Exactly. If Edwards, Klopp and others can’t be trusted after what they have done; nothing is going to satisfy some people. 
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Its like the club can win everything but yet not win.
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But nor is it an approach to squad building advocated by our more ‘impatient’ fans. The club are incredible careful and cautious in the market, will swerve signings if they aren’t absolutely perfect.
Klopp himself has expressed dismay at fans who believe you solve every problem by spending money. And that needs to be true for Liverpool, because Covid or no Covid, we cannot afford to get drawn into a transfer arms race. We will lose. If the only route to success is buying players, we will lose. And I’m done with football too. You might as well go support a FTSE 100 company.
What the club has done is embark on a programme of finding all the other variables apart from transfers, and exploiting them. Coaching - the lost art that Klopp has lamented - being a major one. And it’s used an incredibly diligent approach to transfers to ensure that it’s sticking 80-90% of the time rather that the old truism that 50% of transfers fail.
There is simply so many times you can say this, but this approach to running the club has delivered consistent CL football, Consecutive high 90 point finishes a European Cup and a League Title. The clubs employees have more that proved that they are good at their jobs and deserve our trust.
We have to be really careful about what fans have the right to do. Where does the right to complain and be concerned stop? When does it start to have a detrimental effect? I don’t think that fans have the right to harass John Henry (or his wife FFS) on Twitter. I don’t think fans have got the right to sabotage every social media post the club put out.
A bit of acknowledgement that fan criticism will always come with the massive caveat that 99% of the time we are arguing from a position of ignorance would help. A bit of humility is always welcome. For a simple example of this you only have to look at transfers. They don’t work like we think they do. But that doesn’t stop us every single year, totting up how much we think we can sell players for and working out how much we think we’ve got to spend, and who that means we can buy, and then kicking off at the club because the reality is a bit different. Running a football club must feel like trying to drive a car with a toddler sitting in the back seat continually telling you You’re doing it wrong.
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Its usually the ‘great we won!’ then long paragraphs on why we are going to be worse off if we do not BUY that irks me at times. Its like your child who got 90 for his exams and you say great but lets do an in-depth analysis on why you did not get 95. You have every right to do that but it is not necessarily right.
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You get a sense for how warped the perspective is when you see success from 1 year celebrated not for the success itself, but for how it will supposedly elevate us in terms of transfer success. For many people, it is almost a case of saying “we won the CL, great now we’ll be able to land some good players.”
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It harks back to Klopp’s reaction almost as soon as he’d joined, being somewhat bemused/horrified by our national obsession with transfers.
I’m even guilty of it myself from time to time, and have to remind myself that I’m actually more excited to see the likes of Elliott, Jones and Neco continue to develop rather than buying an older player to come into the squad ahead of them, because ‘depth’.
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I hate it when Jones is written off as “just a kid so we can’t count on him” by people who then turn around and say “Sign Sancho NOW!”.
Curtis Jones is one of the best young players in the Premier League and I’m amazed that most outside of the club, and many of our own fans, can’t see it. Baffles me.
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The Klopp quotes thread HIYH is updating is so wonderful to watch. Gives you a perspective why Klopp wouldn’t be going around complaining about the lack of spending and his thought process.
Actually, I can promise that before we sign a player which is not a lot better than what we have, we’ll always use our own boys,” he says. “That’s how it is. That’s how the future should be. Even in this crazy football transfer world, we want to be this special club.”
Klopp on the transfer fees in the PL: “Guardiola, Mourinho and Conte don’t go shopping to Aldi.”
“I’m completely different from the english philosophy of, we have to buy, we have to buy, we have to buy and its all about transfers because I believe in training.”
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I’m with @Mascot on this. There is nothing wrong with the article, i really don’t see why fans are getting their knickers in a twist over it. She isnt saying fans shouldn’t discuss transfer windows, want players to be signed or sold, or enjoy the windows - the whole point of her piece is about when people go too far with it.
People complaining about not enough quality or the manager not having the players he wants - they’re usually ‘fans’ who call for transfers regardless to justify seeing them made or just want to criticise FSG for not spending. I don’t recall any serious fan or journalist making them about this current Klopp side. Even on TIA we saw ‘fans’ complaining that we weren’t winning the league cup - this in a season when we had ended a 30 year wait for the league title and our domestic cup runs were interruped by the World Championship which we also won.
