Jude Bellingham (Real Madrid)

[Lynch04]

@RedOverTheWater

I think we’ve covered most of the main points, and the discussion has been good.

Why we did or didn’t act in a certain way at a given time leaves us guessing. Without the club making a statement at the time on why we didn’t sign Bellingham and instead allowed him to go to Dortmund, well, we’re filling in the blanks. I think we are being reasonable about it, but there’s no proof of what the club was thinking, as such.

I’m sure we knew that Bellingham was a good player. Excellent for a 16 year old.

Good enough to play in the Liverpool first team? Maybe we weren’t quite sure about that, so we were happy to let him continue to grow at another club, while keeping a watching brief.

Also, maybe at the time we were perhaps thinking £60-70M would be more than enough to sign him, after a few years, so we were quite fine with forking out double, once the player grew into a sure thing.

Obviously in the intervening years Bellingham grabbed his Dortmund opportunity with both hands, and the transfer market has gone mad, where even relatively unproven players like Caicedo are being touted at £80M.

This sort of thing might be why Klopp made his statement about us being willing to take a few more risks?

This exactly.

As I mentioned earlier, this was a hangover from a previous discussion with a couple of forum members.
However, IMO they failed to speculate on the wider picture, which you have pointed out - To note, the discussion went across different points, so I am at no point saying they are wrong or I am right.
We were never in for Bellingham, if we were I am sure a speculated Liverpool supporting family would have been a bit more negotiable. Additionally, as a club you could be right in thst we see it as an expensive gamble and be willing to pay however more £m on another clubs risk. Who knows?
My point remains, a player we identified as a special talent from the age of 9 is 10 years later going to cost us £125m

[Lynch04]

@gasband

Precisely for the reasons you said, Dortmund spends 25m and will definitely play him as a first teamer. They will promise him that. They will try to work with him on that and coach him as such immediately. Not many PL clubs at a high level will do that with a 16 year old. Certainly not us. I can imagine for us that if we were to go for Jude back then, the conversation will be us telling him that he will spend sometime with the U21s for a season or two and bring him into for cup games. The comparison of why Dortmund plays him in the first team is as much as a need for them to do so, the level of the German League in terms of competitiveness which is alot more forgiving for young players compared to the PL. So yes with hindsight, would it have been great to pay 9K when he was 8, to pay 25mil when he was 17, of course it would have been. But we cannot be acting on every single high potential and pay what other clubs were willing to play and offer in terms of playing statuses and use that to infer that the club failed in that aspect by focusing on that one player who is playing well now.

PS: If we do not sign Jude in the end, I will only say, this would have been one of the many that has gotten away. Not the first and will not be the last. The club can do alot better at identifying players surely and will always have room to do better. And not specifically towards you, all of us would have to understand that Jude is not the only player that will represent a big future for us, there will be always be players out there that can be big for us.

I never said he would be a first teamer. How can you guarantee anyone to be a first teamer let alone a 17yr okd. Do you believe Dortmund would give him the guarantee of being a first team starter no matter what? What if he didn’t perform? Sorry manager we have to play him, we promised it him. What if he was a failure - failed to learn the language, adapt to the culture, got home sick? £25m on a 17 year old, that would have gone down well, especially with the accountants.
I agree we can not act on every single player of potential, but again if we saw his potential at 9yrs old and Dortmund at 17rs old - spending a record fee - then its not rocket science.

Regarding your last paragraph I 100% agree. That is where my debate started.

Ultimately, as a club we define our own future.

[cynicaloldgit]

Rio Ferdinand is currently speaking on Radio 4, and has said that if he were a betting man his money would be on Bellingham joining Manchester City next season.

That means Jude is now a certainty to be at Anfield.

[Limiescouse]

@redalways

As a little bit of support for your point, the context of that summer was one where we brought in Kostas Tsimikas, Thiago Alcantara, and Diogo Jota. If transfermarkt is to be believed, Thiago’s fee was €22m, while Bellingham’s was €25m.

Given that Thiago was a 29 year old player that most on this forums were hankering after as a world-class player, it’s not hard to see why Bellingham wasn’t exactly a cheap gamble then either.

The critical point is less one of overall cost and absolute affordability, but how much a club can justify at the time given how much the player is expected to play. A club who thinks he will play lots of games for them immediately will often be able to justify paying more than one that views him as a long term project.

Having to pay more money to land him now than it would have cost us then doesnt make it a mistake to have not pushed the boat out for him then. You have to factor 2 things - what we wouldn’t have been able to spend our money on then had we spent that much on a prospect, and how differently his progress would have been without the extensive first team experience he had at Dortmund.

[Zoran]

Yaya does raise a good point, but that should be more in general.

Players will get hyped up (depends also by who), some for good reasons, some not so much.

Some will live up to it, some won’t.

Sometimes it could be football reasons, injuries, focus… or few of the mentioned.

There’s nothing I can say about Alli’s life off the pitch, but from what I’ve seen of his football:

He suffered from playing practically as a second striker for such a long time. When it came to him dropping deeper to ‘finally’ settle himself as a midfielder, everything seemed more complex for him.

