I suppose it would mainly come into play with players who are in demand across Europe. The Premier League is by far the biggest in terms of revenue, but all the other big leagues use the Euro, and that’s what they are competing against (I think the biggest non-Euro league is actually MLS).
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I’ve no problem with players giving 3-4 years of service and then negotiating an exit down the line for a fair fee. The players you list brought about £230m into the clubs coffers.
Given the way that Real Madrid have taken to operating - inducing players to run down their contracts and sign on a free - I think it’s sensible to swerve any player who is on the record as having a ‘dream’ to play for them.
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The noise around our interest in Isak give me vibes that it could be him…
Yeah, that’s the money aspect of it. It can also change from situation to situation.
There’s our opinion as fans and there’s what the club would’ve preferred to do.
For Xabi, Rafa toyed with other ideas how to use that money (understandable, up for debate, that’s another topic), for Suarez I think the club would’ve rather kept him if he wanted to stay (and reject what was still an important offer from Barca), Coutinho was a fantastic fee (and I trust Klopp when he says he would’ve kept him) as an after-Neymar effect.
But yeah, we agree overall.
I’m just saying that in most, if not all cases, it will be basically impossible to find out what a player might want already at that point or later (can be subject to change!) and predict the future. In a way, if you’re in a situtation where other top clubs think about your players, it’s because they’ve turned out to be great for us.
There are also reasons other than being a high quality player why Real want Trent and why they didn’t go in for the likes of Virgil or Salah. I’ve read somewhere that Virgil’s camp offered themselves to Real last summer (just a quick check to see what they have on table), but they rejected the idea. Not sure how reliable though.
Other things like when did those motivations start for Xabi, Suarez, Coutinho, Trent… when was the first contact made (impossible to prevent, there is always a way)… we just don’t know enough details about that, even with the best possible reporting from the most reliable journalists.
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I see it as an opportunity, actually. Sign them on a lower contract because we’re obviously such a good platform for them to grow and showcase themselves while winning things, and then they can go get the money at Real Madrid. Win, win.
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Are you talking 2008 or 2009? Very different scenarios there. 2008 was the whole Barry situation, and I remember many fans back then would have been thrilled to see the back of him for the mooted £12m from Juventus I think it was, while buying Barry at £20m. By 2009 though they were all happy to blame him for that.
Seems we have swerved on Kerkez.
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What’s the news on Kerkez and which source?
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There isn’t any official news on any transfers its all solely journalists putting a spin on a rumour.
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We can’t keep signing players at £40-50m and have them leave on a free.
I don’t have a problem with the idea that Latin American/Spanish/Portuguese players do a few years with us and then move on - and the idea that we’ll help you move on is something that we can even pitch to the player - but we have to be recouping a few. The way Real Madrid (and other clubs will follow) is that they are trying to engineer free transfers.
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Maybe the 6 & 8 year contracts Chelsea were throwing about last year and the one before have some merit, if only to stop some players leaving for free without us getting good longterm use out of them.
Think that has more to do with installments.
You will not want to keep certain players for a long time either, depends how they do.
The Trent situation is a rare one that happens from time to time (at least at at Liverpool), not a trend.
A numbers of factors led to this outcome. There is not one “guilty” party.
Some things in football are like they are, hard to prevent and we just have to accept it.
Try our best to prevent it next time? Try to remain on the better end of this transfer activity?
Of course, that’s what they do every day.
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No news…
Just trying to start an unreliable rumour.
In the unreliable rumour thread
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Yes, I think people are panicking about this a bit too much I’m not sure they have brought in that many players on a free in recent years, and Trent is one of those players that hits the headlines because he is such a good player.
For example, although they signed Mbappe on a free, didn’t they previously make a large bid for him?
Before that they picked up Alaba and Rudiger on free transfers.
I suspect we probably won’t see much news relating to premier league players going to other clubs in the league until after the final match of the season.
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Spoilsport!
Reported for going against the spirit of the thread.
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What can we do.
Start giving people 9-year contracts in the hope to lower chances of players being attractive on a free?
Not sign Latin players?
Not sign players who’s mothers have a picture of them with a * insert another top club * poster on their wall when they were 10?
Ask players for guarantees whether they get a semi-boner thinking about Real or another big club? Being sure to never change their opinion or motivation with time?
They would ask us some other guarantees which we would not be able to give them either.
Have their/agents’/family’s phones listened to, KGB style?
Football, transfers on a free and having moves in mind in advance from whichever side (player or club) didn’t start yesterday with Trent’s move. It will not stop very soon either.
Football might change some rules in the future that might protect or give more credit to Liverpool in this case with a local player who has come through from an early age.
But some things in a free world we cannot prevent.
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Why not? I don’t think we tend to factor in resale value of players we sign for the first team. We simply don’t really sell them. Since Coutinho, we’ve let the following players with significant first-team roles go (fees sourced from Wikipedida):
- Can – free
- Ward – £12.5m (not sure if I’d count him as significant first-team role though)
- Solanke – £19m
- Sturridge – free
- Moreno – free
- Ings – £18m
- Mignolet – £6.4m
- Clyne – free
- Lallana – free
- Lovren – £10.9m
- Wijnaldum – free
- Shaqiri – £9.5m
- Karius – free
- Origi – free
- Mané – £27.5m
- Minamino – £13m
- Williams – £16m
- Milner – free
- Keïta – free
- Oxlade-Chamberlain – free
- Firmino – free
- Henderson – £12m
- Fabinho – £40m
I’m too lazy to look up how much we brought each of them in for but in the last 5 names I’m pretty sure there’s close to £150m of free transfers, and Henderson would have been a free transfer too if not for the Saudis. £20m he was in 2011, wasn’t it? Not sure if there would have been any other takers for £40m Fabinho either. Wijnaldum was a hefty fee, as was Lallana. I think we lucked out on Mané too.
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Think we will learn from the Trent episode. He was a bit of a unique case as well, homegrown lifelong Red from the Academy, a very unique player who was at times intrinsic in our attacking incisiveness and creativity. Not really someone you can straightaway put up for sale if he doesn’t agree to a contract with 2 or even one year left on it.
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