Has £50M become the new £30/35M transfer benchmark..

[CCTV]

I fairness I don't think he is saying we are poorly run. I think he is saying we are run in a way that we can't sustain to compete. He is right (imo). Klopp himself has siad hé wishe the owners Would take more risk in the transfers. Maybe it would have gotten us another league or 2 and another CL. Maybe not. We will never know. But I think right now we are on a trajectory that will leave us as the also rans.

Klopp said he wishes we took more risks in the transfer market. Steveo says players like Fab & Mane were spent from running around.
Maybe we decide to sell Mane for 100 mill at an earlier point than we sold him for 32 mill. That's taking a risk, it puts an extra 72 mill in the coffers.

It's hard to know how Klopp is rated so highly when it seems his big trick is running lads into the ground. If that is the case, I doubt it myself, then we should be selling players earlier than fans would like. Cashing in when their stock is high and reinvesting, like real Madrid. Although steveo was moaning like fuck when we sold Coutinho.

With respect to Klopp, last year he was poor. Very little innovation or adaption, till the last part of the season when he kind of copied pep/artetas new setup.

As I have pointed out, and Jozza did recently, our spending in the last few years has been heavily stacked on attackers.
When we think of 1st team quality players, a first 11 and a subs bench...
We have three 1st team quality attackers on the bench. Struggle to make a 3 man Midfield and have a back 4 with Matip & Tsimi as backups.

When it comes to analysing net spends, its useful to measure the performance of a business. Real with a net profit of 13 mill over a decade whilst winning multiple CL, great success. Lille turning a 350 million euro net profit on transfers whilst featuring in the CL and being the last side to win the league that isn't PSG, great success.
I'd argue winning a first PL title, a CL title, rebuilding the stadium to a degree whilst not net spending to highly qualifies as a great success.

It's not too long ago people felt we'd never compete without some big sugar daddy. Now that we have competed without one and up against pep and citys cheating/spending, it's the ownership model isn't sustainable during a rebuild.

[Steveo]

Running players into the ground is precisely what Jurgen has HAD to do to challenge clubs massively outspending him. But this is a unique talent. Only the very best motivational men can do this. Fergie did BUT had the luxury of genuine backing,

Anyone who wants to challenge this - need only look at how Klopp has performed at Mainz - Dortmund and Liverpool FC.

It is absolutely clear why FSG sourced him, NOT to win the big prizes - but to get us onto the Champions league gravy train. The big titles and near misses a by product of the ludicrous money payed out by Barca for Coutinho.

I know it, most of the posters on this forum know it & Klopp has all but admitted as such himself.

[jr81]

Klopp said he wishes we took more risks in the transfer market. Steveo says players like Fab & Mane were spent from running around.
Maybe we decide to sell Mane for 100 mill at an earlier point than we sold him for 32 mill. That's taking a risk, it puts an extra 72 mill in the coffers.

It's hard to know how Klopp is rated so highly when it seems his big trick is running lads into the ground. If that is the case, I doubt it myself, then we should be selling players earlier than fans would like. Cashing in when their stock is high and reinvesting, like real Madrid. Although steveo was moaning like fuck when we sold Coutinho.

With respect to Klopp, last year he was poor. Very little innovation or adaption, till the last part of the season when he kind of copied pep/artetas new setup.

As I have pointed out, and Jozza did recently, our spending in the last few years has been heavily stacked on attackers.
When we think of 1st team quality players, a first 11 and a subs bench...
We have three 1st team quality attackers on the bench. Struggle to make a 3 man Midfield and have a back 4 with Matip & Tsimi as backups.

When it comes to analysing net spends, its useful to measure the performance of a business. Real with a net profit of 13 mill over a decade whilst winning multiple CL, great success. Lille turning a 350 million euro net profit on transfers whilst featuring in the CL and being the last side to win the league that isn't PSG, great success.
I'd argue winning a first PL title, a CL title, rebuilding the stadium to a degree whilst not net spending to highly qualifies as a great success.

