Liverpool FC Forum

I really hope we don't end up in a Coutinho type situation. With Messi going and possibly Suarez, Barca will be in a transition period. So their aim will be to try and snap up the best. Wouldn't be surprised if they make a move for Salah or Mane. When Barca unsettle players there is only one outcome.

electrum wrote:

ycsatbjywtbiastkamb » Mon Aug 31, 2020 6:33 pm wrote:Along with VVD Mane is the last player I’d want to see leave.

Agree with this.

If there is any truth to the rumour then we are going backwards.

We should be buying a plan B type attacking player to add to the three we have- I have mentioned Traore (Adama, not the second coming of Djimi  ) in previous posts.

Selling to buy is exactly what we did in the wilderness years. The last thing we need is to go that route again.

All our main rivals are showing they mean business - we are very quiet - far too quiet for my liking.

Success was always buying / building for the future while we were on top. That is exactly the blueprint we need to follow now,

We have the pull of being EPL champions , recent CL winners and the best Manager in the world in Klopp (with only one other guy in the discussion)

If we can't buy /attract quality now, when will we?

We have been selling to buy for the last ten years as it's part of the business model of a self sustaining club.  We have to earn the money first before we spend it. Some people think because of all the success on and off the field over the last few years means we should have a nice little kitty to dip into but that's not the case. Our accounts show either a loss or a small profit every year so the money isn't there. We can't borrow it either so it has to come from player sales. It's not a question about us not wanting to sell but rather the need to.

We can only sell what a club is willing to buy so if that's Mane then so be it. From the clubs point of view he has maxed as an asset and will only decline from here. Same with Mo and Bobby.  I don't like it but that's life.

All these players come across as sound and loyal to the club till death but once a more attractive club or offer comes along they will stoop to gutter tactics to get it.  I didnt believe the Coutinho stuff at first till he took said trip to the gutter like Suarez and Sterling before him.

If Mane wants to go then fine and he can bring Gini with him if he wont sign a new deal or else risk losing him for free.  They have helped us win the biggest prizes in the game so if the want to move on then good luck to them. This kind of stuff has to be expected and planned for.

Our biggest problem will be replacing them. We can't from the squad so have to bring them in. Give Barca a deadline on both of them so we can at least get that Thiago lad and still have time for a decent Mane replacement before we end up at the last minute with a Balotelli.

redshade » Mon Aug 31, 2020 9:39 pm wrote:I really hope we don't end up in a Coutinho type situation. With Messi going and possibly Suarez, Barca will be in a transition period. So their aim will be to try and snap up the best. Wouldn't be surprised if they make a move for Salah or Mane. When Barca unsettle players there is only one outcome.

Add Madrid to that as well.

redshade » Mon Aug 31, 2020 8:39 pm wrote:I really hope we don't end up in a Coutinho type situation. With Messi going and possibly Suarez, Barca will be in a transition period. So their aim will be to try and snap up the best. Wouldn't be surprised if they make a move for Salah or Mane. When Barca unsettle players there is only one outcome.

Marca are reporting that Real Madrid are unlikely to spend any money this summer and will only be strengthening their squad by bringing players back from loan. Barcelona have one of the biggest wages bills in the world and their players agreed to take a temporary 70% wage cut when Covid hit. I can't see them spending unless they generate funds from player sales. Bayern decided not to pursue Havertz and said after the signing of Sane they are on a sell to buy policy. Clubs will lose so much stadium revenue that I think a lot of them will decide to be conservative this summer. No season ticket money, no match day revenue, no midweek corporate events, no stadium tours, no music concerts, no non-football sporting events, etc. Also no lucrative pre-season tour. Will be interesting to see what happens over September.

Eagle » Mon Aug 31, 2020 9:07 pm wrote:

redshade » Mon Aug 31, 2020 8:39 pm wrote:I really hope we don't end up in a Coutinho type situation. With Messi going and possibly Suarez, Barca will be in a transition period. So their aim will be to try and snap up the best. Wouldn't be surprised if they make a move for Salah or Mane. When Barca unsettle players there is only one outcome.

Marca are reporting that Real Madrid are unlikely to spend any money this summer and will only be strengthening their squad by bringing players back from loan. Barcelona have one of the biggest wages bills in the world and their players agreed to take a temporary 70% wage cut when Covid hit. I can't see them spending unless they generate funds from player sales. Bayern decided not to pursue Havertz and said after the signing of Sane they are on a sell to buy policy. Clubs will lose so much stadium revenue that I think a lot of them will decide to be conservative this summer. No season ticket money, no match day revenue, no midweek corporate events, no stadium tours, no music concerts, no non-football sporting events, etc. Also no lucrative pre-season tour. Will be interesting to see what happens over September.

