Context matters too. That chart doesn’t look nearly the same if Coutinho isn’t the 3rd most expensive transfer of all time.
I do think we are coming up to a watershed, a point where the current side needs retooling, but I think that is a couple of years away - and our transfers seem to be trying to make that as gradual as possible while making incremental improvements to the existing team. The next two summers will be telling.
Pah, call yourself a football fan?! 
Or if we’d paid the correct market rate for Trent, Robbo, Gomez, Salah, Mane, Thiago etc. Or getting crazy fees for players we didn’t want.
What is baffling in all this is that it really feels like anyone kicking the club over net spend is actually kicking the club for being really, really good at what they do.
Put it this way, I think a fair few Premier League owners have looked at what we done over the last five years and had a serious wonder what the fuck their sporting directors are playing at. I know I would.
Paging Roman Abramovich…
Actually, that chart is from December 2018, so it doesn’t even factor in Coutinho.
Shout out to Elliott who would probably be on that list if not for his injury…
Beat me to it.
Maybe PSG??
Scratches head, scratches again, contemplates every sensible and hyperactive response. Result?
Fucking bullshit nonsense.
Good chat, but…
Would read again.
So it is even worse!
I agree with both points and there are sticks to beat FSG with but net spend is such a poor one to use as it’s basically as you say, giving them shit for being good at what they do and also ignores so so much context about our revenue. It would be better if people actually read the Swiss Ramble’s thread, it’s literally in black and white why we aren’t spending £100mil on transfers each window - Spoliler alert, it’s our strategy and one Klopp is 100% behind.
But on the flip side of all of that is Arminius’ point, we are hitting a huge tipping point for them and if they don’t manage to sign Salah to a contract, a player through our and his hard work is the best player in the world, on the face of it wants to stay and his wage demands whilst very high and needing compromise not impossible, ends with him leaving I will feel they have failed us. It’s probably their biggest test to date and if they get through it it will say for me they are our perfect owner.
I am absolutely on board with your aversion towards winning with “blood money” as another poster termed. I’m alluding to a common opinion that stories mentioned in the media are often written with the biases of the journalist. As someone living in a bilingual Asian country I have read vastly differing coverages of specific events in China (Chinese vs Western media) and while this is not pertinent to our discussion, my point is that more often than not we are not in the position to be the judge of what is right and wrong simply because we do not know both sides of the story.
Salah raises one hell of a question though, the very heart of the ‘moneyball’ one. He is the best player in the world right now, and he turns 30 before next season. From some reports, if he is paid what he is asking for, the idea of wage discipline is a smoking ruin. That contract may not look terrible next year, but if it is longer than 3 years, it will raise real problems.
The brutal truth is that if we can rinse Real Madrid for some ludicrous number for him, it may be the right time.
Read: propaganda.
Your use of “specific events in China” as a justification for “do not know both sides of the story” is laughable.
So basically, you just couldn’t care less about evidence as long as it doesn’t fit your perspective.
Agreed. I do agree with @Draexnael that it’s a real test, but arguably for the question of which path is the more prudent for them to take. I disagree that signing Salah to a new contract no matter what is always going to be prudent, there will be a limit beyond which we have to look at our other options.
Plus the fact that his value is going to plummet over the likely term of that contract.
If you could turn Salah into Mbappe, would you? Probably, and there is a number you would be willing to add to make that happen, considering the 6 years difference between them.
And if you look at it without emotion (as they will and do), that’s certainly in their factoring.
Although for Salah I think he signs, he’s a player that will go well into his 30’s and I get the feeling Klopp adores him.
Nope, purely for the fact that he’s obviously pining for Madrid. Not unless we have players who we are reasonably certain have a chance of stepping up to that level, but are too raw at the moment.
Evidence of what exactly? If a potential owner was shady and had a history of questionable conduct, they probably wouldn’t even be accepted by our fans.
You keep pointing to Newcastle’s owners and missing my point that we need more backing from ours, and if they aren’t willing then sell up to the next one who is willing to. Again, having morals / willing to spend money aren’t mutually exclusive.
Hard to say, because speed is the first thing to go, and that burst is such a huge part of that threat. It won’t evaporate this summer, but time is unforgiving. There isn’t much of a place in Klopp’s system for a Cristiano Ronaldo.