Summer transfer thread

[Steveo]

This should be put in front of their faces before the transfer window opens and while we are supposedly looking at targets.

Liverpool owners are to blame for the culture of complacency crippling the club's progress

Successful football clubs strengthen when they are on top, a lesson FSG has failed to learn since winning the Champions League in 2019

The last person Liverpool and, perhaps more pertinently the club’s owners, Fenway Sports Group, want to be reminded of right now is Sir Alex Ferguson. But the former Manchester United manager was spot on when he famously said: “I tell the players that the bus is moving. This club has to progress. And the bus wouldn’t wait for them. I tell them to get on board.”

No Liverpool fan needs to be told of the old adage that you strengthen while ahead. It is what the club did for years; years before Ferguson pitched up at Old Trafford and started talking about perches. But Liverpool – or rather FSG - have been guilty of putting the brakes on since Jürgen Klopp brought back not just the European Cup but the Premier League title.

That manifested itself most clearly in the January transfer window. Virgil van Dijk suffered his knee injury in October; Joe Gomez suffered his in November and yet it was not until the final day of the January transfer window that Liverpool scrambled around in the bargain basement to finally bring in Ozan Kabak on loan from Schalke for £1 million, plus up to £500,000 in add-ons, and signed Preston’s Ben Davies for an initial £500,000, potentially rising to £2m. Fans talked up the cleverness of the signings. But that was wishful thinking.

Instead they seemed like a public admission of a private fear: that a culture of complacency has seeped into Liverpool. That senior figures at the club, and the owners FSG, had pretty much written off this strange season, almost treating it as a free hit, with the built-in assumption that so skilled was Klopp that a top-four finish would be assured come what may and with it Champions League qualification. Klopp, it was presumed, would find a way.

But success is not a tap. It cannot be turned on and off. Not by any player, not by any team and not by any club. The bus does not stop and to slow it down is perilous. The sport is too volatile, too competitive and things can – as Liverpool have shown with six successive home defeats – rapidly spiral out of control. Suddenly some fans have not just written off Champions League qualification but are hoping Liverpool even miss out on a Europa League place. The problem with talking about putting an asterisk next to the season, as some have done, is that people start to believe it. They start to search out excuses.

Whatever the mitigation it has now turned into an embarrassing title defence from Liverpool. It is becoming increasingly difficult to defend them against Roy Keane’s allegation of being “bad champions”. Not that they ever got the opportunity to truly celebrate being champions and maybe there is a psychological hangover in that, also.


There is the pandemic: no club owner – just like every other business – has dealt with this kind of nightmare scenario before and there is sympathy because revenues are plunging, But Premier League clubs of the stature of Liverpool do have a certain built-in robustness with the insulation of their broadcast contracts plus, hopefully, a long-term plan that the economy will recover and they will be well-placed to take advantage. Football has continued. Football is valued. FSG knows it remains a solid long-term investment especially at a blue-chip franchise such as Liverpool.

Instead of considering furlough schemes last summer maybe it would have been wiser for Liverpool to have considered further investment because – despite the Covid crisis – they were coming off the back of two years of outstanding success and growth. Maybe, having tried to furlough staff before being forced by a fans' backlash to reverse it, the ‘optics’ were not right in FSG’s eyes. But that has proved short-sighted.

In fact it is since winning the Champions League in 2019 that major incomings have slowed down with around £84m spent - £40m on Diogo Jota, £20m on Thiago Alcantara, £11.7m Kostas Tsimikas last summer and, before that, £7.65m on Takumi Minamino and £1.7m on Sepp van den Berg.

At the same time Manchester City have spent £300m, Manchester United £280m, Chelsea – despite their one window transfer ban – £263m, Tottenham Hotspur more than £230m and Arsenal around £220m.

FSG has hardly been a bad owner even if it proposed a £77 ticket before apologising to the fans who staged a walkout in protest in 2016; even if it apparently co-authored ‘Project Big Picture’ and appears to want a European Super League and even if – at heart – Liverpool is a strategic business investment. There is, though, nothing wrong in that and self-sufficiency should be encouraged.

FSG also cleaned up the balance sheet, broke transfer records to sign Van Dijk and Alisson and hired Klopp, for goodness sake. It has spent heavily on upgrading player contracts with a highly-competitive wage bill, it lent £110m for the building of the magnificent new stand, which the club is paying back, and £50m on a new training ground.

