Reply With QuoteI wouldn't have him anyway.Originally Posted by miller0863
Disrespectful little blurt.
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Put this one in the “highly unlikely” file
Liverpool have submitted an ‘informal transfer bid’ of £51.5m for Real Madrid’s Rodrygo, according to El Nacional.
The Catalan publication claims that Jürgen Klopp has launched an ‘assault’ on an ‘untouchable’ player, seeking to capitalise on his potential unhappiness at the Bernabéu. Rodrygo, reportedly, is growing weary of his role as an impact sub.
I suppose he could be an early Salah replacement as with Diaz and Mané but still highly unlikely, particularly for that fee.
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I wouldn't have him anyway.
Disrespectful little blurt.
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what did he say?
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Real Madrid sniffing around Mo Salah after failing to get a marquee striker signing done. We are reportedly sniffing around Rodrygo.
Is this something which might happen?
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It concerns me greatly that if the decision has been made not to improve Salah’s contract and let him go on a free, we will need to replace him when we are absolutely desperate to spend on a couple of midfield starters.
If he’s going it will benefit long term to get a decent wedge in for him to aid the rebuild and £60m would certainly help.
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Not quite what happened though to be fair - we offered improved terms, he declined as he wants £400k-per-week depending on which journalist you trust.
That's a lot of money, which in-and-of-itself may not seem an issue, but you're giving 400k-per-week to a player in their 30s - creates a real problem precedent if their form drops badly a year or two into their contract - others (particularly those who are playing better in their respective position) may then want parity - then any new player we sign may want higher wages (on average) as well.
Once you go down that road it's hard to reverse the car and change course.
I keep mentioning them, but Man United offer a perfect example of the consequences of this - new signings want big wages to play for them and the signings that didn't work out are difficult to move on as they won't have their inflated wages matched elsewhere - lads like Martial and Lingard linger.
Now, in the interest of offering balance, I'll concede both that ours is a tricky tightrope to walk and that allowing someone like Salah to leave on a free transfer does f-e-e-l like lunacy - it does. I get it.
However, if we give Salah £200k-per-week more and others start asking for further percentage increases (not to mention the agent fees for all these contract negotiations) then before you know it we could be looking at an extra, say, £1,000,000-per-week over the course of a 25-man squad in a few years - £52m extra per year on wages - that's perhaps(?) an extreme example but you get the idea and can no doubt see why we'd be keen to prevent leaving the door ajar to something like that unfolding.
Ideally when a player of his calibre leaves you get a big fee to re-invest, but I guess his likely departure is the "price" paid for getting what will likely prove to be the best years of his career.
In just the same way, if Bayern want to offer nearly double the wage packet to Mane for a 30-year old version rather than acquire the 24-year old version only for us to enjoy 6 glorious seasons at half-price, well, good luck to them.
Our policy will likely be to go against the grain - rather than pay out more to the 30+ age group, we'll only give slight increases, or increased bonuses, or keep wages the same OR do what we did with Milner and reduce wages slightly if the player really wants to stay. I actually suspect we may extend Firmino's contract with slightly less (flat rate) wages on the table, as he seems to love playing here, though that remains to be seen.
In the meantime we will pursue players willing to start at £100k-£150k-per-week (perhaps more signings from the Portuguese League will come as they are comparatively "poorly" paid) and the funds NOT spent on giving massive contracts out to a Salah or a Mane (or whoever) will be used in player amortisation fees.
We'll also keep seeing these younger lads targeted in the hope we turn a few into £40m players rather than having to fork out massive fees for "English tax" and "potential tax" - £100m potentially for Bellingham for example, as much as I massively rate him (and want him here) seems mad - we need to get those lads in before their potential fees are so abhorrently high and/or create some via the Academy.
I think we can do it.
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There was an article going around last week with him basically taking the piss out of Salah. He scored 3 league goals and isn't a regular after 3 seasons there.
Salah has achieved more in half a season than he will his whole career.
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Not what I was saying Sid, I know we have offered improved terms but he wants more … so I am saying that if we have decided not to improve the offer to a level Salah’s Agent deems acceptable then he’s going on a free next summer.
The bit I am concerned about is having to replace him when we should be going all out for Bellingham plus probably one other midfielder. We can’t afford to add a Salah replacement while bringing in Bellingham
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Gotcha - apologies for the misinterpretation.
I think Diaz replaces Mane and (different positions, I know) Núñez replaces Salah in terms of being the main goal threat. We'll still need a RW-FWD of course, though we may go for the £25m-£40m bracket if we are aiming to bring Bellingham in too.
As much as I rate Bellingham I find it hard to picture us forking out £100m-ish for a teenager though. I do wonder if someone like Kaide Gordon is developed this season to try to ease the pressure, but we'll see.
I'm excited though. I do think we are collectively a bit weaker for the loss of Mane of course, though *touch wood* factors like a full-season of Diaz, Van Dijk not starting the season in a rehabilitative phase, the addition of Núñez+Carvalho and the 5-subs rule should soften some of this.
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No apology necessary mate, I wasn’t clear enough.
The money spent on arguably a less proven talent in Nunez this summer has made me a little more confident of us spending the money on Bellingham
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