It's not too long ago people felt we'd never compete without some big sugar daddy. Now that we have competed without one and up against pep and citys cheating/spending, it's the ownership model isn't sustainable during a rebuild.

I thought maybe they would have sold Mane or Salah a few years earlier for a huge price, but covid hit and maybe messed thst up.. Just something I thought.

I think we do keep hold of players too long, but maybe thats due to how we operate. 1 out, 1 in. We have never had to replace a midfielder apart from giní with thiago. They never left, hence we never signed one. This summer I think they were all caught off gusrd by the Saudis taking Hendo and Fab. That to me us why our midfield options are so low,, well that and the refusal of our owners to spend that bit extra.

I'm saying our model won't allow us to stay at the top. Have felt thst for a while and slowly it's happening. We were there a little bit more investment and we could have stsyed there. Not giving him a midfielder last summer was criminal. Then bringing in Artúr on loan. Seriously?

Are they bad owners? Nó i dont think só. They rún a Good Business.

Are they ambitious enough for me. No, they are happy to be like Lille.

[BOBPAISLEYFAN]

The initial post was not meant to be a pro or anti FSG dig, it was an attempt to clarify why Romeo Lavia is now being touted @£50M and not £30/35M.

With regards FSG’s tenure its definitely a mixed bag of good, bad and ugly thats for sure.

Could they have handled things across the board better ? with hindsight yes they could.

However, correct me if I am wrong, FSG were prior to buying the club encouraged by the principles of FFP as they were laid out and felt that if it was implemented properly it would provide a fair and level playing field for all Clubs concerned.

It was on this basis they purchased LFC and by all accounts saved the club from administration.

Now here we are over 10 years later, having won everything there is to be won… watching football most other clubs can only dream of, having probably enjoyed watching the best squad of players we have seen for over 30 years and only missing out on even more major trophies, namely the Premiership three times and the Champions League twice by the odd goal here and there and, or poor refereeing decisions in key moments.

We have improved the facilities and ambience of our historic stadium, increased the capacity of our Anfield by approx 35%, we also now have a state of the art new Training ground and Melwood has been bought back for the Ladies team to now enjoy its facilities….

Now whilst all of this is not perfect, and yes FSG could have done so many things better and spent more money, but just because we don't agree with every decision they make that doesn't make necessarily them wrong, it just means we see things differently and we have different objectives.

When it comes to making good business decisions they are the billionaires and we are not, so I think we can safely say they probably know better… unfortunately as supporters we are driven by our emotions rather than any commercial considerations and as such we are never going to agree.

Lets not forget Man City, PSG and Chelsea have all played the smoke and mirrors game with their finances and basically made a laughing stock of the principles of FFP for years now, this on its own has significantly impacted the cost of Transfer fees over the past ten years and now the Saudi league are threatening to take the abuse of FFP to a whole new STRATOSPHERIC level.

So in my opinion, this business model is simply not sustainable for any club that is not owned by either an Oligarch or a State owned Fund and so for Gary N to believe that it is this business model that LFC need to adopt to compete, is ill thought out madness out and ultimately if other Clubs do try to compete on a like for like basis, it will only end up with tears all round.

FSG’s business model to date has been an overwhelming success, however going forward I do agree this seismic shift in Transfer fees has probably changed the game forever and as such I can see FSG simply pulling out for pure commercial reason, because it looks increasingly likely that we will never see the level playing field we were promised by FFP all those years ago, sad but true.

[Steveo]

^Cabbages, hot Bovril & gravel... ^

[CCTV]

I thought maybe they would have sold Mane or Salah a few years earlier for a huge price, but covid hit and maybe messed thst up.. Just something I thought.

I think we do keep hold of players too long, but maybe thats due to how we operate. 1 out, 1 in. We have never had to replace a midfielder apart from giní with thiago. They never left, hence we never signed one. This summer I think they were all caught off gusrd by the Saudis taking Hendo and Fab. That to me us why our midfield options are so low,, well that and the refusal of our owners to spend that bit extra.

