The Unreliable Rumours Discussion Thread (Part 2)

With that player specifically the eventual price was double or more what was touted during the season. It’s very easy to view it as a move we were interested in at his May valuation, just not his June valuation. Essentially someone we were pursuing because he was an opportunity not a priority. IF we now go ahead and push the boat out with Jude, I think that idea is harder to argue for, because it is premised on the idea that once it became too expensive we were happy to walk away and make do with what we already had. We still wont have a great indication of how high we were willing to go for him, but it would definitely reframe him as someone we were pursuing as a priority to fill an identified gap.

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This is the part I’m struggling with. I personally don’t think Bellingham at £100m+ makes a lot of sense. Not for a teenage midfielder. Having said that, it’s not going to be any better next summer so if the club really think this is the best fit for us, then why wait until next summer? This all feels more like a smokescreen while we hunt another player.

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£100m on Bellingham for a 6 year contract makes total sense. As for a holding midfielder, is nobody going for Rice this summer?

I always assumed he’d be heading to United or Chelsea.

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Didn’t the club often say such things just before announcing an under-the-radar signing?

The famous one was the declaration of our confidence in Danny Ward to provide competition for Karius just weeks before we broke a world record to land Alisson.

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Jack Nicholson Reaction GIF

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We were interested in Tchoumeni until it was abundantly clear he preferred to go to Madrid.

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Dortmund paid 25m (lbs) for Bellingham - was there also a sell on percentage for Birmingham? He’s played 60 games there over 2 seasons and presumably has 3 years left on his contract? If he’s ‘worth’ 100m now, can’t see him being worth much more next summer and, if he only has 2 years left in summer 23 then Dortmund would then be looking to sell. In that environment, if he insists he’s only signing for us then we may even be able to get him for less. I’m surprised that we would seriously be interested in paying 100m for Jude right now.

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He might cost 100m on paper, but got a feeling Keita will be thrown into the deal so less money changes hands

60m for Keita, based in Dortmund pricing. 40m plus Keita, now that sounds more feasible…

Keita is set to be offered a new contract. Declan rice would also be a better fit than bellingham in terms of how our midfielders are deployed.

can’t see us getting rice though!

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You think we’d have paid what Madrid paid for him if we were in with a shout?

I’m not so sure.

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I think the fee wouldn’t have been the fee without Madrid getting involved, it was 40m all season until Real were interested. But I don’t think it would have been a problem.

Put it this way, I don’t think for the right player a fee in the region of 80m puts off FSG. I mean, they’ve literally just paid that for Nunez.

They are far, far more concerned about wages.

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I would agree, but we aren’t managed by a hobbit with no functioning brain.

If our boss thins 100M for Jude is a good deal, then I’m willing to back his judgement

I haven’t heard of the kid, anyone heard of him……apparently his dad was a footballer. I never heard of him either. I don’t see us spending more money on forwards this summer.

Funnily enough, I signed him recently in Football Manager.

He’s class.

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That I would agree because Klopp and team have earned our trust with their track records and prudence but just for the sake of discussion on Bellingham specifically because the 2 occasions where we pay more than what we wanted to is probably VVD and Alisson but these are 2 players who have been showing their pedigree for a while while Bellingham would probably at this point of time, not really. I would think another 2 seasons and if he continues to be a top player for Dortmund then I would say he would be worth a huge investment and even then I am not sure we will ever buy a 100mil pound player in Klopp’s time, we might but its more likely we will not. But generally yes I agree that it Klopp wants someone whether at 10mil or 100mil, I trust that he knows what the player can bring to the team.

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