Yeah this price’s a bit more reasonable than previously reported. 91m is steep depending on the conditions but if those are like winning the league and/or UEFA championship we can live with it.
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€91m
£79m
With add ons.
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Good player. Good price. No fuss. I love how decisive we are at doing our business.
I would imagine half the add ons will be easily achievable - appearances and goals. Then the other half will be stuff like qualifying for the CL, and progressing up to winning the CL and the Premier League too. We will be happy to pay those add ons as we will have been successful.
It has been an extraordinary summer. Still more business to do. Definitely a central defender is needed, and we are all watching what happens with Diaz. Then obviously some outgoings are coming.
Hopefully the medical goes smoothly for Ekitike and as he joins the mighty reds in the Far East, I hope he gets a glimpse of what a huge global club he has joined. Good luck to him. Exciting times.
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Good price? His fee is in the bracket of Nunez’s, which was our record before Wirtz. I don’t know if it’s going to prove a steal for Eintracht or for us but in any case, it’s too soon to label it one way or another.
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It’s a good price in relation to the €100M that was consistently quoted all summer. Hughes negotiated that down quite a bit, and even if all add-ons are achieved, we’re still quite a bit under what they were asking for.
In a wider sense I fully accept that all prices in football are ridiculous!
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Latest update from Mr Here We Go - Gentlemen, start your plane trackers:
Hugo Ekitike lands on Merseyside today ahead of medical tests on Tuesday as new Liverpool player.
6 year contract ready, as Ekitike only wanted #LFC despite Eintracht waiting for more clubs to join the race last week.
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The market dictates the price, as with all things. There’s an absolute shit ton of money tied up in professional sports, through advertising revenues, TV revenues, merchandise, sponsorships, endorsements, not to mention ticket sales, etc.
On top of all of that is the prize money for winning things - PL and CL, and now this club world cup thing that Chelsea just scooped. Paying big money for players is a statement that you want to win the biggest trophies and compete on the biggest stages because as we’ve learned - someone else will be willing to pay for these players while we’re left mumbling about net spend and uncovering bargains. Klopp and Edwards were a once-in-a-lifetime team that used a combination of data and nous to unearth relative bargains in players like Salah, Mane, Robertson, Wijnaldum, etc. But they also spent big money when they saw an opportunity, and those didn’t always work out - Keita, Nunez, etc. Some of them did in VVD and Alisson - both of which in today’s prices would be massive outlays. A 26 yr old VVD today would cost in the region of 110M+ for a guy of his obvious talent. Acting like we’ve never splashed out big money for a player we want is silly - we’ve been doing it for years if you take inflation into account.
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I don’t think we’ve gone particularly wrong in identifying players. People can say the examples of keita and ox who haven’t quite worked out but that wasn’t due to lack of efforts from the player’s end. Or with Nunez for that matter.
Every team is bound to have some transfers that end up in disappointment. But Liverpool’s success rate w.r.t transfers remains pretty high.
We could have done better in shifting some of those guys out but that becomes difficult when the guy doesn’t really want to leave. I believe we could have been more forceful in that regard but that’s Klopp. He’s known for his loyalty to the players he likes.
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To be honest Darwin Nunez is doing everything right but putting stuff on target. (His offsides are poor too) but I assume some of that wasn’t picked up on or could be picked up on.
He’s also one of Julian Ward’s signings, Keita was an absolute talent but his injuries were shocking it’s another issue.
You can flip it and say VVD and Alisson both expensive both very talented but also both with question marks.
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Yeah the increased TV revenues and this club world thing definitely added to inflation for players.
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I think Keita and Ox were unfortunate injury situations (would’ve loved to have seen Ox play more under Jurgen so sad) so that’s a mulligan for me. Nunez we knew coming in was a question mark and a gamble in finishing and it was hoped Jurgen could develop that aspect as I recall, but it didn’t happen. I think we can all say Chiesa is a dud so far.
Graham made some interesting comments about Naby suggesting that even before the injuries there was already a bit of an issue. He described Naby as chaos, saying he was only ever interested in going forward and if it didnt work out he’d run like hell to win the ball back. He was the quintessential Klopp midfielder who arrived at a time when Klopp was trying to evolve to a team who used the ball in a more considered way. Apparently the amount Naby gave the ball away drove Jurgen crazy 
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With very little outlay. It’s a gamble which didn’t work out. Nothing the club loses too much from. We’ve had similar gambles with Arthur Melo etc. Players who did show major promise in the past. Only to not work out for whatever reason.
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I thought it was the injuries 
Champions of England and the transfer window, you’ll never sing that!
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They said the weekend, it’s done on Monday.
FSG Out!!
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Ekitike replaces Diogo?
Nobody replaces Diogo. No offence.
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Not in spirit, but we do need to acknowledge that Diogo was one of our forward options and we’ve lost him.
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