I honestly believe we don’t have a scouting system in place, nothing like there used to be anyway. As you say, there will be a right back out there, who is good enough to play at the highest level. Someone from the club just needs to do the hard work and find him.
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I’d imagine we do our hard work scouting wise with data/stats. Then once players who stand out are found, scouts are then sent to watch games and speak to people familiar with the player.
Plenty of our scouts are spotted at games (have seen them on X pictured at games, then Chelsea banning our scouts from youth games, and finally seeing seats booked at games alongside clubs like Man City, Dortmund etc.).
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We brought in a lot of young players last season. Pecsi, Wright, Adekoya, Mor Talla Ndiaye and Ndukwe. I doubt we make those sort of moves without a scouting system in place.
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Indy is saying what I want to hear (Rayan) and also what I don’t (Barcola). I therefore only half believe him.
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Hardly my point though is it?. How many of those young lads can be compared to the signing of Robbo then? Already played 170 games in Scotland and for Hull who were relegated to League 1 when we signed him. He was 23..
How many others can you name in say the last 20 years that are similar signings from lower league clubs?
Our history is full of signings like that who went on to win multiple trophies 
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Robbo was probably the biggest bargain in the club’s history. It’s a bit unfair to compare other transfers to that one.
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First I wasn’t directly responding to only you and more to the thread going through yours and Wooltons post about doubting we have scouts or a scouting system anymore. That you don’t like how we use our scouts or scouting system now is not the same as not having them.
For the rest of your post, I don’t have a strong opinion. So I didn’t respond to it but if you do want an opinion, none of those players we signed compare to Robbo but they could compare to Joe Gomez, who would have been an amazing signing if it wasn’t for his injury problems.
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We sign unknown players all the time. Munoz was as much of an unknown quantity to the vast majority of Liverpool fans as any Championship player. So were Doak and Ramsay, among others, coming from Scotland.
Our scouting network is more extensive than ever. Our recruiting process is more thorough and exhaustive than ever.
The reason we are not buying players from the lower leagues is that 99% of them aren’t good enough.
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Reyes Cleary was released by West Brom 12 months ago after a 6 goal loan spell with Hartlepool in the National League. Before that he failed to get a game at Walsall. He may become a PL standard player,and I hope he does because I always liked watching him in the West Brom youth teams but he isn’t someone that would pop to us as an option given that hes already aged out of U21 football.
And maybe I’m taking you too literally but the chances there is a RB in the Championship capable of coming in and starting are not that great. There are 24 starting RBs in the CH. We can probably assume that anyone older than 24 has missed the boat for top PL clubs so that only leaves 6 guys 23 or younger who start at CH level - that includes Alfie Gilchrist and Kaine Kesler-Hayden who were let go by Chelsea and Villa after failing to make the breakthrough there. That leaves 4 guys…
- Max Johnston at Derby who couldn’t start for this terrible Scotland team
- Terry Devlin at Portsmouth who doesn’t start for Northern Ireland
- Kellen Fisher at Norwich (who I would say has the best chance of all) is coming off just one season of starting for Norwich and has only 2 U21 caps for England.
- Junior Tchamedeu at Stoke. Not a youth international, only starts about 50% of Stoke games.
So really the pool of players is tiny who could be targets realistically. Robbo is just a freak outlier, not an indicator that there are dozens of Champions League players being ignored by PL teams.
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I would say Munoz does demonstrate perfectly we don’t know what they are working on behind the scenes. Even when it seems they are off somewhere else.
No clubs getting a good pre season so we should relax and see how the dust settles. I’d be very against flogging players were we have gaps such as VVD and to be fair even Alisson.
Keep them and do the ground work we need to do and then we should know how Jacquet, Leoni and the young ones we brought in are developing. Schlotterbeck would have been my number one choice but we probably leave that now. Though I do think it’s key we seek out a CB this window.
One of my major concerns was a manager who didn’t seem keen on using squad players. I don’t think Iraola will be talking about small squads.
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I highly doubt Championship players are bargains any more. Probably most are English or classed as home grown so up goes the premium.
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I’ve just seen that Leeds are linked to Shea Charles for £25m which feels good value to me. I’m manifesting it for us now. He can play at the back too, so would be a handy young player.
I do get what you are saying and I respect your opinions. I guess I get frustrated with the likes of a Chiesa signing. I knew nothing about him and he may well have been a top prospect once but the Chiesa we bought appears to have forgotten everything he ever learnt about football.
Also (and I am not asking you to do any more research on my behalf 
) I am frustrated that we have to sign a Georgian goalkeeper as our Alisson replacement.
As an England and Scotland supporter, at least during World Cups, I am equally frustrated at the dwindling pool of players we can choose from and especially in that position.
I know I am an old fart but I am glad that I lived through the era when Liverpool (and Everton) sides won top honours stacked full of scousers and Welsh, Irish and Scots. I am sorry those days have gone for ever. I just don’t have the same affinity for LFC now as I can’t relate to the players. Robbo was a throw back to a previous era and I miss that and I will miss him.
Rant over…
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I’m biased here but I think Shea is a super player. Can’t believe a lower level PL team haven’t come in for him yet. Not sure if Liverpool standard but certainly he and Bradley are the outstanding players for NI. Trai Hume and Ballard also but Shea Charles stands out amongst that group
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I’m a relative fan of Alex Scott but the time to buy him was when he stepped up to Bournemouth.
He obviously had talent at Bristol. Though 60m is being touted currently I’d still be interested at that. I do think we’d enter any race if our manager (sorry fuck head coach) is interested.
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Well I can agree with you on that and its part of the reason I really can’t stand the idea of selling Jones that we already got rid of Quansah. We developed local talent capable of starting and contributing to PL winning squads then we just flog them to make room for other players who perhaps aren’t even better than them.
If Slot had stayed and Jones had gone I was on the berge of checking out altogether. Iraola at least gives me some hope that we’ll give local talents a chance again but it is difficult to feel the same connection thesedays.
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The thing with Championship players is the step up from there to a Palace or Bournemouth is a leap, the step up to a CL club with title challenge aspirations is enormous.
We’ve seen some good players come up through the Championship in the last few years and not just from the PL clubs heading down. Wharton, Scott, João Pedro, Bellingham, Eze but rarely do they go straight to a big club. That’s because for everyone one of those there’s countless examples who fail to bridge that quality gap. Ryan Sessegnon, Tyler Dibbling, Lavia, Omari Hutchinson, Jacob Greaves, Jaden Philogene, Cameron Archer, Romain Esse, the list goes on and on.
So whilst we absolutely lucked out with Robertson at the time we were able to roll the dice on a very cheap gamble. Now, as soon as a big club goes sniffing the price jumps. That’s why we’re shopping for young players like Nyoni from Leicester before they make that breakthrough.
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What’s your take on Sunderland’s recruitment? A lot of their players seem to be doing quite well at the WC
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There was a day when they were second in the standings for goals scored at the WC