Hah, I came to the same conclusion after my disappointment had subsided. I don’t think he would have created any fuss but if TAA could run down his contract at Real Madrid’s behest, so can Huijsen, especially as a highly rated, Spanish international.
Obviously it comes as no news that anyone can and I think we have no idea how many players have that possibility/motivation down the line in mind. Many players have Liverpool or a club like Liverpool in mind.
In this case, reports over Huijsen (that his primary wish was Real and it depended if they were going to activate interest soon) helped and it’s not difficult to imagine why (even without the Spanish links, Real alone is enough).
Not every player will want the same path and certainly not every player will even get that opportunity. Many top ones among that group.
But many players will, even the ones who will stay and keep silent about it. So there is no way to prevent that in most cases and especially us outside the game to know that.
It’s how the planet turns.
Given Darwin is our highest fee at ~85m euro, I’m not so sure.
Isn’t it all relative? We were happily comfortable splashing out £40m on Salah pre-Neymar, breaking the world transfer records for a defender and a goalkeeper, we were purportedly ready to pay £115m (or whatever amount it was) for Caicedo and also £50m for an 18 year old Lavia.
I think the question is whether the right player is available who would be worth that money, no?
EDIT: Wasn’t van Dijk £75m?
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Also, we could’ve imagined and guessed that the likes of Xabi, Suarez and Coutinho might wish one day to play for one of the two Spanish giants, but if you ask me, it’s not enough to reject the idea signing them, if they’re judged as the right players for us at the time.
If the club decided that Huijsen is the one, pieces fell into place and he agreed, I would’ve been behind it. The rest in the future is hard to predict, many variables decide that and most players will not get the opportunity at clubs like Liverpool and Real. It’s the reality.
A player can perfectly give 100% at Liverpool and still have Real or whoever of the other top clubs in mind as a motivation (or simply trying a new challenge, people can change opinions and motivations with time!) for down the line.
Just going by the tables available publicly, apparently he was just less than Darwin.
Are you using EUR or GBP? As a British club, surely we should be using the latter, in which case Núñez is definitely behind van Dijk (in 2017 no less!) and just ahead of Alisson (going off Wikipedia of course).
It’s not as though we know the details, really, especially with add-on clauses and all that.
Nunez wasn’t €85m.
£21.34m of the £85.36m is in add-ons. The first £4.3m will come after Nunez makes 10 appearances. A further £8.5m will follow after 60 games with the final £8.5m to “depend on the individual and collective performance of the team throughout the contract.”
Fees change with time. You could’ve said the same when we made the jump to Virgil’s fee. We were ready to pay £111m for Caicedo two summers ago.
It’s really not far. Who knows if there’s a time in football or at Liverpool when those top fees will stagnate, but it could easily be broken into that sort of mentioned fee very soon.
As I said just going by the tables - not claiming any knowledge:
I’m not saying we should splash it on Isak or Wirtz, but I can easily see us spending something north of £100m on a player pretty soon, if we judge it’s the right move. We were so close for Caicedo and that was less than 2 years ago.
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Oil is sold in $US, players are sold in €. It’s important, because the GBP has varied significantly over the years. You have to compare by global prices.
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Surely in terms of how much it costs the club it should still be in £ since the club’s earnings are in £?
It does add a layer of complication, since e.g. I doubt van Dijk’s transfer was conducted in €?
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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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