The Unreliable Rumours Discussion Thread (Part 1)

Our position is not that players wont arrive - but that if they don’t arrive it will be because of long term concerns on the club’s finances.

Not sure i understand your point about profit and loss. As I understand it, the spending you have referred to as a source of revenue that can be spent on players came from selling players and has already been spent on players, repaying debt and infrastructure. There may be some if it left over but its not a recurring income without further sales.

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Or just that the right players weren’t available. We’ve learnt previously that not buying players doesn’t necessarily mean we don’t have the money to do so.

It’s extremely difficult to criticise the club’s approach over the last 4-5 years, so a certain amount of respect is due for those who try :wink:

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Yes, I should have included that point too, thanks.

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This is the time when I heard of Doku lad, a lot to live up 2.
https://youtu.be/MS91knuzoOA

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The club are very smart at keeping their tax bill down by not declaring profits that would incur extra tax bill payments. As such we have made additional, earlier, payments than required to financials with low or no interest more than we needed such as the £50m last year and funds pumped into the infrastructure builds earlier than needed. Which is good. It gets things off our back a lot quicker than needed but without that activity this coming set of accounts would probably have shown over £100 million profits. A 1/3rd of match day revenue will be off that now maybe about £30 million. Next year’s accounts are a bit more open to question but without Covid probably would have also been similar or more (they’ll take in the Nike deal with unprecedented sales we now get a percentage on) if we dont spend significantly this summer. Even reading the Swiss ramble tweet chain I really don’t see us in as bad a situation as some think. The entity is profitable with reserves and resources to turn to if required (over £100m in credit facility that could be increased if needed). What is problematic is cash flow, paying the week to week and month to month bills sometimes due before the annual revenue payments have come in. We aren’t balanced on a knife edge. I don’t expect total spending commitments to exceed total sales of players over the next two windows but I also don’t think Klopp wants or needs that.

I’m liking the sound of some of these rumours.

If Wilson is sold after the Leeds game for 20 million, hopefully that allows us to complete the Thiago deal.

Gini to sign an extension, Thiago to come in and Fabinho to cover centre back? That’s the ideal (of the most realistic) scenario for me. We’d have unbelievable depth and quality in the midfield whilst also being able to use a few those midfielders in other postions (Milner RB/LB, Fab CB, Chamberlain/Jones front 3).

Selling Brewster for a fee similar to Ollie Watkins (28 million) and inserting a first refusal clause would be great business. That sort of cash would allow us to bring in players who strengthen the squad more on a short term basis. Also, a player is more likely to get game time if he’s been bought for a decent sum of money than signed on loan. Give it 2 or 3 years and see how he gets on, if he’s banging in goals at the top level and developing his hold up play we could bring him back and he’d still only be in his early-mid 20s.

I really like Sarr but 40 million is too much, and whilst we have Minamino, Origi, Shaqiri, Chamberlain etc at the club the need isn’t an immediate one. Play the long game, get Watford to drop their price and if an opportunity comes up to sell a player like Shaqiri for good money, you can try to get something done. I’ll be happy enough if Shaqiri can stay fit and play some games for us anyway, he still has a good amount to offer.

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Ideal end of window for me would be selling fringe players, then get a reliable not too expensive CB - maybe a veteran willing to be 4th choice - and a quality versatile attacker - Daka? I’m not overly convinced on Sarr, especially at that price. Thiago dependant on what Gini wants to do. Not sure I’d go with the Fabinho 4th CB choice, too many midfielders, not enough CBs for a long exhausting season.

No, happy for someone to correct me if i am wrong but i think the money used to pay off the interest bearing loans comes from post tax income, and was funded effectively from player sales over the last couple of years, not the day to day revenue generated by the club.

One to keep an eye on, it’s a very reliable news outlet in Belgium and one that works in interest of their clubs, which I respect a lot.

Anyway, I’ve just remembered that Klopp said a while back that he expected Liverpool to conclude deals towards the end of the window. Obviously, he’s privy to information that we can’t access but I think he knew that clubs would try to lowball Liverpool for its marketable assets.

So far, Edwards has been refusing to bite and I doubt that certain PL clubs wouldn’t want players like Brewster, Wilson and Grujić (there are at least five clubs in the league whose first elevens the latter two walk into). We’ll just have to wait, I guess, though when I look at the fees Wolves and Aston Villa are spending, I do feel a bit surprised.

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I recall fearing our club would go bankrupt under Hicks and Gillett. I couldn’t be happier with John Henry being fiscally smart. Yep, we’ve also taken steps to protect against teams like Barca by raising salaries and rewarding top players, can’t fault that either, so two points for FSG.

FFP whilst it failed against City hasn’t gone away and in this climate Liverpool explaining it’s financial position ad nauseum reinforces that other teams could be breaching those rules by gambling. Call it FFP mind games!

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Pretty sure costs are always taken into account before tax. Paying off finances, whether you strictly have to yet or not, is part of a businesses pre tax position. Trying to determine what part of revenue out of hundreds of millions of incoming revenue goes towards paying a specific cost is probably an incredibly difficult thing to do and I’m not sure why you would want to do it? We haven’t made truly exceptional income from player sales since Coutinho though as we haven’t let anyone particularly great go.

Would love Doku… but I doubt we would pay 20m, let alone 30m for him at this stage of his career.

Still if you could sell Wilson for 20m… then perhaps Doku is worth 30m. But we don’t do business that way.

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Wilson to Leeds? Would be perfect for anything above £15m.

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From today’s BBC gossip column:

Tottenham have been told Red Bull Salzburg and Zambia forward Patson Daka, 21, wants to stay in Austria.

They didn’t finish it: “until Liverpool come knocking”

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I’m pretty sure 15 mil would be the price most clubs are looking at him for. I do wonder what price is Edwards putting out there for Wilson?

Pearce post-match comments on transfers:

The club’s position is that they don’t feel under pressure to go and buy another CB. Klopp really impressed with Koumetio and happy to play Fabinho there when needs must. Privately, they are still assessing their options in the market. I’d be surprised if the window shut without another CB coming in. Would be a major risk in my opinion considering the schedule and Matip’s injury record.

It won’t change anything. Gordon, Edwards and Klopp don’t ever make knee-jerk decisions. A lot will depend on what happens with selling fringe players over the coming weeks.

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Exactly what I was expecting.

Won’t do anything unless something happens until October.

When the window closes it will re-open after a few months in January where we could also react to injuries.

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Some of us have pointed out a few times that Fabinho could well be our 4th choice CB. With some talented young players in the pecking order behind him and a strong central midfield (could become stronger with a possible Thiago addition) we would be fine in CM when he plays in defence. If we can’t find the perfect long term CB signing I don’t think we will buy one. Someone young with the potential of overtaking Matip in the pecking order over the next year or so and become a real challenger to Gomez for a couple of years. Then as VvD winds down Gomez and the new guy start becoming the new first choice starters. If we can’t find the perfect guy to start that process with this summer maybe the process is a year or two longer with one of our academy kids being the young guy and Fabinho filling in (when needed, maybe 10-20 games a season in all comps for one or two years) till then.

Would have liked to quote your post and reply in the Gomez thread like it was possible in TIA but I don’t know if and how this works here.

I will always prefer Matip over Gomez but that’s very tight.

Also, I’m not seeing leader qualities in Gomez - not now and not in the future. He is too calm, too introverted for that and doesn’t have the presence.

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“I can’t tell you my source because I made it up”

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