And we would still need someone else other than Ekitike to play up top because Diaz was not only a LW last season, we played the best stuff with an attacking trio of Salah, Gakpo and Diaz up top.
Only signing a LW (or two wingers, questionable whether one of them could play up top) to replace Diaz and going into the season with only Ekitike as a proper striker (at the time we have no idea how well he might do) just wouldn’t be enough. It would’ve been criticized at the time by most, I’m pretty sure.
It’s absolutely up for good discussion what were our moves, did it have to be both Ekitike and Isak for the money we brought them for and tactical questions how will that work and our depth/competition in wide areas.
On Morton (we’re really going to the periphery of things to find reasons and explanations…), the best he could hope was possibly to become our 4th choice CM on paper instead of Endo and then try to prove himself for more. These players were here for a while, some of them under two coaches and even if top professionals make mistakes, I’d say there are good reasons for most situations in football. Morton needed minutes and badly. Going elsewhere was probably the most logical move from all angles. We’ll see how his development and future goes.
The owners will not want to miss out on that lucrative income stream next season, to say nothing of our sporting prospects being diminished if we are not at the top table.
I would have thought no CL would mean Slot gets the chop.
This doesn’t make a lot of sense to me. It feels like a punishment, and I don’t think FSG operate like that.
I think if it was a matter of worrying about champions league revenue, then Slot would have been sacked weeks ago.
If we get to the season and finish outside the CL places, then it all feels a bit like shutting the stable door after the horse has bolted to declare that unacceptable and move him on.
Whether we’re inside or outside the CL places at the end of the season, I think they review and look at what went wrong, and then decide whether it’s in the clubs interests to retain Slot.
The other variable is whether the availability of Xabi Alonso represents such a unique opportunity that they have to jump on it regardless of Slot’s performance.
Yeah and on the last bit we should be cautious in not reading too much into our reported interest in Alonso before hiring Slot. There was a ton of reporting on our interest in him, but its important to remember almost all of that came before we even hired Hughes. I think the Hughes announcement and Alonso announcing he would be staying at Leverkusen were only about a week apart, and there is simply no way Hughes would have time to form an opinion on his preferred candidate in that time, especially when he was still splitting his time with Bournemouth for the first couple of months after he was announced.
Now its entirely possible that reporting came from an real understanding of how well Alonso stacked up in the data. Its possible that had he been under consideration once Hughes got started for real he would have been Hughes’ preferred candidate. It’s entirely possible that regardless of all of that Hughes is interested in pursuing him now. But I think the reality is Slot was very much the first choice of the candidates Hughes actively considered and I do think that creates a very different picture for the impact of Alonso’s looming availability than the way it is commonly framed
I think the decision would come from higher than Hughes anyhow in this situation, even Hughes alluded to that. If Slot’s aims are to qualify for the CL and he doesn’t achieve that then a decision will be made.
But the point I’m making is the basis for that decision won’t be we didn’t finish in the CL places, so boot him. It will be do we think that Slot is the right man going forward.
Various reports at the moment that we are still PSR compliant:
There’s no indication as to what the headroom is going forward. I was hoping to find some breakdown of the figures, although obviously that does contain sensitive information.
Again no figures, but a possible indication that we will continue to have space to spend as commercial revenue growth and this year’s CL money will keep revenue high. Also, if Mo leaves in the summer that likely frees up a big chunk of the wage bill.
FSG will cut their cloth accordingly and have always done, I believe we were still not showing on a net spend average table for the last 5 years very recently.
Most teams won’t have summers like we had when Chiesa arrived, they will spend summer after summer hence why they are always close to the wind.
Former EA chief Peter Moore says his game industry style of PR irritated his bosses at Liverpool FC, and that’s partly why he’s not the CEO of Liverpool FC anymore
I quite liked Peter Moore, and we had great success during his time here (Jurgen obviously gets the most credit for that). It seemed a bit strange to me that he didn’t stay longer, and hearing him talk about a little culture clash over how you handle PR and engage with fans fills in a few blanks.
A bit of FSG trivia I only found out this week - Henry and Werner had no relationship before coming together to buy the Red Sox and was actually MLB who brought them together in trying to find a consortium they were comfortable granting a licence to for such an important franchise.
