thats a fair point, we absolutely nailed that…and while we havent gone off on a rampage like a few of our competitiors, we have let our best players keep up current valuations.
again…still…if the arse cand afford 150 plus this close season…it still smacks of ‘oppurtunity lost’ to me rather then ‘bullet dodged’.
to flip this Mofo on its head…people keep on refering to Klopp and the club willing to ‘wait’ for the right p[layer…its a great line, but its a falicy…if they cant identify a footballer to fullfil a specific role in one of the top (?) four football clubs in Europe, then perhaps its time to let someone else have a go?
Where do you find better players than those we currently have in the first XI? Any such players (and there aren’t many of them) will be prohibitively expensive anyway.
Some argue we can strengthen the bench; again, we aren’t City or Chelsea and can’t spunk £50m transfer fees and exorbitant wages on back-up players.
Maybe the owners, Edwards and Klopp will not be here forever. But while they are here, they surely have more than showed us that their strategy worked and works. So while its good to discuss, I am not sure there is a lot of wrong they can do. Of course teams can always be improved, but I keep saying, improving the team and squad is not just about buying players. As we said in the corporate world, its usually more expensive to acquire new customers than to get your current customers to buy more. So rather than always just focusing to buy new players, coaching your current players to greater heights to improve their weaknesses are also improving the team. Hell, even our best player Salah have areas he can improve on. Stabilizing the core of the squad by securing them to contracts and ensuring no uncertainties is also improving the team. Working to understand how to reduce injuries by the backroom team is also improving the team. So while it is the most obvious aspect, buying players is not the only and definitely not the most important aspect.
I remember how close the club came to administration with the hicks crooks… so I’m always going to give FSG the benefit of the doubt.
And if giving up an extra overpriced signing a year is the price of financial stability to give us a real chance at long term consistent success I’m all for it - even if it means missing on a shiny new Halaand sometimes.
Just a couple of thoughts on your post. I know we don’t know exactly what each player earns but I think you may have some numbers wrong - I would be really surprised if Robertson for example is only on £100k pw. However, if we go along with the figures you have used because we don’t have anything more reliable to go on;
You appear to be forgetting to include bonuses and agent’s fees which will be a somewhat significant cost to the club. It’s not simply an increase in wages which the club will be paying out.
Several of the players who have gone have spent previous years on loan elsewhere and so have most likely had the majority of their wages paid by other clubs. In which case I don’t think it accurate to claim those wages as now being saved from our wage bill.
At least one or two of the sales have been made with no or little of the payment being made this summer. Instead the payments begin next season in earnest (Wilson and Grujic?). So while the club may have made a transfer profit on paper, that doesn’t necessarily reflect the actual impact on the club’s cash flow - for example we may have only received £10-15m this summer in actual cash while spending £12-35m on Konate’s fee (depending on if we paid for him in full or instalments) plus his signing bonuses and wages. We also have to consider the impact from previous season’s transfers - again as an example we know we had agreed to pay a lower sum last summer for Thiago and Jota, with a higher sum being paid this and next summer (and possibly the year following that too?).
In order to fit Kabak into the squad last season, Minamino was loaned to Southampton, so it is quite likely we were paying Kabak our of money saved from paying Minamino’s salary so again I don’t see that as a saving this year.
Salah and Mane have been offered new deals, its possible that some of the money from this summer has been put aside to pay towards those if agreed.
In short, I think we have spent a lot more that you think we have.
I always thought you just bought honoury titles.Just look at how many University buildings have rich (many mens) names on them who have been given a honoury degree.
