrived here is moan about the money our rivals are spending and try to gerrymander a closed shop where they can leverage our history to guarantee huge profits with minimal investment in the squad.
He may admire Jurgen and be pally with Hendo but when lawyers and hard headed financial advisors etc get involved the likes of City, a Qatari owned United and even Newcastle will look far safer long term bets.
lets face it if City for some reason missed out on the top four everyone knows the following summers transfer window would shake the very foundations the earth stands upon, what will we do? Brag in the Echo about getting a Wolves fringe player on the cheap?
Take your love for LFC out of the equation and put your professional head on, if someone was paying you a lot of money to advise the lad where would you tell him to go given he is a teenager, our owners have announced they are staying and Jurgen is unlikely to be here in 6 or 7 years time?

I think Liverpool will be a better bet for his development than Real or City so I’m sure his father knows this and will take that into account. Why couldn’t he play for us for five years then move on in his prime, he is young enough where we may actually be the smarter option. Also he seems inline with the owner’s ethos of value growing. I think him and Mount will make us a significantly a better team.

I think it could happen but not enough to turn us back into the best in the world, we would certainly need someone else in midfield. If they could manage that and buy a good young defender to partner Konate the following summer we would have a young team again.

Surely Real or City would be better for his development seeing as they are buying top players and challenging every year. If he comes here for that money then the expectation will be that he carries the team and that is a lot of pressure. He can't get off to a bad start or take time to settle here like he would at the other 2. Goes to City or Real and he will just transition into a good team with good players where he could be average or poor with what is around him here. Either of those 2 are a safer bet for his career imo.

In the end though he will follow the money like the rest of them do.

I'd like to see us get him but more importantly that we get the right players. We have to stop signing lads with shyte injury records and make sure what we do sign is available for Klopp to choose from every week. That's the most important criteria for me so that we aren't relying on what we have now.

@Kazza.  Konate barely got into double figures for matches played last season and it's similar again this season. That really needs to improve if we are going to build our defence around him. I like the lad but if he struggles again next season with injury then we have to think about moving him on. Our mainstay CH has got to be available for minimum 30 games a season.

red till i die!! » Thu Mar 23, 2023 2:55 pm wrote:Surely Real or City would be better for his development seeing as they are buying top players and challenging every year. If he comes here for that money then the expectation will be that he carries the team and that is a lot of pressure. He can't get off to a bad start or take time to settle here like he would at the other 2. Goes to City or Real and he will just transition into a good team with good players where he could be average or poor with what is around him here. Either of those 2 are a safer bet for his career imo.

In the end though he will follow the money like the rest of them do.

I'd like to see us get him but more importantly that we get the right players. We have to stop signing lads with shyte injury records and make sure what we do sign is available for Klopp to choose from every week. That's the most important criteria for me so that we aren't relying on what we have now.

@Kazza.  Konate barely got into double figures for matches played last season and it's similar again this season. That really needs to improve if we are going to build our defence around him. I like the lad but if he struggles again next season with injury then we have to think about moving him on. Our mainstay CH has got to be available for minimum 30 games a season.

Konate has missed a lot of games this season but last year he made the starting 11 or bench for every PL and CL game apart from Brighton away and Inter Milan at home. It's just that Matip was injury free and his form was so good that he was often preferred in the league. Konate still made 20 odd appearances across all competitions. Not bad for his first season settling in.

Eagle wrote:

red till i die!! » Thu Mar 23, 2023 2:55 pm wrote:Surely Real or City would be better for his development seeing as they are buying top players and challenging every year. If he comes here for that money then the expectation will be that he carries the team and that is a lot of pressure. He can't get off to a bad start or take time to settle here like he would at the other 2. Goes to City or Real and he will just transition into a good team with good players where he could be average or poor with what is around him here. Either of those 2 are a safer bet for his career imo.

In the end though he will follow the money like the rest of them do.

I'd like to see us get him but more importantly that we get the right players. We have to stop signing lads with shyte injury records and make sure what we do sign is available for Klopp to choose from every week. That's the most important criteria for me so that we aren't relying on what we have now.

@Kazza.  Konate barely got into double figures for matches played last season and it's similar again this season. That really needs to improve if we are going to build our defence around him. I like the lad but if he struggles again next season with injury then we have to think about moving him on. Our mainstay CH has got to be available for minimum 30 games a season.

Konate has missed a lot of games this season but last year he made the starting 11 or bench for every PL and CL game apart from Brighton away and Inter Milan at home. It's just that Matip was injury free and his form was so good that he was often preferred in the league. Konate still made 20 odd appearances across all competitions. Not bad for his first season settling in.

Your right Mate, he was available for pretty much the whole season. I thought he had a few games missed through injury but stand corrected.

It's not been great this season though and maybe his record at Leipzig skews my opinion slightly. Next season is still a big one for him imo to show he can be the player we build around though.

The injury situation across the squad this season has been frustrating period. We've had far more problems than anyone else in the league and that's after last season when we kept the bulk of the players fit for the bulk of the season. A review of our sports science department and making sure we do better next season on the injury front is as important as new signings.