I see what you’re saying, but I don’t buy it. The club don’t have to say anything about transfers at all. No-one expect the club to say anything about transfers. We’ve never confirmed we were in for him. It’s all been done through clickbait journalism.
All Liverpool need to say about any potential transfer is ‘we don’t talk about potential transfers’.
Our beautiful season is a far worse “PR” than not being able to buy Jude Bellingham at this stage. And it is also linked, in a way. It’s a too hard deal for us to conclude right now.
The interest can remain (I don’t think it says anywhere that we’re not interested anymore), but one way or another it would come out that it’s not happening.
Who cares if he disappears from our minds like Tchouameni (going to another club) or there are some articles that Liverpool cannot or judge that it’s not wise right now to spend all that money on him. Or whatever. There are many ways. I also don’t think thit is all leaked from the club. Probably a mixture.
Fans who are not deluded and can also be objective and realistic enough for a moment know for a while now that this would be a difficult deal to conclude. Especially with the mess we’ve found ourselves in this season.
I’m really not in a state of mind, “ah let’s eternally forget about Jude Bellingham because there is 0% chance that this is ever going to happen”.
But dear me, it’s really not difficult to see that it’s pretty unlikely now and has been as the season progressed, due to different reasons and factors. And there’s a higher chance he ends up somewhere else before we’re again in a position to sign him. We might not even want him then.
Also…
The way the press has emphasised the price.
Can someone explain to me why the club have been at pains to make it clear that the fee Dortmund are asking is too high?
A statement that we are not interested in Jude Bellingham, does not have to also be clear that Dortmund are asking too much money for us.
This just has all the feeling to me of negotiation. It’s a public show of walking away.
I’m not saying we are going to get him, and we know that when Dortmund set a fee they don’t tend to back down. But I think this has been put out there to try and pressure Dortmund. The club might be willing to walk away if Dortmund don’t budge, but are having a little go to see if they will.
I find it also pretty funny earlier this week all the Spanish press were saying Real Madrid had walked away as the price was too high. No-one said anything, knowing Real are still right in the mix the fuckers.
We never have to say anything about anything. Refusing to comment in perpetuity is an option. Its a shit option though that wont be received well.
Better not try and find rules and patterns in media over transfer stories. We can possibly find many things that weren’t right, but many things that were true. I think the best way is still to filter out reliable media and of course, not take every word as a gospel. Things change in football, sometimes radically and very fast. Neil Jones (not that he’s a neutral judge or anything) said yesterday that the way in which this broke out (and some phrases used) probably means it’s true. Am I open for a surprise? Always. But I’m pretty sure we’ll have to move onto other players.
Pep gets away with it regarding any type of doping
If you are in the midst of negociating tactics, and the selling club asks for too much, you can walk away. No problem with that, it’s a normal negociation tactic. But making a public statement isn’t putting anymore pressure on Dortmund. If anything, it will make the negociators from Liverpool look stupid if they eventually come back to the negociating table.
Maybe it’s just a wild try, out of desperation/cluelessness?
Since when does the club have the obligation to inform the fans about transfer targets?
We dont. But you dont manage PR by only speaking on the things you’re obligated to.
I’m far more likely to believe your suggestion of incompetence that we genuinely thought it would be a good idea to put it out there that we’ve ended our interest. 
However I don’t think this kind of thing would reflect badly on the Liverpool negotiators. Clubs do this all the time. Dortmund will do it to the clubs they are buying from. It’s all part of the game.
Us waiting to see how Dortmund react to us walking away
But there is nothing to manage. Bellingham going somewhere else is not a development that would need addressing. We didn’t brief the press when Tchouameni chose Real, why the club felt the need to do so now is beyond me.
Theory:
Bellingham has told Dortmund that he’s only interested in joining Liverpool. Now, next season or on a free in 2025.
Dortmund have stuck by their valuation.
Liverpool have said, fine- we’ll walk away.
Dortmund now have to decide if they lower their price now, wait for a vastly reduced fee next year, or lose Jude for nothing the year after.
Exactly. This isn’t some shit awful news that is going to get out eventually, so you might as well get it over with. It’s just the normal cut and thrust of a transfer. It’s only a couple of weeks since Ornstein was saying we’d cooled on him.
Because we didnt have a 2 year public love fest with him. We were out of the running with him as quickly as our interest was made known.
Like it or not, we contributed to getting fans’ hopes up of this signing. The frustration of this season have compounded that. Any failure to then land him is absolutely something that is going to cause a fuss over the fan base. We have a choice over how to handle that. Getting out ahead of it, for a target we were unusually strongly linked to for an extended period of time, is a very unremarkable PR strategy.
Have we had a two year love fest with Bellingham? I’m not aware the club have ever said anything on the subject.
There has been two years of clickbait journalism and fans getting excited. There has been enough background noise to think that we are keen on him, but largely this has felt more like a snowball rolling down a hill than LFC stoking anything.
Yes we have…you really only have to look at the date this thread was created.
Stop it. Clubs know what they’re doing when they engage with this sort of thing. We cannot bitch and moan about Barca’s approach of Phil and then pretend we were completely innocent in what has happened with the unusually strong links between us and Jude.