I haven’t noticed anyone making a connection between us supposedly not being able to afford Bellingham as well as other players and the supposed investment that apparently we’ll be getting in the summer.
If the club and its tame journos are to be believed does that mean that there won’t be any big money investment in the club, never mind a sale?
I don’t think there would be much of a connection - any equity investor actually looking for a return (i.e. not sportswashing) would not find immediately blowing £300M out the door on short-lived assets a very compelling use of funds case. The Europa League trophy is just not that sexy.
I think one of them said that us doing for Bellingham didn’t really depend on investment arriving in time. Also said that the fans shouldn’t expect a massive difference when/if that happens.
And you don’t think that has or will yet happen? I didn’t think you were that naive, mate, usually I’m the one to be too naive… 
In this case, make no mistakes: Dortmund will get what they ask for, even 135m upfront. The PSGs, Abu Dhabis, Saudi Arabias and Qatars of this world will make sure that’s exactly what happens.
As for the player, he’ll go where the lights are flashing the brightest, in terms of perspective of trophies, wages, media exposure in order to attract personal sponsors etc. I don’t think we’ve ever stood a chance since the lad became the hottest youngster in Europe.
My take is that it’s Real Madrid who win this peculiar race, as they seem interested too, and have the means to compete with the oil clubs in financial terms, plus have all that white glittering about them (maybe we can then go back to them for Tchouaméni, who knows?).
But maybe I’m wrong, and it’s money which will be the deciding factor, or maybe the fact that he wants to play in England. In that case, Abu Dhabi are best placed, although I can’t for the life of me imagine why a player would sell himself to such a shithole, even for much money. But so many otherwise decent players have done it already (ie. De Bruyne), so let’s not be too naive, eh?
(The charges against them won’t hold much weight, as Abu Dhabi will make sure that their lawyers draw out this affair well beyond Bellingham’s contract.)
Why are you surprised?
It’s not like social media has shown any inclination to do otherwise, ever?
Two years left on his deal at Dortmund. This summer is the maximum price Dortmund will extract. The clubs who will pay what Dortmund want would probably be Real Madrid, Man Utd, Man City, PSG and Chelsea.
If there’s any substance in what is being reported, Bellingham is not interested in Man City, PSG or Chelsea. Summary: they are plastic.
So of the monied and storied clubs it looks like Real Madrid, or Man Utd. Real Madrid possibly sell Tchouameni to subsidize the deal, and Man Utd usually spend money anyway, and if they have new owners - third round of bidding now with Ineos and Qatar? - then surely the new owner will want to make a statement, too.
So it’s all down to the player.
House analogies are all fine, to a point, but the house has no say in who buys it! That’s where the analogy breaks down, as Bellingham very much has a say.
So my take is this summer Dortmund can get the price they want, and Bellingham can go a storied club like Real Madrid or Man Utd.
BUT…
If Bellingham prefers us, and we can’t quite get to the price, then either Dortmund accept less, or, more likely, keep him for one more year before he comes here.
We strengthen this summer and hopefully get back into the CL for 2024. Bellingham enjoys another year competing at the top end of the Bundesliga, and in the CL. Dortmund enjoy a special player for another year. Then Bellingham moves to Liverpool with a year left on his deal, for something like the fee we just offered for him. £85M or so.
Real Madrid or Man Utd this summer.
Or Liverpool in summer 2024, if he has eyes for us.
Edit: And in the meantime, buy Ugarte and Kone. Someone to plug the gaps and protect the defence, and someone who is a top athlete and can do a bit of everything, not that dissimilar to Bellingham, but at a slightly lower level, but still very good.
I don’t think that is true, but we are fucked without a CL spot. A lot of LFC fans seem to have this self-deceiving myopia, somehow believing that Bellingham is not money-motivated (and will therefore choose LFC) but will feel a need to leave Dortmund. Liverpool is a step down from Dortmund in sporting terms for the 2023-24 season. If he is money-motivated, probably City. If he is more focused on his stature as a player, probably Real Madrid. But both are now in a position to offer more of either than LFC can.
Pearce says the asking price has gone from £80mil to £130mil + over the season… Nice spin but with PSG, Real, City involved could easily be true.
It was never a this one or no one strategy. The fundamental thing that drove our decision making in CM the past few windows was a (seemingly mistaken) belief in the players we already had.