According to Sky Chelsea are confident that they are going to sign Havertz in the next few days and given Messi has basically gone AWOL from Barcelona and apparently doesn’t consider himself a Barca player any more I think it’s safe to say the 2 clubs we see as our main rivals for the Premier League aren’t adopting a conservative approach.
In fact Chelsea have already signed the likes of Werner, Ziyech, Chilwell and Thiago Silva, if they manage to get Havertz over he line as well I’d say that was pretty much the exact opposite of conservative.
Even United, they are on the verge of signing Donny Van Der Beek, okay not a world beater but he’s still starting XI material, the only business we have done so far is a back up left back.
What the likes of Bayern, Barca and Madrid do doesn’t really concern us on a week to week basis, it’s what the likes of City, Chelsea and United etc do which concerns us, well I’ve got news for you mate, City, Chelsea etc arent sitting around twiddling their thumbs like we are.

Well “mate”, I was specifically addressing redshade’s point about us losing key players to the likes of Barcelona. But you seem determined to spam every thread on this forum about the club not signing players to scratch your itch.

City lost Kompany and signed Ake, they lost David Silva and promoted Foden, they lost Sane and bought Torres. They look weaker rather than stronger to me at the moment.

Chelsea finished 33 points behind us so they have some serious room and need for improvement. Since the start of the 2019/2020 season Chelsea have made £207mil from player sales and spent £168mil on players. So currently sitting on a profit of £33mil. I’d say that’s pretty conservative so far. They have lost the likes of Luiz, Hazard, Willian, Pedro and Morata, all who got plenty of game time, so clearly have gaps to fill.

Who have we lost in recent times that we need to replace urgently? Lallana barely played and we have Curtis Jones. We had a gap at LB which we’ve now filled. So it’s only really Lovren.

Yes the Werner deal stings but I can sort of understand how it went the way it did. The clause in his contract had a deadline and at that time stadium revenue had completely stopped and the PL clubs were discussing a significant rebate with the broadcasters. Chelsea happened to have £50mil coming in from the Morata sale so took advantage. Could we have taken a risk? Possibly. But I understand why we didn’t.

Klopp has repeatedly said he (a) doesn’t want a huge squad with players sitting around, (b) he won’t spend ridiculous amounts of money for marginal gains on the pitch and (c) he won’t bring in players for the sake of it to keep fans happy. People seem to keep forgetting this is a damn good squad of players who have achieved some extraordinary things and are mainly in their prime. And unlike our rivals, our squad is pretty stable. I’m sure we’re looking at the market for where we can find marginal gains that make sense, but our need is not as great as our rivals so will be surgical rather than scatter gun.

Apparently there's a strong rumour in Liverpool that Ancelotti wants out big-style from Everton and that things have broken down. What a surprise....

Eagle » Tue Sep 01, 2020 12:29 pm wrote:Well “mate”, I was specifically addressing redshade’s point about us losing key players to the likes of Barcelona. But you seem determined to spam every thread on this forum about the club not signing players to scratch your itch.

City lost Kompany and signed Ake, they lost David Silva and promoted Foden, they lost Sane and bought Torres. They look weaker rather than stronger to me at the moment.

Chelsea finished 33 points behind us so they have some serious room and need for improvement. Since the start of the 2019/2020 season Chelsea have made £207mil from player sales and spent £168mil on players. So currently sitting on a profit of £33mil. I’d say that’s pretty conservative so far. They have lost the likes of Luiz, Hazard, Willian, Pedro and Morata, all who got plenty of game time, so clearly have gaps to fill.

Who have we lost in recent times that we need to replace urgently? Lallana barely played and we have Curtis Jones. We had a gap at LB which we’ve now filled. So it’s only really Lovren.

Yes the Werner deal stings but I can sort of understand how it went the way it did. The clause in his contract had a deadline and at that time stadium revenue had completely stopped and the PL clubs were discussing a significant rebate with the broadcasters. Chelsea happened to have £50mil coming in from the Morata sale so took advantage. Could we have taken a risk? Possibly. But I understand why we didn’t.

