A modern transfer fee for John Barnes is impossible to determine, as he played decades ago and his value was subject to the economic conditions of his era, with his 1987 transfer to Liverpool costing a then-record £900,000. While he was a world-class player in his time, a hypothetical modern price tag would be pure speculation, as modern player values are inflated by factors not present during his career. If the Premier league didn’t happen as an example.
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I would say the same of the players (much worse) if they also said the season is an absolute right off in October. It’s a pathetic thing to say and absolutely not ‘hypocritical’ to say this while defending Slot nor pointing out that the PL is a very different environment to just showing up in a blue collar workplace. I know English is your second language, but pull your head in.
Its “write off” not “right off”, and English is your first language. So, in that respect pull your head in.
There is room for opinion without your abrasive response. Disagree, by all means but maybe with a bit of respect.
The ultimate irony is you “suporting a ban for recently arrived incontinents” to the forum…that one at least made me laugh.
We used to use the description of a virual pub to describe the forums…
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Given you’ve definitely written off the season, not sure what you’re doing here? Isn’t there hurling or camogie that can ease the pain until you write the season off again next season? Unbelievable attitude and - this part isn’t necessarily directed at you as I can’t recall if you were part of the Slot sack pile on - but what an outrageous attitude about the guy that won us only our 2nd league title in 35 years at his very first attempt.
I think what matters is the league position for both PL and UCL at the end of the year as that is the mid-season review…
If the club is out of UCL contention and UCL spots are gone in the league by 1st of Jan 2026, then that’s that for Slot.
Jesus but you’re a pain in the hole. And totally clueless about people?
I wasn’t part of the pile on on Arne Slot, so read stuff before you write. A fault you won’t address though.
I made an observation, that many share insofar as losing four PL games by end of October isn’t the form of contenders. I actually stated that this could/should be seen as Slots transitional season, that he should be afforded time to sort out form/formation etc.
But you didn’t read that, obviously. If you did your puerile coments wouldn’t make sense. And they don’t…
Instead you take one or two lines to use in a sensationalist manner, looking for attention like a young fella in a pub, if you want to debate fair enough. If you want to be an annoying prick, go somewhere else maybe?
Edit
Your profile says Five Star Fuckwit…
Remind other members of anyone???
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Yes he would miss Trent, but what about the numerous chances Mo has had where he couldn’t even hit the target?
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100%
not really sure what he can say that wont be spun as a negative
hes been brutally truthful in his assessment, and hes even implicated himself…he doesnt have to say ‘its all my fault’, for it to be an acknowledgement…he come out and said teams have fgiured us out (in more words) …cant get much closer to owning the situation than that
im not 100% sure he will turn it around, if i had to wager id say its gonna be a real tough ask to come back from here…not impossible…but you’d want to see something tangiable real soon…but due to a lack of anything even half decent waiting in the wings, and his title win last season, hes earnt the rest of the season at least…if we need to be ruthless after that, then so be it…
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can i just say i dont think we agree on more than half the things we discuss, but if you do decide to leave, the forum will be worse…a lot worse…for you not being here, as a mod or otherwise…
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i was at anfield for the southampton game and i never expected to see anything other than a shadow squad…infact i was really eager to see the likes of Rio, weve played many a cup game with a weak squad and not really been savaged bar the odd shout out
i suppose the form in the last month maybe changes that perspective, but i dont think slot playing that team is as bad as gerrard not playing Madrid…or some of the shite that dribbled out of Roys mouth…that was absolute garbage that was… throwing the CP game wasnt great, but i get it.
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Yes, which is why I mentioned it as one aspect of his dip in form. What else? Loss of Diogo, new system, new faces, getting older etc. Otherwise, the fact he is starting to miss more, has made him miss more, out of the desperation to reverse it.
It wasn’t a record. It was not even close. That was the point.
Barnes was 23 when he moved to Liverpool and probably regarded as the best winger in the league, or certainly in a conversation alongside a very small group.