Still, there are good questions why wasn’t he able to then at least continue as this second striker, because Kane was still there, he was still getting opportunities, etc.

Don’t want to turn this threat into a Delle Alli one.

But for now, I don’t worry so much about Bellingham. He’s playing in both directions, involved in all phases of the game.

Will he be overpriced? Maybe. Will he suffer in the future, having played so much football at this very early stage of his career? It’s a possibility, who knows.

But he does strike me as someone who’s technique and control on the pitch will enable him to have a long career at the top level.

Basically, don’t become a Paul Pogba (even if I don’t want to sound like he’s had a bad career, but perhaps not the expected one). Try and better that, with not too dissimilar tools.

[Limiescouse]

@Zoran

He suffered from playing practically as a second striker for such a long time. When it came to him dropping deeper to ‘finally’ settle himself as a midfielder, everything seemed more complex for him.

Still, there are good questions why wasn’t he able to then at least continue as this second striker, because Kane was still there, he was still getting opportunities, etc.

Someone else mentioned above that as Kane’s evolved to become a more rounded player he did at the expense of Dele as he started crowding the spaces Dele had been successful operating in. Also important is a lot of the evolution of Kane’s game was driven by the growing importance of Son. So what seems to have happened is that the Spurs side was initially perfectly set up for a player like Dele to shine, but as the team evolved he got squeezed out.

It happens. I think of players like Sniejder who have alternately throughout his career looked a world beater or a passenger, and it seems that for the former to happen the team needs to be perfectly crafted to fit them in but their lack of tactical flexibility either limits the ability of the team to adapt, or when it does it does without that player.

To bring it back around the Bellingham, I agree that Yaya’s point is a general good one, but as it applies to Jude I think is a far more well rounded player playing in a far less specific role and so his situation lacks the footballing peril that Dele’s fleeting success was based on.

[anon27364116]

Dortmund is also the club that paid 25m for Nico Schulz. Yep, Nico Schulz.
Just saying, this stuff isn’t easy.

[mattyhurst]

The quote in a book I read that said trying judge how an 19 year old will turn out is hard so judging a 16 year old is like predicting the weather next year.

Players can have all the attributes but Deli Ali is a good example of a player who can shine and then burn out, not to mention that American kid who never made it.

Dortmund gave him the ability to shine through, with the reaction of some of our fans to Elliott then I’d have worried.

I think certain players need to still have the ability to come through so say if Bellingham and other came in then that would be it. People talk of 3 CM’s but we’ve got Elliott, Bajetic and Morton all potentially coming through.

No doubt we need to replace that quality in the middle but all three need the alblity if good enough to flourish (that’s more at Morton and Bajectic as Elliott does have other options in the setup).

[Sweeting]

@anon27364116

Dortmund is also the club that paid 25m for Nico Schulz. Yep, Nico Schulz.
Just saying, this stuff isn’t easy.

Another guy Liverpool once tried to sign.

[redalways]

@Limiescouse

The critical point is less one of overall cost and absolute affordability, but how much a club can justify at the time given how much the player is expected to play. A club who thinks he will play lots of games for them immediately will often be able to justify paying more than one that views him as a long term project.

That exercise was left for the reader, unfortunately.

It reminds me very much of the Torres vs Agüero problem.

[JohnBarnes10]

He played well during the world cup.

[sandsoftime]

Liverpool could fix midfield with Musah

[cynicaloldgit]

Maybe we should open our own TAN blog.

FootballFuckwits.com

[RedOverTheWater]

Musah looked quite good at the World Cup and he is coming along nicely at Valencia. But this is the problem of finances. That article mentions £86M! There is no way he is worth even close to that. Football finances have gone ridiculous.

Also, any article that draws too many conclusions from the head to head game between England and America is erroneous. America put everything into the game, while England were strolling around. Don’t get me wrong, it was an English flaw, but they sleepwalked thought that game, didn’t allow America to score, and advanced as group winners at a canter.

We saw that with all the sides who thought they had a chance to win the whole thing. None of them boxed off three group wins. They all pulled their finger out for 2/3 group games, and either drew or lost the other, as the competition, at that stage, was to advance out of the group.

England did that, easily, and drawing too many conclusions about the ‘great’ American performance against them would be a mistake.

[koptician]

@RedOverTheWater

But this is the problem of finances. That article mentions £86M! There is no way he is worth even close to that. Football finances have gone ridiculous.

They can fuck right off with that . That’s the same number being quoted for the Ecuadorean lad from Brighton and things being the same I’d much rather have him, someone PL proven

[koptician]

And then the US looked toothless against the Dutch who led that US midfield in a merry dance when they scored their first two goals.

[The-AllMightyReds]

Football Fan Cast.

I suppose this is what you get when Indykal TheFirm and Schwakoff get together.

[Roydom]

[Zoran]

Jude Bellingham future: Ornstein on Liverpool, Real Madrid & more

[redalways]

I don’t see how you can state that it’s “largely speculation and a smattering of BS”, but trust a particular segment of it.

It may be right, but I’m willing to say it’s more coincidence rather than Ornstein having actual inside knowledge.