The Owners - FSG

I wish I was as optimistic as you. But any sign that we’re not winning every single game 11-0 and they’ll be back in force, I can guarantee you that.

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I’m fairly certain he has always been the final word, and that nothing has changed in that regard. I’m pretty sure he made that clear in his first season because of Rodgers and his constant need to displace blame onto someone else, e.g. the “transfer committee”.

It’s just it’s not his role to scout and negotiate for players, that’s someone else’s role. His role is to see how the suggestions he’s offered might fit into his team, and identify with the analysis teams where the team can be improved.

We are in the Europa league because we went into last season short. Just like this one, don’t act surprised if the result is the same at the end of the season Billy …

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And Andre.

There’s nothing embarrassing about £40m+ offers for teenagers with one season of football under their belt. Even Chelsea and their liberal approach to valuations have bid a couple million more than we have.

So? There was no news on Szboszlai until the day before it was confirmed.

£95m outlay before we sold Henderson and Fabinho. If we bought Lavia today for £50m we’d have the third highest net spend in the league. Only ones to have spent more are Arsenal, United (before the Maguire deal is accounted for) and Spurs (bearing in mind two of those are prior deals and EDIT it now appears they’re selling Kane.)

Honestly, most of what you’re saying just comes across as ranting because Chelsea have bid for a player we’re also after. The all caps is just annoying and makes what you’re saying hard to read or take seriously.

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I must have completely missed where we were linked to Szoboszlai before the deal was effectively over the line…

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Ironically, people who praise Klopp that he had created a miracle with the little support from the owners is actually belittling Klopp. Because Klopp has done it this way through his career. It was like this for him in Dortmund and similarly here in Liverpool. He has to be happy enough with what’s going on to keep extending his contract. If he had felt he had done all he could like in Dortmund, he would have walked away but he was obviously happy enough.

But here we are, little worms inside Klopp insisting that Klopp must be unhappy and pitting Klopp Vs the owners in an imaginary battle.

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At least the financial outlook is optimistic (according to Hogan)… Which makes us a bit like Man United under Woodward - incompetent when it comes to football dealings but imperious in terms of revenues.

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The yanks looking to buy another sport team.

I think that the current situation is not basically different from how things were when Edwards was in charge. The club wouldn’t have brought in a player without Klopp’s consent anyway.

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There is obviously anecdotal evidence of the time the recruitment team pushing for Salah over Klopp’s choice. And continuing to pursue VVD after Klopp was ready to walk away.

Obviously Klopp still had the final say in those, but I wonder if there is the same input from the current team or if there are more ‘yes men’.

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No, it was a culmination of factors that led us here.

We have not brought in with the exception of Thiago a midfielder in years. Most of our midfield problems came from the fact that we were short on midfield and that will happen again if we are still short on september the first.

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I agree with you. But I feel certain dynamics have changed in the absence of Mikey or a full-time DoS. I feel we wouldn’t have been so fixated on Romeo and would have had an alternative.

That’s harsh. United wasted millions on absolute trash. We are enhancing our financial capabilities and using that to actually strengthen our squad.

The assumption is that all that we see in the press is the entirety of what we’re doing. Or that what they’re writing is even true to begin with. Me, I’m not so sure.

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Mostly it’s down to the mess of last summer.

Injuries played a part? Sure. But we’ve lost all our senior CB’s for a whole season and still managed.

Incompetence of referees? Sure. But this is nothing new we had to face during the course of last season.

Other teams like Newcastle & Arsenal strengthening? Sure, but hindsight’s a wonderful thing, did anyone foresee either finishing above us despite their recruitment?

The mishap of last season falls on our shoulders.

But the team’s problems and our final position was not solely because of the midfield.

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Absolutely it does, but pinning it on midfield recruitment is an oversimplification of what did go wrong and ignores the broader issues which also played their part - such as tactical changes to the forward and defensive lines which were persisted with even though they weren’t working.

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Man United’s problem was lack of expertise, not lack of investment. I feel it’s the other way around with Liverpool. About the only time the owners put in a large amount of money was the summer of 2018. We all know what happened afterwards.

I feel we need such a transfer window every four years or so, otherwise we wouldn’t have been in the situation where we are entering a season in which we’re fighting to get back in the top four without a recognised defensive midfielder and with Matip and Gomez as back-ups to Van Dijk and Konate.

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I’m pretty sure some keener FSG observers have commented before that’s what they did with the Red Sox, splash big, wring out that investment for a few years, then start again.

As for the question about the defensive midfielder and the defence, I can only say this. The former question presupposes that Jürgen wants to play with someone who is dedicated to being a defensive midfielder, rather than someone like Henderson, who could be a specialised player there, but has strengths beyond that. I think @Sweeting is quite enthusiastic about Mac Allister being a “6” in that vein? Secondly, with the defence, one has got to suspect that we’re more interested in bringing in someone with a profile similar to Konaté when we got him, i.e. someone who has potential, still quite raw, rather than someone who would actually get significant minutes. I’m wondering if the reason why we haven’t heard so much about that is because they may have identified internal candidates they wish to work on/whose pathway to the first team they don’t want to disrupt.

It seems odd that the immediate reflex of so many is that the club are skint, rather than it being a conscious choice to shape the squad that way. Too much short-termish thinking, with the idea that transfers are the big thing that we do to improve our fortunes, when in reality, it has tended to be the opposite. I don’t think we have signed anyone targeted to be an immediate regular (and by that I mean getting minutes on the level of someone like Robertson), since Fabinho. Everyone else has always come in on the basis of, at best, playing a vital role but still being very much part of a rotation rather than being a constant.

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