Liverpool FC Forum

Strike in a World Cup year? Yeah right. We've held all the cards on this one from the beginning and the club know it.

VVD is doing the same thing right now in a world cup year..

Costa by all accounts has gone home to brazil.......in a world cup year.

IF he had simply said "if you reach a deal i want to go" or "ok i will give you one more year" then fine. But hes asked to leave, him or his agent has invented a family member to leak stuff the press.....and "hurt his back" so he cant play....

And we want to keep this player? and force him to play?

130million he'll be gone Barca will cough up. Can't turn that money down and I think we'll get keita for 75m and vvd for 75m before window shuts and possibly draxler now that will make us a force let the dancing commence

With all due respect to those posters who think we should cash in on Coutinho I don't think you guys quite get it, if we don't make a stand now and show that -

A) we won't get pressurised into selling our best players by so called bigger clubs (and their acolytes in the media)
B) we won't allow players to engineer their way out of our club

then we will always be in a permanent state of rebuild, if we continually sell our best players any time we get close to putting together a competative side then we will never achieve anything.
If we sell Phil that will be 3 times in the last decade where we have built a team good enough to challenge for the top prizes in the game only to see it prematurely dismantled and us dumped back at square one.
Btw FSG deserve a hell of a lot of credit for their stance over this, they really have upped their game the last couple of years.

The Raven » Fri Aug 18, 2017 6:14 pm wrote:VVD is doing the same thing right now in a world cup year..

Costa by all accounts has gone home to brazil.......in a world cup year.

IF he had simply said "if you reach a deal i want to go" or "ok i will give you one more year" then fine. But hes asked to leave, him or his agent has invented a family member to leak stuff the press.....and "hurt his back" so he cant play....

And we want to keep this player? and force him to play?

VVD and Phil will be back in their respective teams come first week of September. Costa on the other hand.....

ycsatbjywtbiastkamb » Fri Aug 18, 2017 10:58 pm wrote:With all due respect to those posters who think we should cash in on Coutinho I don't think you guys quite get it, if we don't make a stand now and show that -

A) we won't get pressurised into selling our best players by so called bigger clubs (and their acolytes in the media)
B) we won't allow players to engineer their way out of our club

then we will always be in a permanent state of rebuild, if we continually sell our best players any time we get close to putting together a competative side then we will never achieve anything.
If we sell Phil that will be 3 times in the last decade where we have built a team good enough to challenge for the top prizes in the game only to see it prematurely dismantled and us dumped back at square one.
Btw FSG deserve a hell of a lot of credit for their stance over this, they really have upped their game the last couple of years.

Heres my issue with your post Yakka, do you think the side we have now -with Coutinho- is good enough to challenge for the title ?

This is what the whole situation boils down to for me.

aCe' » Fri Aug 18, 2017 8:58 pm wrote:

ycsatbjywtbiastkamb » Fri Aug 18, 2017 10:58 pm wrote:With all due respect to those posters who think we should cash in on Coutinho I don't think you guys quite get it, if we don't make a stand now and show that -

A) we won't get pressurised into selling our best players by so called bigger clubs (and their acolytes in the media)
B) we won't allow players to engineer their way out of our club

then we will always be in a permanent state of rebuild, if we continually sell our best players any time we get close to putting together a competative side then we will never achieve anything.
If we sell Phil that will be 3 times in the last decade where we have built a team good enough to challenge for the top prizes in the game only to see it prematurely dismantled and us dumped back at square one.
Btw FSG deserve a hell of a lot of credit for their stance over this, they really have upped their game the last couple of years.

Heres my issue with your post Yakka, do you think the side we have now -with Coutinho- is good enough to challenge for the title ?

This is what the whole situation boils down to for me.

Yes I do mate, I don't think we'd be favourites but with a bit more luck than we had last year (especially with injuries) I think we could deffo mount challenge. When we had everyone fit and available we were very hard to beat and I think we saw signs in pre season that Coutinho and Salah were forming a formidable partnership.
With a front 4 of Coutinho, Salah, Mane and Firmino we'd give anyone in Europe never mind the prem a game.

Oh oops. 80 mil in 5 years. Now that's beyond insulting. What a joke of a club. Hope Barca endure a Sh*t season and some of the finance bigwigs go to jail for tax evasion.

ycsatbjywtbiastkamb » Sat Aug 19, 2017 1:34 am wrote:

aCe' » Fri Aug 18, 2017 8:58 pm wrote:

ycsatbjywtbiastkamb » Fri Aug 18, 2017 10:58 pm wrote:With all due respect to those posters who think we should cash in on Coutinho I don't think you guys quite get it, if we don't make a stand now and show that -

A) we won't get pressurised into selling our best players by so called bigger clubs (and their acolytes in the media)
B) we won't allow players to engineer their way out of our club

then we will always be in a permanent state of rebuild, if we continually sell our best players any time we get close to putting together a competative side then we will never achieve anything.
If we sell Phil that will be 3 times in the last decade where we have built a team good enough to challenge for the top prizes in the game only to see it prematurely dismantled and us dumped back at square one.
Btw FSG deserve a hell of a lot of credit for their stance over this, they really have upped their game the last couple of years.

Heres my issue with your post Yakka, do you think the side we have now -with Coutinho- is good enough to challenge for the title ?

This is what the whole situation boils down to for me.

Yes I do mate, I don't think we'd be favourites but with a bit more luck than we had last year (especially with injuries) I think we could deffo mount challenge. When we had everyone fit and available we were very hard to beat and I think we saw signs in pre season that Coutinho and Salah were forming a formidable partnership.
With a front 4 of Coutinho, Salah, Mane and Firmino we'd give anyone in Europe never mind the prem a game.

