Yeah it’s all about managing the narrative, ie PR bullshit. It really stinks
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Another player the fans couldn’t say goodbye to.
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There is a middle ground between giving Konate a five year deal that makes him one of the top earners at the club, and throwing everything in on Leoni and Jaquet.
What the club should be looking for now is a reliable, experienced 30+ player who can give us the security to introduce the two young lads gradually.
For me the obvious choice is Schlotterbeck. Experienced, available, in his prime. Left-footed LCB which means he can both share with Virgil next season and give Jacquet and Leoni room to get some games, then take over from him full-time the year after, while we bring back Quansah for the lower contractual price, making them, Jacquet and Leoni a strong balanced group of CBs to choose from.
Of course, it being the obvious thing will mean we fuck it up and do something else entirely.
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Was he looking for van Dijk type money?
We also don’t know if he would have been 3rd/4th choice.
We made the mistake last year of allowing Kelleher to leave for a far inferior and more expensive goalkeeper, sorry the mistake was made the year before when we bought Marmadashvilli.
Bad mistakes all round over the past couple of years including those made by slot. Playing style is no existent resulting in players performing badly, bad integration of new players meaning existing players not used enough.
I don’t need a stick to beat slot with, his many mistakes are easy to see as are those by Hughes /Edwards etc.
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I think it was less a Klopp issue and more a Julian Ward issue. Jorg’s brief as a contractor quite reasonably didnt cover those renewal situations as they were about longer term thinking than he was hired to address, but it left a void where discussions should have been happening.
But beyond that, we did push ourselves into a position of having an uncomfortably high pay roll and inevitably that is going create a situation of some players wanting their piece to a degree we’re unwilling or unable to meet. It could be as simple as that for Ibou. But it is also difficult to untangle overall satisfaction of how things are going at the club with salary demands…“I’ll stay if you compensate me for working in this miserable place”
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Surprising how much easier negotiations go when you’re winning and on an upwards trend
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Schlotterbeck signed a new contract until 2031.
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Negligent
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I feel like I’m missing something after all this reaction.
Ibou was awful this season. Like genuinely really bad. There was more than one occasion where he actually missed the ball when attenpting to control or clear the ball, most noteably vs PSV.
An argument is that he has been part of trophy winning teams but he has also been culpable of brain fart mistakes in teams when we have been pushing for trophies.
Many people throughout the season were vocal in that they wouldn’t want him being kept on yet now it’s all on the club. It’s exhausting.
The club have made mistakes in giving out big contracts recently, they’ve also made mistakes letting some go (Quansah). This one though, I think they are right with. 200 to 250k for someone who has performed as bad as he has this season? Not a chance for me.
The other doom and gloom is other players leaving. Absolute idiocy on that part from people. Trent and Diaz were completely out of our hands and not because they didn’t want to leave because of Slot or the culture blah blah they wanted a new challenege. If you aren’t City, Madrid or PSG, it’s going to happen. Whilst we are losing experience in Robbo and Salah, they aren’t good enough. End of. They’re also on massive wages. Salah most noteably.
There are lots of issues at this club, yes. Letting Konate go on a free and other players leaving is really not one of them and a very important process we were always going to go through.
Guarentee Virg leaves at the end of his contract when he’s 35 and people will blame Slot or something.
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His dad was on his death bed at the time. That may have had a teeny tiny thing to do with it.
Also, we work as a team and when things go wrong, certain positions look more glaring but the actual problem started elsewhere.
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Don’t forget the recent and probably reliable links with Van Hecke. Right-sided centre back who’s of the “right” age, has pretty decent PL experience, is aggressive and confident on the ball and has only one year left on his contract if I’m not mistaken - on paper, it makes sense. It’s probably not a coincidence that those links had emerged prior to news breaking that Konate wouldn’t extend.
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This was the first thing that crossed my mind when the news broke yesterday.
That would be van Hecke of a signing!
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It goes beyond that. It goes as far back as Emre Can…
I cannot shake the sense that maybe we are being a little too clever for our own good..
Why are so many of our contracts discussions protracted and drawn out, and inevitably it seems, leading to free transfers?
With Konate’s ending this way, I suspect Szobo will be next in line!!!
Nobody else seems to be having this problem but us…
I will be really upset if come August we ate talking about how we have cover in centerback because we have Endo and Gravenberch…
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I like van Hecke, I could live with that
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And why is there an assumption that when we extend a contract that means we are stuck with them because we can’t sell them. Meanwhile clubs like Chelsea are regularly able to offload their deadwood despite paying more wages than us and having a worse team. They’ve already created a bidding war for Enzo Fernandez - who has spent most of his time at Chelsea either injured, playing shit or racially abusing teammates. They’re going to turn a profit by all accounts.
We just seem to have take our eye off the ball in all aspects. What can possibly by the logic in keeping letting Quansah leave because you have Konate, then baulking at Konate’s demands (which we apparently knew about since December 2023) losing him on a free and buying two teenagers for nearly 100m.
So instead of having Quansah and Konate we’ve got Jacquet and Leoni and spent about 55m net to do it. There is a huge amount of pressure on those two kids now.
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As you say, it doesn’t make any sense. It’s crazy.
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I don’t think Chelsea pay more wages than us. They just have longer contracts, specifically to reduce the upfront payment on wages…
Konate has been brilliant during the Klopp years. He was good on Slots first season as were most of the side, he was shit this year as were most of the side. Go to the Slot thread for the answer.
100% convinced that has to do with the offer AND the manager. If I had to put money on which one is the main sticking point, its the manager.
At least slot and the rest of the management now have another built in excuse for the shit show we will experience next year.
EDIT: We seem to do salary’s that are performance incentivized, good luck to the team cashing in any of that money.
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