I'm saying our model won't allow us to stay at the top. Have felt thst for a while and slowly it's happening. We were there a little bit more investment and we could have stsyed there. Not giving him a midfielder last summer was criminal. Then bringing in Artúr on loan. Seriously?

Are they bad owners? Nó i dont think só. They rún a Good Business.

Are they ambitious enough for me. No, they are happy to be like Lille.

For me football clubs at the top end, should be running profits each year.
People were aghast at the nerve of LFC using the tax base to subsidise normal wages during covid, but wouldn't careless if the club was running a loss each year on fees and wages. Fairly sure the club runs an accounting loss in many of the FSG years. 1 big profit year I do recall, 120 mill maybe say 15 mill in tax on profits.
It seems fans are always clamouring for the BL fan ownership model, but not too arsed if clubs are running as good businesses.
Said before, a fan buyout of lfc say for 4 billion (used to use 3 billion) would require 1,000,000 people chipping in 4 grand each.
Then in the current era they'd be looking for 150-300 million investment each year on the potential growth in value of the club returning a dividend.
It's not an outrageous idea, as it is essentially the model most clubs are running on and only constrained by the notional ffp law. However at one point that will bottom out and then it's a matter of the clubs with the deepest pockets being able to fund their clubs.

The net spend equals success model that underpins the media hype train interest, is essentially a bit redundant.
City v United- similar net spends over a decades, miles apart.
Real v Barca, Real a net profit on transfers over the last decade (2012/13 to 2022/23) & Barca struggling to register people and in all sorts of shite financially.

Within known financial constraints there are decisions to make. For me our model is fairly simple under Klopp. There are a few things he's brought to the table:
Not losing players to rivals, like at Dortmund.
Not signing players who are out for wages and themselves, he looks for players who would turn down bigger wages to play here though they still get great wages here. Sometimes you get your VVD, sometimes you don't get your Touchy. For me those types of influences create the culture. People like to praise Klopp for creating the environment at LFC, they just don't like how he actually achieves it.

If we look at Caicedo for example, buying him for 100 mill now would placate fans to a degree. Buying him for the €5 mill Brighton paid for him 2 years ago, there'd be outrage if we bought a dm for 5 million. Casemiro bought for 5 million by rafa at real.
With Carvalho we signed a promising young attacker for 10 mill, had a decent enough start at LFC and is now off on loan. Likely to never play for lfc again based on his disappearance last year. Probably regrets leaving Fulham now.

Think there will be a dip after Klopp for sure, but not as pessimistic as others.
Then again for others it seems everything good is Klopp and everything bad is owners. Which seems a little ridiculous after what I saw last year in terms of Klopps performance, even forced to work with the squad at hand.

[Steveo]

Watch the minions at work. landing the vessel - awaiting the arrival of the King Henry down on the Cote' D'Azur..

I see the little boat has been brought across the pond.. Could he be about to entertain Mbappe..?

[CCTV]

Not at 800+ grand a week.

[Steveo]

As an owner of the Boston Globe I am sure he can manipulate share prices a little - even if only in the short term, keep doing that every 3 months and you can pay the Jet propelled Parisian as he likes..

[BOBPAISLEYFAN]

So we place the highest bid in an Auction, £111M and smash the British transfer record and still its not enough…well we all can hazard a guess ….

Paying big bucks to buy the best players, is just the tip of the iceberg… the deciding factor these days is the length and value of contracts offered and probably the most critical element of any deal.

So as frustrating as it is losing out to Chelsea on Caicedo transfer, from 90% of players perspectives its a no brainer, he who pays the best salary and longest contract wins, simples… and in that regards we simply cannot compete with the likes of Chelsea, Man Utd, Man City…etc without abandoning our current sustainable model.

Abandoning this model has an appeal it terms of short term rewards but it comes with massive risks, gambling like this with the Clubs future is a very dangerous game, sad but true…