With regards to development of academy prospects. In addition to Trent we have Williams and Jones. While incoming players have no doubt raised the quality of the squad there are plenty of examples of where the coaching staff have added value to them and to existing players at the club either by giving them new roles and responsibilities, improved physical condition or just worked with them to improve their skills and understanding of the game - for example Gini was seen purely as an attacking player before he came here, Hendo was viewed poorly as a DM, few thought of Milner as an able LB. Matip has become a much more dominant CB than he was when he first came. Then we have players like Elliot and Gomez, youngsters who have come in to the squad. I dont think we get the Gomez we have today without Klopp’s coaching staff, and i am excited to see what Elliot goes on to do from here.
Who really cares about whether we are hailed as kings or called disasters, it’s much simpler than that. We have a club that is doing its best to bring long term success to the club, and if we don’t win major honours this season, we know we will go again next year.
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I genuinely wonder how many of these ‘fans’ are old enough to remember our previous league title win.
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I was really taken aback by this phrase too. Isn’t that just the nature of football? There are too many fans who care too much about how they are viewed by other fans, and it’s unhealthy for so many people to base their self worth on how successful a football club is, and therefore what other football fans can say to the. There is a psychology thesis in there somewhere, but somewhere down the line supporting a football team got way more serious than it was ever supposed to be.
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I blame social media and the ‘bantz’ culture. It really has massively polarized opinions, and I think a lot of the fear comes down to rival fans saying mean things in an invasive medium. It’s probably the first time since being in the school playground that this kind of negative interaction with other supporters was a thing for most people… a feeling enhanced by the way so many of them act like children.
If it was within my power I’d pull the plug on all social media tomorrow. I’m absolutely dreading the day when my two kids become old enough for them to become aware of and interested in it.
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So many posts/tweets are made for purely to garner likes/shares/retweets,sadly forums are the same.
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Personally think things are getting blown way out of proportion.
It’s almost like anyone who wants to see any incoming player for any reason at all is being treated like they are ungrateful, not celebrating success and disrespectful to the way Klopp works.
90% of the players Klopp is using have come from transfers, we almost certainly will still see more incoming, not everyone looking for squad improvement is looking at hundreds of millions spent on star players or an abandonment to the type of recruitment we have been great at. In fact most people discussing how the club can improve have more coming in from sales than going out in purchases.
The financial uncertainty is over done. Most of what is uncertain is future revenues, looking at worst case scenarios. We have careful owners that’s fine. But we could still end up doing a bit of careful business, which is what most people are asking for it just seems we are acting a little too careful so may miss some opportunities, some of which won’t come about again. Like with Thiago as an example, does anyone believe this club doesn’t actually have the capacity to add a player of that cost to the books? We are almost certainly adding more in incoming. A lot of the stance is there for negotiating as much as anything else.
There is no point getting too fired up and defending the club too strongly and causing discord in the fan base. The club can and almost certainly will still spend, in intelligent and cautious ways. That’s all 99% of fans want. No need for people to be going to war and treating anyone discussing possible improvements like they are that unreasonable, frothing at the mouth, 1% who want hundreds of millions of John Henry’s own money spending.
I also think we won’t see announcements and such over the potential Billy Beane investment till after the transfer window closes because it will damage this financially prudent/under strain image used to help negotiations and limit transfer expectations.
Klopp wouldn’t spend much more than he has done up to now even if he had unlimited money and most of the same targets would be bought/chased. He’d also likely turn down many of the same deals if he thought players were overpriced. But the way FSG have been able to operate with Klopp they would be screwed with any other manager. There is nothing wrong with being demanding in my eyes and making sure they are on their toes to try there best to give Klopp whatever he needs. Not abuse but they need to know they can’t just sit back and take things for granted. They’ve got a superhero pushing the train for them but they should be doing what they can to help not sitting back having a doze and accidentally keeping the brake on.
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I’m speaking for myself but maybe people are worried that the club will miss the opportunity to maximise the Klopp effect and use this position of strength to win as many trophies as possible and elevate club’s status to that of a proverbial super-club? I know I am concerned with the former because he won’t be here forever but I know that the lack of signings isn’t for lack of trying. I think that we would have seen one or two more arrivals under regular circumstances (and Edwards would have probably already found new clubs for the likes of Wilson, Grujić and Shaqiri, possibly even Origi).
