Jude Bellingham (Real Madrid)

[GermanRed]

@Draexnael

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.

There’s no way Dortmund would have let him go for less than £100m this summer. Could have been injured for half the season. Could have missed the World Cup but with his age, contract length and last seasons performance they already valued him for more than the £100m.

[rab]

@jabu

I agree @rab on your point, but these are the rules of the market weather we like them or not… Greed will guarantee they are never changed to a cap system or anything to allow non-state owned teams to compete. The issue is how to best navigate this? If FSG will not spend their own money, then maybe sell to someone who will??

Well if those are the rules and there aren’t significant consequences for those breaking them then basically there’s 2-3 clubs that are going to win out in the long run.

But short term, teams can compete for periods without owner investment. We’ve done it. Dortmund are doing it in Germany this season. Lille won a league title in France a couple years back. City and PSG have less CL final appearances in their combined history than we have in the last five years, let alone wins.

Money is going to be a huge factor but we can compete in other ways. We’ve done it but somewhat lost our way. What we can’t be sure of is any new owner being willing to go toe to toe with gulf states should FSG choose to sell.

[Nobluff]

@jgw_geneseo

@Mascot

@The-AllMightyReds

3 months ago you were very confident this deal would happen no matter what so long we really wanted him…so what’s changed?

Have you ever bought a house?

Do you pay the price quoted? Do you keep agreeing to whatever price as an agent continually jacks it up?

When we bought our house we knew what it was worth. It was on the market for ten grand more than that. We offered twenty grand less (ten less than it was worth). They rejected the offer. We made a big show of it being too much money, and even looked at some other houses with the same agent to make it look like we were no longer interested. We waited a week. They came back offering us the house for five grand less than their price. We offered five grand more than our original offer. We ended up settling for exactly what the house was worth, and we both concluded at what we expected to conclude at.

But if the sellers had not budged from their asking price we would have walked away. You have to be prepared to walk away. First rule of negotiation.

Liverpool were never going to pay Dortmund’s fee, which was always going to be significantly more than his actual value (and Dortmund are quite notorious for demanding ridiculous fees, before eventually compromising - see Jadon Sancho).

So maybe Dortmund are not budging on 135m and we are quite rightly walking away. We should not be paying 135m for a player, and anyone who does is not only fucking stupid, but is actively damaging football generally. I don’t see how anyone who isn’t still living with their parents would be pissed off at that. There are loads of other midfielders our there and it doesn’t mean we’re only signing Conor Gallagher and Mason Mount (like you have suggested).

Or, and this is much more likely, we are still really keen on Bellingham, and this is part of the negotiation with Dortmund. They have quoted a ridiculous price fully aware that it’s going to need to come down. We are making a big public show of walking away, as happens all the time with transfers (Liverpool fans have really short memories if they don’t remember us doing this with Van Dijk and Alisson). The only reason to brief this to journalists and make a massive story out of this is as a message back to Dortmund. If we were just going to walk away, we’d just walk away.

So in conclusion, it’s all a bit silly, but this was always going to happen. Dortmund were always going to demand silly money. There was always going to be a moment where Liverpool ‘dropped their interest’. It’s part of the game.

If Bellingham really wants to come here, a compromise will be reached. The only thing that changes is if Bellingham himself moves in the direction of another club. It will be, as I’ve said all along, entirely up to Jude to decide where he plays. Dortmund and Liverpool don’t have as much power or agency in his destination as it might appear.

We have known for a long time Bellingham would be 100m + and we’ve retained our interest at that level. North of 100m hasn’t scared us off. Somewhere in between 100m and 135m there is a price to which we’d stretch and Dortmund would acquiesce.

So, in short, chill out. You’re presumably a clever lad who has been following football for a while. You know how this works. You’ve seen us publicly drop out of transfer chases before. You saw us sign Alison and Van Dijk after publicly declaring we were not interested. We’ve clearly been willing to pay £100m plus for a while.

Do we sign him? I haven’t got a Crystal Ball. I don’t know. What I do know is that this flurry of press reports changes changes nothing. In fact it might suggest that we’re at the ‘haggling over the fee’ stage of the transfer, rather than the very start of the process.

This type is negotiation only works if you are the only bidders or all other bids were worse/lower than yours. In current housing market, sometimes you have to pay over price to secure. It’s actually to the point now when a decent house hits the market, it says in house descriptions online that bids are due by x date and will be reviewed. Buyers market vs sellers market.

There are 2 or 3 teams waving blank checks at them, why would they sell him for less to us?

That’s ridiculous! If the house doesn’t want the other people then you can’t force the house into accepting them as residents.

