Liverpool transfers in/out and rumours 22/23 + Contracts

[ianlfc]

Firmino never solved the pack defence against us issues.all he ever did was lose the ball and get pushed off the ball easily
Firmino was played has a false 9 just a midfielder.. Hopefully with Nunez we'll play with an out and out striker. That should solve more off the issues of teams playing defensive against us.

Just fucking lump it up to the big man then.

[CCTV]

1) I don't know what's going on there exactly. But objectively you can see that they have lost their way in terms of the CEO, the government, the monarch. When the king is sick, the whole kingdom starts to lose its shape. The rot seemed to set in before Ferguson left and a stronger king would probably have asked him to stay a bit further away from the club so they could start to rebuild.

A weak king might imagine the success of the club was down only to the manager and ask him, the successful one, to sort it all out.

2) Maybe they have learnt their lessons and the new manager is one for the long term and has the right qualities. But he is lumbered with Ronaldo and a squad of journeymen to sort out. His summer business doesn't seem very good so far and there are rumblings of discontent about their ability to work the transfer market.



3) It depends who our manager was. I can imagine someone like Pochettino could have done really well here. He would probably have enjoyed similar squad building privileges, probably have been a bit more defensively minded, which might have worked out well, and would probably have been able to set alight the best fans in the world, which gives us a huge advantage. It's worth mentioning that Klopp, who is the dog's bollocks and the best guy in the world, has been a bit unlucky here. Maybe someone else would have actually won more. It doesn't seem that out of the question to me.

1) In pondering as to what is the true cause of uniteds decline in a post-Ferguson era 🤔 I would venture the primary cause might be the loss of Fergie.

Replacing him with Moyes, with largely the same players and ownership, we saw the impact on the teams performance.

Players didn't respect Moyes, had Fergie told Rio no more chips (or whatever it was) there'd be not one mention from Rio in the media against Ferguson afterwards.

Some posit the loss of Wilkinson/Woodward?, their Edwards or Zorc in getting deals done.
But the reality is that managers like Ferguson & Klopp make signing players a hell of a lot easier.

Klopps contract extension was a massive pr deal before the summer window. Edwards departure in comparison, would have little impact on players preferences. It's money, manager, opportunities and status.

2) sounds like a similar situation to our own when Klopp arrived. Falling from a higher place.
It's worse of course as they've started to lose a big commercial financial advantage through their performances. The legacy wealth and sponsorship is in decline.
Iirc both us and city earned more than them last year/accounts

ETH is an interesting appointment. Don't know much about him tbh. But he looks a promising appointment. I'm not sure he's well prepared for the intensity of the step up, only one way to experience it.
At this point my gut says a better shout than Poch, who has more top flight experience and failings.

3) Klopp or Poch

I don't think there was a better suited manager profile than Klopp at that time.

There may well have been managers who could have won more here, but you're very likely looking at managers who would have required more aggressive ownership and investment.

If you look at the value of the asset presently from the point of purchase to its current value for our owners, the return is presently quite tidy.
Chelsea was sold for 3.2 billion at the end of a pandemic, under duress amidst the outbreak of war.

The argument as always will be around whether a little more investment or debt to back Klopp, would have returned a greater dividend.

In financial terms of onfiled performances, his 4 european, 3 CL finals, top 4 finishes etc...
You can't really expect much better in terms of revenue from on field performances.

Had he won more of the finals, or 2 of the failed PL title challenges, we would be much better off as fans, and a brand.
In terms of brand awareness 3 time PL & CL winners certainly has its gravitas and dividend.
As fans we'd be delirious, overtaking AC Milan on CL titles, and mancu on league titles.

For me I'm looking at this season with optimism, unsure of what our top 8 rivals have really done, it's ongoing. With regards ourselves we have a fairly new look now with Mane, Origi & Taki gone.

The obvious next signing will be a top young midfielder. Seemingly part of our aims in this window. As per the accounts we have little issue with debt, or being FFP compliant.

The benefit of successfully landing our guy this summer is massive as I see it. On paper Klopp will have what most would regard a complete squad.
If we can't complete it and carry on with a hole in the squad, we might still win the titles we aim to win.

But if you looked at last season, I'd expect adding another CM to the squad would be getting pushed aggressively behind the scenes now.
There's also an evolving need to expand the effective first team players and squads depth, building for more games from 2024 onwards in the CL, and a somewhat unusual calendar with the pending world Cup.

[vin]

From what I've seen Ten Hag is trying to be a no-nonsense, take no prisoners, authoritarian type manager. I genuinely don't know if that's his style. I'm not sure that the rule by fear approach works.

[justme]

Its not a matter of lumping the ball forward. But having a forward that will stay central and press up against the centre backs and play at the sides of them as well.Rather than a false nine who links up with midfield.. You don't have any time at all too play build up in the last 40 yards of the pitch.