Here's where we differ. I think we're a level below all of City, Chelsea, Utd & Tottenham. A few weeks ago, I said the board should go for broke this season and spend big on a GK, CB, DM and ST to challenge for the title. For me, the 4 signings would signal our intent to both Coutinho and the league as a whole.

As it stands, we havent improved significantly on what we had last season. The sides around us have all improved (I expect Spurs to add a few more but they still have the most balanced starting 11 and dont have much room for improvement imo). I dont see us doing much more than challenging for a top4 finish with what we have.

We need to improve on set pieces, on defending counters, and on being efficient against the smaller sides. The way I see it, signing Van Dijk, Keita, and Aubameyang for example would give us a much better platform to challenge for the title next season than keeping Coutinho and only adding 1 more signing would this year.

In all scenarios, Coutinho will most likely not be a Liverpool player next season. I'd rather we focus on challenging for a top4 without him this season while building a side capable of seriously mounting a title challenge next season. We'd go into next season with a better defense, a number 9 who scored 25 goals a season, and a more balanced midfield.

This, as opposed to going into next summer needing to fix the defense AND replace Coutinho.

Spot on ace.  Completely agree. With our strongest side out we will cause most teams problems, especially when they come out and have a go and the game opens up. However the following issues make it highly unlike we will see a realistic challenge:

1. Couple of injuries and we have gaping weaknesses in the team. So far, it is only Salah who will add any real value to the team/squad with question marks over Solanke and Robertson (they may surprise us who knows, but they are punts)  so we haven't strengthened anywhere near enough to contend with injuries and also deal with the the extra games in the CL. 
2. Defensively we are poor and just concede too many goals to mount a serious challenge
3. We have problems with teams who come and park the bus.

I see us having our moments this season where we build up a head of steam and look like we are on the charge however I just don't see us being capable of maintaining it through to next May when compared to a few of the other sides. Don't think we will be too far off but we will be off nonetheless.

Well, let's be realistic here Ace, we are not under any circumstances going to spend £70m on a 28 year old so just forget about signing Aubemayang, that is not going to happen.
If Coutinho stays we don't need him anyway, we led the scoring charts for most of last season and the only reason we were knocked off top spot was the injuries we picked up in the last couple of months of the campaign. As I said Coutinho and Salah looked great together in pre season and I think we'll be right up there in terms of goals scored again this year.
Now let's get to the midfield and defence, yes they need strengthening but why do we have to sell our best player to do that?  We already have enough money at our disposal to strengthen the side we don't need to sell Phil to raise capital.
It's not lack of resources stopping us signing players it's clubs refusing to sell at any price, but there are plenty of other clubs out there who would love to have £70m thrown their way.
There is nothing stopping us strengthening our midfield and defence, we have big money at our disposal and there are literally tens of thousands of professional footballers out there.

I can understand both points but where im on point with yakka is that we need to stop getting bullied by the top clubs. We will always be a feeder club if we don't hold our stance. After Couts Mane is potentially the next target.
Also we do have money in our kitty and still should be buying 2-3 top players.
If we stick our guns with Couts atleast it will give a message to future players coming to us. Don't think you can sulk, blast the manager and get out. You have signed a contract so respect it and get on with helping your club.
If a player has loads of ambition and knows one day he will be at Barca or Real then sign a 3 year contract and run it down without an extension. It's better then a last minute charade that way we will be more prepared.

ycsatbjywtbiastkamb » Fri Aug 18, 2017 11:09 pm wrote:Well, let's be realistic here Ace, we are not under any circumstances going to spend £70m on a 28 year old so just forget about signing Aubemayang, that is not going to happen.
If Coutinho stays we don't need him anyway, we led the scoring charts for most of last season and the only reason we were knocked off top spot was the injuries we picked up in the last couple of months of the campaign. As I said Coutinho and Salah looked great together in pre season and I think we'll be right up there in terms of goals scored again this year.
Now let's get to the midfield and defence, yes they need strengthening but why do we have to sell our best player to do that?  We already have enough money at our disposal to strengthen the side we don't need to sell Phil to raise capital.
It's not lack of resources stopping us signing players it's clubs refusing to sell at any price, but there are plenty of other clubs out there who would love to have £70m thrown their way.
There is nothing stopping us strengthening our midfield and defence, we have big money at our disposal and there are literally tens of thousands of professional footballers out there.

I agree with this, we SHOULD be strengthening but why does it have to be at the expense of our best player. I think for us to really mount a chellenge we need Coutinho along with strengthening those positions mentioned. This year there are a lot of teams that will be capable and will take points of each other so we should take our chance and buy big all the while keeping what we have, which before the Coutinho saga is what we seemed to be doing.

We always seem to be " just a couple of players away" but now is when we must go for it, money IS there!

In theory, we should be making these signing anyways. Hence my initial point about wanting the owners to have a transfer window that takes us to the next level. I don't even think that adding Van Dijk to what we currently have would be enough to have us challenge for the title. I think we need 3 or 4 players and for me it does include signing a top striker regardless of the fact we were 4th in the scoring sheets last season. One of the main reasons we dropped points last season was the fact we didnt have a striker that put half chances away. Another was our defending of crosses. You could argue that a better GK would have given us 5-6 extra points as well. None of these reasons have been addressed and I dont think they will be unless something forces the hands of the owners.

As things stand, with Coutinho staying, I dont see us signing more than 1 player. Fck knows if it'll be a defender, midfielder, or a winger. IF we do sell Coutinho, I think both Klopp and the owners will be inclined to make more signings. I dont know if they'll use the money to improve the defense or sign a Coutinho replacement or a striker (Aubameyang was an example, there are a few others who would also walk straight into our 11)

Radio 5 saying some progress has been made on with VVD. Could be some movements next week as Pelligrino starts to worry about his job with the new owners coming in...