The nearest I can imagine today would be if we signed someone like Olise (although he’s at Bayern Munich). The fee would be around £100M I would imagine. If we are looking for an internal Premier League comparison, maybe Semenyo, although he’s a couple of years older than Barnes when we bought him. Don’t know how much he would cost, guessing £80M?
Either way, if they were like Barnes they would come to Liverpool, kick on, and put in the best body of work of their careers over multiple seasons.
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Yeah, from what I remember, Barnes’ move from Watford to us wasn’t a record deal at the time (club record, league record or world record). Maybe it would’ve been up there in some of those metrics. We were getting a proven player in the league coming pretty much at his peak, right?
There was a great graphic made by the Athletic a few years ago, looking at the 10-15 of the most expensive transfers by the top 6 in England (+ Newcastle), in the PL era, calculated by how much would certain players from the past cost today, through inflation. I posted it once in the random football debate thread. Some players from way back would be right up there today.
I don’t know who was in '87 or just before that, but my grandad as an agent made the Chris Waddle deal from Tottenham to Marseille happen (on Marseille’s behalf) in '89 for £4.5m, which was then the world’s 3rd most expensive transfer.
I think fees went up already past Barnes’ one by that point.
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Lovely little snippet on the Waddle deal. Cheers.
Your grandfather should have told him to keep his penalties down, under the bar! Oh, and to stay away from a microphone, should Hoddle have an idea about singing a song with him. 
People posting about formations, tactics, personnel, injuries, rest, etc. etc. Makes no sense at all imo because to me for some time now it feels like Slot is out of depth. I hope I’m massively wrong but I’m afraid more people will agree with me after tonight.
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We’ll see yes, could be, problem is the indicators now could go to a number of things, and not just Slot, who is taking all the pressure. The club made some decisions in the summer too. Some players also need to own it. But when the mojo goes everything diminishes. It will without doubt be worse if we lose the manager.
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They were even close to getting Maradona at the time. From what I know, they had a verbal agreement and a handshake in Italy with him.
But yeah, I often ask older Liverpool fans not only in terms of price, what did it mean in football terms when we were getting some of these deals like Kenny and Barnes. Was someone like Molby already known to general footbal public, or was he simply before his peak and too foreign? I think Kenny mentioned once that we were very close to signing Michael Laudrup, though also more at the start of his career.
Obviously there was much less of it than today, foreigners, big changes in transfer windows, big squads, TV coverage of other competition and leagues, etc.
Transfers like Wirtz and Isak this summer have to be up there in terms of a combination of reputation and fee, even if they didn’t really come in as proven serial winners. Not that I think we need a bunch of those to be successful…
What?
I’m pretty sure this has always been the case for early rounds of the League Cup (until at least the semifinals). Main starters given the day off, and perhaps there might be a couple of experienced faces on the bench, it’s mostly clear that it’s usually those in the squad with less gametime that season, and kids.
Pretty sure even Rafa did that when we lost 6-3 to Arsenal in 2006-07.
EDIT:
Someone help me out here. We went in to that game with the following injuries:
- Alisson
- Leoni
- Frimpong
- Gravenberch
- Jones
- Danns
- Isak
Now I think we’d agree that we have enough issues without risking injuries in positions where we’re quite thin, so we would be best avoiding the use of Ekitike, van Dijk, Konaté, Bradley, Endō, Gakpo, and Salah.
Who does that leave us with? We really don’t have many options to choose from here. Unless your argument is Limie’s, that we should have played the first team so they have a free hit to try to get things right. But if we did, and they lost, then people would be piling on Arne anyway.
It genuinely is a no-win situation, and I fail to see why you’d criticise him without acknowledging that the alternative choices (in terms of what to do, not players) were pretty shit anyway.
Also, I’d say that injury list is pretty close to crisis levels. I guess though if things were going all rosy in the league no one would be batting an eyelid at this lineup.
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C’mon, don’t be so pessimistic!
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