Good net spend info above, thank you.
Three things immediately come to mind:
- Wages need to be factored in too, to give a fuller picture
- Chelsea will probably rise up the table after their recent spend
- We do spend money… it’s just that at this juncture, moving forward, we appear to need a bit more invested into the team to keep us competitive at the top, which is why minor investment is in the cards.
Oh, and I just want to mention Arsenal. Obviously they are doing very well, but they have spent a lot of money to get to where they are today. It will be interesting to see if they win anything, and if they are able to keep that team together for a good run for a few years.
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hey just out of curiosity… the LFC first team page shows 30 players.
How many can we register at once? I’m assuming that even with the kids out of the picture (Rhys, Doak, etc) that we can only have so many at once?
I am really wondering if the hold on player purchases for the midfield is really just because we have 10 midfielders on the books already (with Bajcetic now) so until Ox, Naby and Milner make way there’s just not enough room in the squad to justify?
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It would have been a factor. However, how big of one would probably be determined by the quality of player available to bring into the squad?
I think it’s part of it, but I think it lines up with if you are waiting for very specific players eg. (and this is SPECULATION for those that struggle to differentiate between an example and a fact) if you have reason to believe Dortmund and Wolves will sell Bellingham and Nunes in summer 2023 then there’s very little point selling the players you have to just replace them with placeholders for one season until the players you actually want are available.
The loan of Kabak until we got Konate could be the same as the loan of Melo and the retention of Ox/Naby until we can get the midfielders we want next summer.
As long as those moves aren’t dependent on CL qualification, then the whole thing makes sense. At least to me.
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Listening to a podcast on the Anfield Wrap, with Dave Powell from the Echo.
He is adamant that FSG have always been looking for investment rather than a full sale, and the full sale exploration was really about assessing a value to figure out where to pitch that full sale.
The other thing that is really interesting is that he says, and claims to have had the conversation to back this up, that the search for investment is more about trying to find a strategic partner who can unlock a ‘soft’ multi club model. Similar to the City Football Group, but with FSG having no interest in outright owning a load of other clubs.
What they are looking for in an investor who can bring contacts and interests and other football portfolios, and they see this as a way to beat the way the transfer market is heading - eg finding Mose Caicedo or Enzo Fernandez from South America for £10m rather than have to give Brighton of Benfica £120m.
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Fair enough but wouldn’t it be easier to invest in a scouting network that would allow this…Brighton and previously Southampton seems/seemed to do this with regularity and they’re not linked to any clubs overseas
I dont think it is the scouting they are after per se but a ‘farming’ system, somewhere we can use to get players before bringing them here.
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The prohibitive thing here is the expectations of the club. Brighton can afford to bring in three 10m players with the idea of giving them regular game time quickly, fairly certain that at least one of them they will be able to be marketed for 5x the cost in a few years.
For us we are looking for players who can displace ones who just reached a Champions League final, so while 10m is “cheap” it is prohibitive for us to take these flyers when we are not absolutely sure. If we sign three 10m players from Ecuador it’s harder for us to get them the game time and exposure needed to become that 50m player.
For example Brighton have invested 112m over the last four years in these young players…
Mark O’Mahony
Leo Ostigard
Steven Alzate
Cameron Peupion
Ulrick Eneme-Ella
Zak Emmerson
Jensen Weir
Billy Arce
Viktor Gyokeres
Taylor Richards
Tariq Lamptey
Peter Gwargis
Jan Paul van Hecke
Anders Dreyer
Tudor Baluta
Jan Mlakar
Andi Zeqiri
Yasin Ayari
Kjell Scherpen
Moises Caicedo
Michal Karbownik
Facundo Buonanotte
Abdallah Sima
Alexis Mac Allister
Simon Adingra
Billy Gilmour
Jakub Moder
Kacper Kozlowski
Julio Enciso
To date nine of them have left Brighton for a return of 7.2m (Leo Ostigard the only one who made profit) while Tariq Lamptey, Moises Caicedo, Alexis Mac Allister and Jakub Moder (ewhen fit) are regulars. Realistically though only Moises Caicedo would be a regular here, arguably Alexis Mac Allister but personally I think that’s flavour of the month syndrome, so if we took the same chances as Brighton in the market we would at best have two first team players for an investment of 112m. Brighton can feel secure about it knowing they’ll soon sell Caicedo to balance the books and open opportunities for other players - something that we wouldn’t be willing to do in that same time frame.
I guess my point is that while it sounds cheap to sign Caicedo for 5m, there is actually a lot of risk that has to be taken to get there. Do you sign 29 players for 112m in the hope one of them turns into Caicedo or do you wait until someone else develops him and sign him 80m?
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Not really. The issue with just scouting is that you can identify a player but have no input on the career path. One of the big challenges with south american talent is the financial need for the clubs to offload them to europe which often is done in ways that maybe arent the best option for the player, and typically earlier in their development that we feel we can get involved with. Our choice is then is to either buy a player we dont think is ready and risk blunting his progression by not playing him, or let him go to Benfica and pay 10x as much in 2 years. If he was at a club in Argentina we had a stake in, we could theoretically hold him for longer until he was more liverpool ready, or sell him with clauses that make it more viable for liverpool to swoop in later.
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Arthur and Ramsay had to be removed from the CL squad to make room for Gapko and Keita. I’m not sure if Ox managed to make it back in for this second phase. Already having too many players absolutely is a consideration, and is one Klopp called out at some point during the window. Unusually for him, he wasnt saying it as a way to say we had enough, but literally to make the point that we have no room for the players we might want to bring in.
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why make room for Keita and not play him, sat on the bench the whole game. ugh
Decision to include him was made quite a while ago wasnt it, so other factors such as form fitness or effort in training may have become factors?
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Thank you for the SUPER reply @Sweeting
Much appreciated. Definitely opened my eyes a bit on the recruitment front
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Anyone still doing wondering why Klopp couldn’t renew the engine room in the Winter and Summer window? Klopp couldn’t be anymore blunt on this.
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Because he bought Darwin and Gakpo
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Due to the departure of Origi & Minamino and potentially Firmino?
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He also tried to sign Tchouameni. For the umpteenth time, it’s not the owners’ fault that we’ve signed one senior midfielder since winning the league.
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But according to Jurgen Klopp, he has said this " We can’t make four transfers before we know who’s going to leave the club".
A few days before the official news of Tchouameni signing for RM whose transfer fee was reported to be €80 million, which could rise to €100 million due to additional fees and we haven’t factored in his wages yet, James Milner’s extension was approved where it was heavily implied that his new deal will be on a lower weekly wages.
Coincidence or the truth is FSG’s PR just spun a story about going for Tchouameni when we can’t afford his wages in the first place?
Even Tchouameni mentioned that we were the first to contact him compared to Madrid which means our offer wasn’t even good enough for him to consider Klopp’s talk. Heck, our offer is not even good enough to be considered as a stepping stone to the Bernabeu!
Do note that FSG only came out to clarify the purported sale status only after we won 2 matches. Their PR aren’t that daft to announce it in the middle of a few back to back defeats.
And is it Klopp’s fault for not being able to sell AOC and Keita when we are in the ascendancy?
This thread has become our own Arsenal Fan TV.
Who’s @Notasuperfan ? DT or Troopz.
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