Anyway, while I hope for exactly two more signings (Alcantara and Sarr, obviously, with Wijnaldum staying for one more year at least), I also hope to see the path cleared for club’s best youngsters and some more getting promoted. I’m honestly spoilt between Alexander-Arnold, Jones, Elliott and Williams but I’ll be ever ungrateful and hope that the likes of Koumetio and Hoever can make the step up in time. After all, that aspect is arguably as important as buying players and Liverpool haven’t had much luck until Inglethorpe and Klopp arrived.
When it comes to youngsters and rumours of alleged departures, Brewster is a pecular one: I can see exactly why @Sweeting doesn’t think he’ll become a proper Liverpool striker, and I’ve had certain doubts for a while, but looking at Liverpool’s current squad, does it really need a like-for-like replacement for Firmino? Sometimes you just need a player who’s single-minded about getting the ball over the line at all costs and in a congested, freakish season like 2020/21 is shaping up to be, Brewster might be worth keeping. He can always be sold next season, I doubt his value will plummet unless he gets injured again.
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Not true, I think we have very good discussions on why buying like Tsim is great for us. We have very good discussions on the benefits of buying Thiago together with Gini staying here or is it a necessity to sell Gini before Thiago can come etc.
What alot of us cannot understand is the insistence from some that unless we buy players, there is no way we can compete with the rest who have spent big and some, not necessarily in this forum, even made sarcastic insinuations of like how a club like Wolves and Everton can spend millions on players but yet we could not even after winning millions from CL and the league, throwing aspersions on the owner for not supporting Klopp and that they are hoarding money for themselves without ever looking at what the club have spent on.
I would have thought that in a modern era of football where spending big whenever you fail is seen as the only way, and what Klopp has achieved in the last 2 years without doing exactly that would have proven to every single one of us that transfers and buying players, while a solution, is one of the many solutions that a prudent club can explore. We should be lucky that we have a management that believes in what it does and does those things really well while other big clubs only buy and buy and buy.
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We still buy, look at our squad, vast majority we bought. We will continue to as well, probably this window too. So it’s pointless getting too worked up defending the merits of not spending. Spending isn’t bad, stupid or evil. We do it very well. The owners are, as it stands (and I don’t believe it will continue) coming across as overly cautious, they can probably afford to spend some in even the realistic worst case scenarios. As it is a lot of our incomes are safe and if they aren’t there’s a lot more to worry about and we need to sell our top stars/earners yesterday.
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I do not think I am the one defending the merits of not spending. I am defending the merits of spending when necessarily and trusting the club to do what is right compared to some who believes that spending is the only way to success. I think I am not the one who has been very worked up in this discussion
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We all like to see the club bring in new players. I don’t think there’s a fan out there that doesn’t like to see someone new come in, even if it’s a back up left back.
I haven’t seen one person advocating we don’t spend at all (although there was someone on the old forum arguing that ethically we shouldn’t be spending big money but they’ve since changed their tune based on who we might spend big on). We all want to see the club retain their title but we won’t be able to retain it forever and if that’s this year, fans will look to the lack of transfers. If it’s in a couple years, the manager will probably get the blame.
But what some people are pointing out is the financially difficulty of spending this window. That Swiss Ramble twitter thread showed quite clearly where all of our additional revenue has gone, into the pockets of those staff, players and unfortunately the agents of those that have got us to where we are.
People talk about getting £20m for Wilson and Grujic, similar for Shaqiri, £25m for Origi and whoever else fringe players are. If we’ve got all this value tied up in players that give us very little why would you expect the club to buy without moving these players on. There is a finite amount of money and a finite amount of squad space. The club works with these parameters in mind and won’t lump a load of cash in on a whim.
It’s a pretty sensible approach and one im more than happy with. Fans endlessly bleating about transfers and other clubs business is just a grim part of modern football where everything is about money and banter and slagging off other clubs. That is different from fans who have considered opinions about squad needs and youth development and the current landscape. They are few and far between on Twitter but thankfully more prevalent on places like this.
My faith is in the manager. If he’s cool with where we are then so am I. Would I like another centre back and a wide forward, sure. Do I know more than Klopp, hell no. So if he’s okay with where we are I can be too.
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On a side note, its good to see that discussions are ramping up in this new forum. Starting to get used to it now hurhur
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