I wish we had better owners, like Chelsea, Manchester United, Everton, Tottenham and Manchester City…said no one ever.
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Bloody FSG apologist.
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Alisson
Gomez Konaté Van Dijk Robertson
Henderson Fabinho Wijnaldum
Salah Suarez Mané
Subs: Mignolet, Sakho, Tsimikas, Mac Allister, Szoboszlai, Coutinho, Jota
A squad comprised only of players bought by FSG. I could also have included Matip, but he was a free transfer. And I have omitted other high-profile signings, like Diaz, Darwin, etc.
Anyone who says FSG have not invested in this squad is talking utter bollocks.
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Says the FSG apologist. How can you not want the club to spend money for the sake of spending money??? Do you not want us to win the transfer window???
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Nobody saying that mate, but even you FSG fans must admit that there has been a sea change in how they operate regarding first team squad recruitment this summer. Please share your thoughts on this.
What sea change is that, there has always been fans complaining about transfers/ lack of transfers under FSG?
We have a fairly full squad, a transfer window that has been truncated by major sporting events and where relatively few clubs have done anything of note. Add in a new coaching team needing to do their own assessments of the squad and question marks over a number of players long term futures at the club - and it is easy to understand why we have not appeared to have done much on bringing people in yet.
There will of course be movement behind the scenes we are not aware of, but transfers are not carried out in isolation.
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Simple: we were willing to buy Zubimendi but he chose to stay at home. This proves that we will spend, but only if the right player is available.
We are not going to spend just for the sake of it.
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First time for me on this thread in a while.
Still moaning ok about transfers, or lack of I see.
Ok, see you in 1000 posts again
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No sea change at all. Last summer was one of heavy spending, and I didn’t see you complain then. We have had other summers with relatively low spending, this is one of them.
We go through a phase of transition, with a new head coach who needs time to implement his ideas into the squad and needs to see who responds well, and who not. That’s why I think it’s only reasonable to keep the powder dry for the time being, and wait until Slot identifies the needs. I’d expect a busy summer in 2025, with maybe one or two transfers during the winter.
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Has there been a sea change at FSG?
I’m not sure, but we do have a new manager, a sporting director, and a new head of football operations.
I’m pretty sure that is going to have an impact on what we do.
The squad feels light, and we could do with another LCB, wide forward and and DM. But I wonder if that feeling is a remnant of Klopp’s tenure and the amount of injuries we had. Slot might be OK with a smaller squad as we are going to be playing less intense football.
This summer? No, not seeing that. Apart from the fact that we have not in fact brought in any players at all, it doesn’t feel very different at all. GK purchase with a longer benefit horizon than most of us think is a priority, and a very targeted acquisition attempt for a player that when it doesn’t work does not see the club go down a list - that feels a lot like the Summer 2017 window where we did not get Van Dijk.
That said, bringing in a Mo Salah would sweeten this particular window…
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New manager and coaching team. We were not able to address all of the coaching absences that followed Jurgen out of the door just by hiring Slot. Somewhat unusually I think he only brought one guy with him directly and the entire rest of the staff had to be searched for an brought in individually.
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For your information, players could still get signed before the end of the window.
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Think they will put us up for sale soon. No big club is in line to be sold and guess they will utilise this opportunity. Last time Man United was also up for sale. Might be the reason they dont want to open the purse strings. We are selling like a big club but buying like a broken one.
This whole post is based on the premise that a “big club” necessarily buys a lot of players every transfer window.
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Lot of players - come on we didn’t buy one to strengthen our squad.
Don’t tell me we have the best squad in the whole of Europe. Of late with all these press conferences we are building a narrative nd acting as if we have won the title last 6 seasons out of 7 and City are miles behind.
Why did we go for Zubimendi if we don’t have any position to strengthen. What’s the plan B now since Zub isn’t coming?
That’s the problem. You think a transfer is necessary. The club may think otherwise. There doesn’t need to be a “plan B” if this was a player whom we didn’t need but there was an opportunity to sign because of a contractual situation.
You’re acting as though we didn’t stay in contention for the league title, win a cup, and make it quite far in two cups despite the injury situations that we faced, with our first-choice full-backs being injured for a substantial amount of the season, our goalkeeper being injured for a quarter of the season, one of our first-choice centre-backs being injured for half the season, and that’s before I even get to the midfield and forward line. We didn’t play Danns and Koumas just for shits and giggles.
None of those players who were involved in the second half of the season have left, and arguably only Matip has left who has played substantial minutes. Meanwhile, for the most part, the squad that got us there now has another year of experience, and for many of them, are closer to their primes.
We don’t need to do anything. It would be desirable to do something, if opportunities like Elliott or Zubimendi turned up.
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I think after 10 years, it is fairly clear that if there is a need, Plan B is always a loan or short-term cover, perhaps along the lines of Endo. We might have more than one Plan A, but we never seem to work down a list of targets of declining interest to us.
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Or put it another way, the only transfer I can think of off the top of my head that failed to make an impact that wasn’t related to injury since Jürgen arrived, is Minamino.
I’m cheekily excluding Ben Davies here because he made us a profit. And he was injured when we needed him anyway.
Whereas on the other hand, looking at the long list of failures at full-back alone for City… Or the legend that is Nicolas Pepe?
You are trying to justify everything club does. It’s easy. So how are we closing the gap on City and Arsenal now? Not my words but that of the Great Shankly “If you are first you are first. If you are second you are nothing”. Ofcourse need not be taken literally but this acceptance is what leads to mediocrity down the line. Next contention will be on contract renewals - again you will have people justifying if a player doesn’t want to stay what can the club do? Trent on final year - how can anyone allow this? Had we signed top class players when we won the league we would have surely won the next. We were linked to Saka but we didn’t sign anyone apart from Sepp. That’s the problem.