But there also comes a time to react to circumstances and to protect the asset. There has to be an element of catastrophe planning. Of course Liverpool should not overstretch themselves but the perfect storm of this season changed things and FSG needed to respond. The January window showed that especially after the missed opportunity of the past two summers when the squad was left lacking depth. Maybe a good enough target could not be landed. But did FSG really try?


Now it has been proven that Klopp – just like every other manager – is not impervious to outside influences and events. He has also made mistakes, not least tactically, and the players are also at fault. Liverpool cannot dismiss this season as a freak, to award it that asterisk and assume it will be better come August.

The lifeboat of still being in the Champions League remains and, who knows, Liverpool may just cussedly reach another final. But a huge transfer window looms in what will be a difficult market but maybe one where opportunities will present themselves to the boldest and most forward-thinking clubs. And, for Liverpool, this might have to be negotiated without Champions League money. The next move belongs to FSG.

Rationally no one should have expected last season’s title triumph to usher in a period of dominance – not in the modern era with the strength and spending power of rivals – but the drop-off is not just about bad luck and unique circumstances. There has also been bad planning. That is a corporate failing for which the owners cannot escape their share of the blame. The bus has stalled.

[CCTV]

United's greatest season/team ended with their beating Bayern's in a cl final.
98/99 they added/spent well, like we did in summer 18/19.

Over the period 98/99, 99/00 and 00/01 lfc outspent united in net spend terms. Ferguson's barely spent in the seasons after that success.

Klopp should learn from Fergus. Iirc he finished 3rd when Arsenal won the league around 02 prior to the arrival of the sheikh and Roman.

Of course United didn't fail in their corporate planning over those 3 seasons.

Fergie's greatness was in rebuilding sides and continued success. It separates him from Wenger.
Klopps has further proved his greatness by winning a pl and cl title. Could easily have doubled up on those counts and won a el too.
Upto Klopp to rebuild a side and get further real success in terms of titles. Best years of my life as a lfc fambo.

[teesred]

The last paragraph of the article is bang on. Its a good article as it points to the good things they have done aswell as their neglect. Theres not really much argument, this summer either put up or simply fuck off and hand over to someone who means business.

[LEGS]

Is there a chance we sign someone like Max Aarons to play RB and we move Trent into midfield ??

Im not convinced we will as at RB he gets more space and its a different game in CM.

Bellingham is somebody who everyone will be watching only 17 and holding his own at Dortmund and in the CL but he needs to stay for a few more years yet

[skyebo]

I wouldn't want anyone else at RB. He's the best crosser of a ball we have at the club.

[LEGS]

I wouldn't want anyone else at RB. He's the best crosser of a ball we have at the club.

Yeah by far I wouldnt move him but who knows what management are thinking.

He is missing Henderson and Gomez/Matip who cover him so well.

Keita performs best on the left of a three he is always crap on the right but in saying that id sell him last night was taking the piss walking about.

[skyebo]

Yeah by far I wouldnt move him but who knows what management are thinking.

He is missing Henderson and Gomez/Matip who cover him so well.

Keita performs best on the left of a three he is always crap on the right but in saying that id sell him last night was taking the piss walking about.

Indeed, an expensive flop.

[teesred]

Hes been shit from the off. You can count on one hand the good games yes had in 3 seasons. It baffles me how anyone has time for him, hes a shithouse who belongs nowhere near LFC.

[ianlfc]

Hes been shit from the off. You can count on one hand the good games yes had in 3 seasons. It baffles me how anyone has time for him, hes a shithouse who belongs nowhere near LFC.

He'll leave in the summer and live off the medals he's won these past few seasons for the rest of his career.

[RedNoodle]

Yeah by far I wouldnt move him but who knows what management are thinking.

He is missing Henderson and Gomez/Matip who cover him so well.

Keita performs best on the left of a three he is always crap on the right but in saying that id sell him last night was taking the piss walking about.

We certainly miss Henderson helping out the right side of our defence, but in my opinion Gomez was not covering TAA well. He had started wandering into 'no mans's land' far to often, and he was becoming fairly error prone.

As for Keita, I really don't know what is going to happen with him as his time with us should be coming to an end, however given that he's delivered next to nothing since he joined, combined with the current economic circumstances, nobody is going to offer us (or should I say FSG) enough money to consider letting him go just yet.