The difference between our relationship with Nike and someone Barca’s is that they’ve been their sponsor for more than 30 years. The two brands are synonymous together, more so than any other club and manufacturer I can think of.
PSG seems to be their next big vehicle. We might have got that horrible one off shirt last year but PSG have that collaboration with the Air Jordan brand to help tap into the youth culture.
As much as it’d be nice for them to spend some wedge to get Mbappe here, it’s probably not going to happen given that’ll piss off one of their other flagship European clubs.
We don’t even know if they’re happy with what they’re getting from the deal with us. They certainly don’t design our shirts like we’re one of their cornerstone clubs.
It surprises me that lots of fans seem to think that we are tight arses when it comes to wages, whilst also being aware that we have an absolutely colossal wage Bill. Whatever Salah’s base salary is, I wouldn’t be surprised if he earned double it in the years we won the CL and Premier League. A lot of fans have wondered where the CL/PL money went, and the answer was that it went to the players, cos that’s the model FSG have.
Anyway, on M’Bappe, I don’t have any great expectation that it will happen, but nor do I think it’s completely pie in the sky thinking. As I’ve said before Kylian M’Bappe doesn’t move to Liverpool based on the wage - he moves here because of what LFC can do for his personal brand, and Liverpool move heaven and earth to get him because of what he can do for the clubs brand.
If M’Bappe’s aim is to become a figure that transcends the sport - a football version of Lebron James or Michael Jordan - then you don’t move to a club that can’t turn out 30 people at their own stadium when they’ve won the league. You go to the club that can turn out a hundred thousand on the other side of the world for a friendly.
There aren’t many clubs that can offer him the exposure and following that Liverpool can, and fortunately for us two of them are a billion pounds in debt, and the other is managed by Ole Gunnar Solskjaer.
I am not sure about Raphina and I am sure he will cost alot but maybe not that much some thought. Jota was playing really well in Wolves and came for 40mil, which I thought is a fair price. If we really want Rdphina, it has to be around that price. Leeds can reject of course but I don’t think we will go any higher for a player who has one good season.
This is precisely what i mean. If the club identifying Raphina as a target and he has been on contact with some of our brazilian contingent on the squad currently, im sure they can fork out the money. 40 mil in this covid market (most overused words ever) is ALOT of money and if the player wants it , he can make it happen.
Ironically , surprised more people arent linking Neves to us given the obvious history that exists there with Pep Ljinders and Matos during their Porto days and Ruben Neves.
in the middle about Neves. He seems like an intelligent player but I feel as a CM, he is more Thiago then Gini or Henderson but yet he does not seem to be anywhere near Thiago’s level but he has time of course. I just feel he is good but yet not sure whether he will be that good and I am afraid that Wolves will ask for a price that is based on reputation and potential rather than the actual value. I don’t see Wolves letting him go for anything below 50m. He is probably worth 35m to me but he has been quite high profile in the Wolves team so that will add some value to it. But he would not be the worst business we can do.
Well yes he’s appoaching his peak, plus I think he’s been injured.
He’s a good player that probably needs greater challenges than he’s getting at Wolves (i.e CL footy to push up that experience). I still like him but there’s definitely other fish in the ocean.
We certainly don’t need another playmaker with Hendo and Thiago in our ranks imo.
Regarding new midfielder, I would prefer an understudy for Henderson/Wijnaldum. With Wijnaldum gone, Henderson is now the only player who can cover Fabinho. That means we have depend on an aging Milner to cover for Henderson. Besides, Henderson himself will be downhill, sooner or later; so there’s that need for succession planning too.
Neves is OK but a load of Wolves fans say you dont really know he is playing until he scores his 1 wonder goal a season.
He has either gone stale or not that great. Im going with the latter.
I think the question around wages for Mbappe would be could we afford to pay him and Mo at that level at the same time? We obviously try and keep base salaries decent and then pay big incentives for winning things. But, that is perhaps why we buy more of the players likes of Salah, Jota, Konate etc rather than already established stars like Thiago, because established stars will want the big base and the bonuses from day one.
With the success we’ve had we’re now improving the contracts of a lot of players and rightly so. But even without winning anything this year, the base wage bill is likely to go up due to those improved deals. Can we then afford these increases, and to add someone like Mbappe whilst also keeping our highest earner? I doubt it.
Our top earners make about £200k a week in basic salary. Mbappe is on £350k a week at PSG and being offered almost £500k a week to stay. He’s going to have to really really want to come here to leave that kind of money on the table in the hope he can make the same if we’re successful.
I guess the other Salah consideration, is does he want to stay and play second fiddle to MBappe? With Salah and MBappe in the same team, Salah is probably going to be expected to play the role of provider.
As it is, with Madrid and Barca in dire straights, that does scupper quite a lot of this stuff. Madrid can’t afford to do MBappe or Salah, and the Barca route is closed for the time being as well. Probably the only club that could afford Salah is PSG, which makes you think possibly the way this does happen is some kind of exchange, Mo going one way and Kylian the other, which you’d hope would occur in the channel tunnel, us at one end with baseball bats and Madrid in the other with chains.