Perhaps they think at least one of them is comfortable playing on the left side?
I actually wonder if this focus on young players is just a shift in strategy. You wait until Jacquet is 23-24 and heâs probably, if the hype is to be believed, already at a top club and prohibitively expensive.
But even if he were still at Lille the price would be 50% more than weâve paid now and the wages double. Then that first contract is significant and the second one at about 27 years old is astronomical and if we canât do it then you lose a player in their prime for nothing.
I wonder if essentially the way the landscape has shifted means weâre now having to take our calculated gambles on more of the 19-22 range whereas before our sweet spot was more the 22-25 bracket. Itâs a bit riskier as we donât have the body of work to judge them on but we canât afford to wait on all of them to be proven before we move.
Thereâs a changing of the guard going on. Out with the old, in with the new. I think theyâre looking for the balance of a team that can compete now but probably peaks in a couple years time. Alisson and van Dyke will be the last of the old guard, the current midfield crop should be peaking, the defence and emerging force and the attack a balance of experience and emerging talent.
Itâs just so hard to have a squad peaking together and then maintain it for more than a couple years as the turnover as they hit their downward trend is just so hard to keep up with.
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Possibly the data is now better, and we can predict who will be a top player based on their stats at 19 rather than 23?
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Could also be that lots of clubs started using data the way we had been doing and that makes it hard to find the players in the 22-25 bracket that arenât known about by lots of clubs.
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Yeah the 22-25 year old market is tough thesedays. More and more clubs are taking early plunges on players so that U25 age group is getting very thin.
The market, and the costs involved mean you are looking at both longevity and resale value. If youâre going to spend 100m on a player you have to be pretty much certain that they will be either a key player, play for you for a long time or be able to be sold for a significant amount later on.
Ultimately though most clubs, including us, canât compete in that market. We just donât have the resources to build an entire team of 100m players. At the same time the market we used to shop in, 30m-40m, is getting smashed to pieces by inflation and smaller Premier League clubs have huge financial resources to compete for those players.
Clubs have to find a way to thrive. Real Madrid have opted to convince players to run down contracts which has the effect of them getting elite players for âfreeâ but less selection over who they get. Arsenalâs strategy has been to build a deep squad of 50m-70m players with very similar profile players who can switch out and not change their style - which means theyâve got amazing depth but are inflexible and lack truly elite talents especially in forward areas. Man City and Chelsea have built a network of other clubs who can sign and develop talent for them then sell them to the parent club below market value.
Liverpool appear to have decided to take a much stronger approach to the youth academy. We had a change of ethos last season that was announced as us giving players more time. U18s will be allowed to stay there until they age out (instead of being pushed up a year early as was the norm previously) or until they become dominant at that level. In tandem with that weâve been aggressive in the youth transfer market in a way we havenât been since probably Rodolpho Borrellâs revamp back around 2010.
I think a word we will become more familiar with is âpathwaysâ. Young players and their advisors are increasingly conscious of their ability to progress at a club. If you canât offer them a clear pathway with a defined plan to reach first team football then they will go somewhere that does - and this is getting earlier and earlier. Just this week weâve seen about a dozen of the best U14 players in the country de-register from their clubs to seek opportunities elsewhere. These werenât released, this is players (or parents) cancelling their registration and taking their kids to other clubs who are offering a pathway to the first team even for a 14 year old.
When you canât compete financially enough to sign 3/4 first team players every year then you have to make them yourself. It would appear Liverpool are trying to get a jump on that situation. The nice consequence is that the top academy players probably are going to have much better first team chances than they would have otherwise - because we will making significant financial investments into them at 15/16 years old with an expectation that they become first team players sooner rather than later.
But I predict that the days of us waiting for a player to move from (for example) Accrington Stanley â Blackburn â West Ham and then we take them from West Ham are probably over because anyone decent is 80m+ minimum seemingly. We are probably going to be looking to target those lads at Accrington instead and try to develop them ourselves.
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He was excellent against Brazil, the player that stood out for me and I hadnât heard about him before watching the game.
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He has been one to watch and buy for a year or so. I suspect that ship has sailed with the WC.
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Itâs also a strategy that could backfire as they have players on massive contracts. A serious injury or decline in form could leave them with an expensive liability.
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It also gives them a group of players who knowingly screwed over their old clubs to join. I wonder why they are dressing room issues?
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Youd think so but clubs get it wrong constantly
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Or I should clarify, the days of signing those players is not over but the days of signing 5 of them in one window probably is. Itâs likely to be targetting 1 maybe 2 first teamers and then scooping up the best U18s in the world and offering them chances very quickly.
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Ibou says hi! 
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He has already played at Anfield as well at a very young age in Champions League no less, so I hope it made an impression on him! Due to timezone, I couldnât watch him play against Brazil - reports are all saying he absolutely bossed it.
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hope not
Well he is one player whose fitness has bothered me for a couple of years. Not in terms of injury avoidance, but just lasting 90 minutes. I have wondered if there is an underlying metabolic issue with him. A bit like Götze.
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More detailed and eloquently said than my ramblings.
I see why we have one Poster of the Year award between us.
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https://x.com/GraemeBailey/status/2066133461824397483
like a lot of folks have said on here, with so much to do this summer, pricing is going to be an issue
Pricing is going to be an issue but I remain unconvinced we are interested in Scott. A good player but we have midfielders that can do what he does already. Feels like the media just making up links and going with the easy choice of Iraolaâs former players.
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Heâs only 18 and his price is 60 million. Bloody Nora. Games gone etc.
Arsenal have started talks about signing 18-year-old Lille midfielder Ayyoub Bouaddi, who helped Morocco to a 1-1 draw with Brazil in his countryâs opening game of the 2026 World Cup. (Times - subscription required), external
Liverpool are also in negotiations for Bouaddi, while Chelsea and Paris St-Germain have been monitoring the player who might cost at least ÂŁ60m. (Talksport)
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