Despite that belief in our players, one of our top rated targets was known to be a in a now or never moment of his career last summer, which is why we took our shot at Tchouameni then despite not seeing an absolute need to strengthen. Missing out on him didn’t change our assessment of our ability to go again this season with the players in midfield we already had. Bidding for Tchouameni was the change of course in the plan, not a reflection of what the plan indicated we felt we needed
Bellingham was clearly an priority 1a, but was not in the same situation as Tchouameni. Dortmund were adamant about him not moving that summer given who they had already lost and the importance he would have had. And while money always speaks loudly, that is kind of the point. All of the angst over how his price is going up this year is ignoring that it would have taken a similar premium to force dortmund’s hand a year earlier than they wanted to given the hole it would have left in their squad. As we didnt feel we needed to make changes, that fit with our timeline so we sat on our interest because the timelines aligned.
Even now already we have a list of alternatives demonstrating it is not a Jude or no one approach. He is clearly a player we have long admired and identified as a great option to take us into the new generation of this side, but it’s crazy to think we’d based our strategy over the past few years on landing him. We had to know even last summer that any deal for him this year would be eye wateringly expensive, so if we are to believe the reports now that we are bowing out, then I think the only conclusion is this season has forced a reevaluation of how much work needs to be done this summer, which has changed the feasibility of a single deal this expensive.
It all comes back to a miscalculation of how much the existing players had left rather than any naivety in identifying and going after new targets, but there are two big caveats to that.
I think everyone is massively underestimating the impact these charges are going to have. There is a general assumption that City are just going to wave some money at the problem and it will go away. This is very different to UEFAs bungled investigation.
Au contraire. Julian Ward has just finished reading the pick up artist’s bible, “The Game”, and so has thrown a “neg” at Jude. He put on eye liner and walked up to Jude to say “you dont score very many goals for a player supposedly worth 100m+…do you want to see a magic trick”
Jude will be agonizing our this neg for days and determined to show his value to us.
I dont think that reflects the relationship between Dortmund and Jude though. They did not give him a break. He chose them to be his stepping stone, which them fully aware of where they stood in his long term plans. He wont want to fuck them, but he went there with a view to carefully controlling his own career path and that isnt going to change now.
I don’t think it would be such a difficult sell. We aren’t 3 years past our best. We have the same core group of players that are still throwing punches home-form wise with the best, after an almost-quadruple 11 months ago. Mentioning only home form might seem like serious straw-clutching but its absolutely something to work with. It is very possible we will bounce back next season, especially if we can finish this season off strongly. Do I think we really need just a topper like Bellingham? Probably not. But we also aren’t in a position of needing a complete gutting like many are advocating (4-5 new midfielders?!).
Do I know that Bellingham would take a non-CL club? Not really. We’ve seen United make big signings without CL football for years. Of course Bellingham is clearly a different beast to the overpriced players United picked up. But if his choice is being knocked out of the CL with Dortmund after 6-8 games or actually being a genuine threat of a CL title with Liverpool after a full season (in a lesser European competition) integrating fully then I don’t think the options are as far apart as people think.
Clearly if he genuinely is interested in Real then that’s a completely different conversation.
Is that something similar to the “gentleman agreement” that Kane apparently had with Spurs a few summers ago?
I get what you’re saying and I agree to some extent but clearly we took an approach of we get Tchouameni or no one last summer. Yes it may have been somewhat opportunistic because he was going to be moving but by going after him we clearly indicated there was a way of upgrading on what we had and that upgrades in that area were needed, if not now then soon.
Now if that were the only time we’ve taken that approach then sure, it seems to be more your explanation than a simple “him or nothing”. But we do seem to have done that before.
But we’re both getting to the same underlying point I think. Last summer was a fuck up. The reasons being spouted for not going after someone other Tchouameni was because we felt we had the numbers and what we needed but quite a few could see that wasn’t the case and were proved right early on.
When we didn’t get Tchouameni we should have continued our search for midfield reinforcements. To me, the fact Bellingham wasn’t going to be available last summer only meant the need to do some business in midfield even more pressing. We knew if we wanted to be in the mix for him this summer it was going to be a huge outlay that would no doubt impact on our ability to do other business and we surely can’t have been thinking we’d get away with just him and new deals for Ox, Naby and Milner to give us depth in that area.
he was never less than a 100 million quid even before world cup…so they believed he was going to cost what Pogba cost like 5 years ago?? seriously, that is jus stupid . not sure if pearce is correct there.
James pearce- "Not being among Europe’s elite for the first time since 2016-17 would heavily dent the revenue streams of a club run by FSG on a self-sustaining business model. The owners don’t take money out of the club, but neither do they invest their own cash." and therein lies the problem
james Pearce- "Thiago remains the only senior midfielder Liverpool have bought since Keita arrived from [RB Leipzig] in the summer of 2018."
FIVE YEARS AGO
Jems Pearce spitting straight up facts right there, top exclusive ravishing news from the guy.