[Taksin]

1) In pondering as to what is the true cause of uniteds decline in a post-Ferguson era �� I would venture the primary cause might be the loss of Fergie.

By any standards, Ferguson was a tough act to follow for the owners. Very successful for a very long time, dominant personality. He probably gained more and more control of transfers (and everything else) as time went on. This, it appears to me, goes hand in hand with the board becoming weaker over this time, perhaps due to atrophy as Ferguson seemed to need no-one, but perhaps for other reasons.

My impression was the club was losing its way before he retired. In fact they let him retire twice, which didn't exactly promote stability. Anyway, it turns out Moyes wasn't that bad but the board hadn't got used to uncertainty or a new process and so their own indecision lead to what has now become a decade of mistakes. Much of that was under the advice of Ferguson. It looks like now they realise they have to do things themselves and what is happening is they are adopting the model of today. They are imitating us. Once, it took us over a decade to realise we had to imitate them, now the shoe is on the other foot.

LFC now has one of the two prevailing successful ownership models. United should be able to follow it and put a little more money into transfers (I wonder when that presumption will end). Basic maths suggests that they should be able to surpass us but our recruitment model is so good that they actually have quite a lot of catching up to do. They will have to get seriously organised to be able to surpass us - that is my belief. That's because we are seriously organised.

An organised LFC is harder to beat than another club that is well organised for a number of reasons. The only way you can beat us is to way overspend your income, selling the soul of your club in the process, and get some help from VAR officials along the way.

The argument as always will be around whether a little more investment or debt to back Klopp, would have returned a greater dividend.

This argument exists at every club.

[vin]

This argument exists at every club.

I see what you mean. I'd say over the last 4 or 5 years we've lost out to the finest margins. 1 point, 1 goal. Would additional spending have been enough to get us over the line? It's different to being 10 to 15 points off the pace and knocked out in qtrs or semis

[Taksin]

I see what you mean. I'd say over the last 4 or 5 years we've lost out to the finest margins. 1 point, 1 goal. Would additional spending have been enough to get us over the line? It's different to being 10 to 15 points off the pace and knocked out in qtrs or semis

Last season the VAR decision for city against Everton was the margin. Or our weird performance against Leicester

19x blamed that defeat on our midfield stock but we should have easily beat them. Salah missed a pen and Mané missed an open goal. That wasn’t Fabinho’s fault

[vin]

Last season the VAR decision for city against Everton was the margin. Or our weird performance against Leicester

19x blamed that defeat on our midfield stock but we should have easily beat them. Salah missed a pen and Mané missed an open goal. That wasn’t Fabinho’s fault

I don't agree with 19x. I felt that our midfield lacked something. I'm not a fan of Hendo (19x is). For example, if we add a Coutinho type player into that midfield and I think we would have been easily over line.

[Taksin]

I don't agree with 19x. I felt that our midfield lacked something. I'm not a fan of Hendo (19x is). For example, if we add a Coutinho type player into that midfield and I think we would have been easily over line.

My point is we were effectively over that line anyway with the squad we had. Sometimes things don’t work out exactly to plan, especially when the referees are idiots or corrupt. No need to deconstruct the entire squad - and Klopp seems to have no appetite for that

[Taksin]

Quoted by the Liverpool Echo, Ljinders recalled how he influenced Diaz’s move in it’s final stages.

“I was on a skiing trip with my wife Danielle when, during dinner, our sporting director called me,” said Lijnders. “‘You and Jurgen have to speak with Luis Diaz in five minutes."

"We’ve just agreed with Porto but Tottenham are all-in as well. I joined the call and Jurgen was explaining to Luis how he would fit into our style and that we would help him."

"He said in reference to me joining (the call) ‘but you will hear this guy much more often!’ to which I immediately said ‘but I will explain things more calmly than Sergio (Conceicao, the Porto manager)!”

“I told him: ‘We want you desperately and have been pushing for the last one-and-a-half months with our owners and our sporting director, but you know that these kinds of transfers are not easy to accomplish."

"The good thing is you will train with Virgil, Robbo and Trent and they will make you so much stronger. Our idea is to create and score; you will have to tear these guys apart each day in training, which will make you better.”

“His agent translated Jurgen’s message and Julian Ward said ‘these two will make you a better player’. I told him there were not many clubs with more history and culture than Porto but Liverpool was one of them and he would feel this."

"Julian then walked with his phone to the trophy cabinet at AXA and finished with ‘we want to add to this and that’s why we want you’. If the boy wasn’t convinced, he would be now."

"What started as a bad adventure on the slopes ended with an incredible signing. We signed the one we wanted. My crazy day couldn’t have ended better. Would he be the difference-maker for the rest of this season? We hoped so,” he added.