Klopp has repeatedly said he (a) doesn’t want a huge squad with players sitting around, (b) he won’t spend ridiculous amounts of money for marginal gains on the pitch and (c) he won’t bring in players for the sake of it to keep fans happy. People seem to keep forgetting this is a damn good squad of players who have achieved some extraordinary things and are mainly in their prime. And unlike our rivals, our squad is pretty stable. I’m sure we’re looking at the market for where we can find marginal gains that make sense, but our need is not as great as our rivals so will be surgical rather than scatter gun.

Dress it up how you like but we started to go off the boil even before the lockdown and haven’t looked the same since. Bobby in particular looks a pale shadow of the player he was 18 months ago and his loss of form is way more than a blip.  You say City are weaker but they could have put 6 or 7 past us last time we played and will probably start the season with Messi in their ranks.
We just about hung on against Chelsea at Anfield and if Pulisic was on for the full 90 who knows what would have happened? Next time we play them they will have Werner, Havertz, Chilwell, Jiyech, Thiago Silva and let’s not forget Kante who was injured last time we played. If we signed those players we’d all be dancing around our living rooms. We go on about our youngsters but they have a fair few promising youngsters themselves including that lad Billy whats-his-name who bossed the cup game against us. Every team has got promising youngsters, City, United....heck even Everton.
We are the champions so we obviously had an edge on our rivals but if you can’t see that the gap is closing rapidly and the club don’t seem to be doing anything about it other than sign a back up LB and promote a few kids (who the jury is still out on) then I can’t help you.
Williams is already looking a bit suspect defensively. Let’s not forget that after one particular cameo off the substitutes bench for Wales Ben Woodburn was being hailed as the next Gareth Bale, Andre Wisdom started his Liverpool career off like a house on fire, defensively he looked rock solid, far more solid than Williams but after Kevin Meirelles took him the cleaners in the derby he went to pieces.
Just assuming that young players are going to come good is a very risky strategy in my eyes, never mind becoming regulars for Liverpool the vast majority of them don’t even end up at other premier league clubs, most of them end up dropping down through the divisions.
Jurgen is a great manager but he is not a miracle worker, he needs the raw materials to work with.
One bad injury to VVD or one of our front 3 and our entire season is done, that’s how thin our squad is.

""One bad injury to VVD or one of our front 3 and our entire season is done, that’s how thin our squad is.""

And that from Yakka is it in a nutshell.

Any of the above miss a couple of months or more say then we are struggling for top 4 IMO.

Hoping that Origi and Minamino and the kids will get us challenging in the above scenario is a pipe dream at best, being blind to the obvious at worst.

Reading that Gini is in advanced talks with Barcelona, 15-20 million Euros was quoted. If it is Gini out and Thiago to replace him we will be better as Gini was more about energy and we have enough of those midfielders, a Rolls Royce midfielder that can thread great passes is what we dont have and Thiago is that.

kazza » Wed Sep 02, 2020 11:05 am wrote:Reading that Gini is in advanced talks with Barcelona, 15-20 million Euros was quoted. If it is Gini out and Thiago to replace him we will be better as Gini was more about energy and we have enough of those midfielders, a Rolls Royce midfielder that can thread great passes is what we dont have and Thiago is that.

Also a player that usually doesn't play half the games in a season. I prefer Gini to be honest.

Also, I was hoping we'd be getting the same amount of money for Gini as we would be paying for Thiago, or at least close to it. If we get 15m for Gini and pay 30m for Thiago, then we'll be getting played.

Via the usual journalists that the club briefs, the club have said there has been no contact from Barcelona.

Thiago is amongst the top 5 CMs in the world alongside the likes of Modric and Verratti but it would be disappointing to lose Gini. Alongside Firmino he's our most intelligent player and a problem solver on the pitch. We control games better when he plays. James Pearce has said he's heard that Gini wants a 4 year contract but we have offered something shorter.

Gini is 100% more of a Klopp player.
Thiago is a low energy, injury prone player pushing 30 which increases the risk for even more injuries.

And we NEED to sell one of our front 3 otherwise we ill be in deep trouble in a few years.
The owners will never invest their own money so the club MUST sell to buy and if we let all the players stay
beyond 30 it will get ugly as there will be little money to reinvest in youth.

Penguins wrote:Gini is 100% more of a Klopp player.
Thiago is a low energy, injury prone player pushing 30 which increases the risk for even more injuries.

Is he that injury prone ?. Heard a few mention it at this stage.

We have gambled in the past on players with ridiculous injury records and it hasn't paid off. Ox and Shaq have been massive let downs since they signed due to being constantly injured.

Looks like Gini's head's been turned. If he wants to go then sell. He's been a good player and hard worker. No point holding on to him and losing him for nothing in the summer.