[The-AllMightyReds]

No no, no defensive mode or anything like that, I’m merely counter arguing your opinion that no midfielder on planet earth was good enough for us to like and was available for us to get…for me that’s utter bollocks and why? Because it’s been proven, if you front up the money and negotiate you’ll get your man…happened with Virgil and Diaz who were both lined up for summer targets btw and then we acted swiftly. Now before you jump the gun and come back to me with “Oh well we shouldv’e just shown Benfica 100m for Enzo or Dortmund 150m for Jude” no I’ve never been in favour of that.

[aussielad]

No wonder I’ve never been able to get on the housing ladder if houses are able to choose who can buy them

[Draexnael]

@GermanRed

There’s no way Dortmund would have let him go for less than £100m this summer. Could have been injured for half the season. Could have missed the World Cup but with his age, contract length and last seasons performance they already valued him for more than the £100m.

Just saying what Pearce reported.

[Hope.in.your.heart]

I never really believed that we had a clear chance, but our current rotten season has definitely put us out of contention, that much is clear.

[Hope.in.your.heart]

@Mascot

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.

I hope you’re right of course, but my take is that it will eventually go down the CAS route, with the same result.

[jabu]

I agree again with you. But in order to keep doing this, you need a special manager like a Klopp, who can rinse every single bit out of the players he has available while molding the diamonds in the rough. The other leagues you mentioned cannot be compared with the PL for the simple fact that competition in those leagues is not as good and there is like one state owned or one money team (bayern in germany and Psg in france) in those leagues, while we have at least three and counting. Bayern is not state owned but the germans jus run their league very well

[Nobluff]

Re: the price. I don’t think it was the WC that has adjusted the price. It was more to do with the stupid money that Chelsea spent on Enzo (a one season wonder + WC winner). His fee was 3x his previous fee, after a good year.

[Mascot]

@The-AllMightyReds

I’m merely counter arguing your opinion that no midfielder on planet earth was good enough for us to like and was available for us to get

That’s not my opinion. That’s my assessment of the clubs opinion.

[Mascot]

@Hope.in.your.heart

I hope you’re right of course, but my take is that it will eventually go down the CAS route, with the same result.

It’s already been clear that it won’t go to CAS. This is the Premier League asserting it own rules. CAS have no jurisdiction.

[The-AllMightyReds]

Which you believe to be true or not? If not then what are we debating…

[redfanman]

@jabu

whatever is generated by the club as per their self-sustaining model…

And who owns the club?

[Mascot]

@Nobluff

Re: the price. I don’t think it was the WC that has adjusted the price. It was more to do with the stupid money that Chelsea spent on Enzo (a one season wonder + WC winner). His fee was 3x his previous fee, after a good year.

This is why it needs to be stopped. The money Chelsea were throwing around wasn’t just bad for them, it was hugely damaging for football. The price Chelsea paid for Enzo obviously had an impact on what Dortmund feel they can demand for Jude.

I’ve been of the opinion for some time now that football needs saving from itself.

[redfanman]

@Nobluff

Re: the price. I don’t think it was the WC that has adjusted the price. It was more to do with the stupid money that Chelsea spent on Enzo

It may not even be that - city and Real have so much cash they can just offer substantially more than us simply to push us out the running.

[The-AllMightyReds]

Annnnnd we have a winner.

If Dortmund really were that bothered by what Chelsea paid for Enzo, they’d have a right to ask 260m for Jude nevermind half that. Jude is valued at what he is by his club & that’s all because of Jude. Benfica demanding 105m for Enzo was unreasonable, Dortmund demanding 130m for Jude is not. I don’t think PSG look at what Dortmund sold Haaland to City for and think “Oh shit, now we need to undercut our initial value of Mbappe by 100m”

[jabu]

ok folks… i have wasted enough hrs (time i will never get back) of my life on this crap. Im done… see you all next monday for the leeds game…off to the beach.

[Mascot]

@The-AllMightyReds

Which you believe to be true or not? If not then what are we debating…

I’m trying to understand why the club have done this and what has happened. I’m not interested in having a strop about about the owners.

I’ve been really clear that I think we should have bought a midfielder last summer. But we didn’t.

Now, we can all stamp out feet about that and this place can be no different to Twitter and you tube, but I think there is a much more interesting conversation about why certain decisions were made. What has been going on? The starting point for that is obvious good faith, so if you think FSG, Klopp or the staff at LFC are thick idiots then were obviously starting from the wrong place.

[Mascot]

@The-AllMightyReds

I don’t think PSG look at what Dortmund sold Haaland to City for and think “Oh shit, now we need to undercut our initial value of Mbappe by 100m”

I think it is a fact universally acknowledged in football that Erling Haaland did not cost £60m.

Also while Dortmund are asking for £135 up front we don’t know what add on they are asking for. I wouldn’t be surprised if they are more likely to be achieved than not, and put the cost well past £150m. We don’t know whether they want to fee upfront or will accept staggered payments.

There is more to a transfer fee than the headline number.