looking at transfermarkt, last season they appear to have brought in players on loan and free transfers while raising around £40m from sales. That might help explain some of their spending
They concluded Werner wasn’t a must buy but rather a nice to have. Those are precisely the kind of moves that are going to get kicked into touch when finances are so significantly affected by an unprecedented global pandemic.
At this point it’s hard to conclude you’re not just being deliberately obtuse.
As has already been pointed out, Werner was wanted when AFCON was set for next January. Given it is no longer going ahead for another year, there was less need to sign him.
I think it fair to also point out that both he and his club pushed for the move to go ahead before the season had officially finished at which time the lack of clarity over finances was at its greatest (and was precisely when the club was considering furloughing its staff).
It’s interesting that I’m listening to the Anfield Wrap and this has literally just come up.
Point being, whatever you personally decide is success determines how much you are going to enjoy supporting Liverpool.
If you’ve decided that finishing second is a disaster, then probably at least two or three out of the next five years are going to be really disappointing for you - because you’ve hitched yourself to a notion that is basically impossible.
If you support PSG or Bayern or Juventus, you can probabanly take the view that finishing second is a poor season because you have no competition in your league and you should win it every year.
But for us, we need to be at peace that we’re not going to win it every year. We’re not. And screaming at the clouds about transfers and your expectations and I want more is not going to change that. This is a league with a genuine top six and 3-4 teams who have the ability, if the chips fall right for them, to win it.
For over a decade Man City have been backed by the sovereign wealth fund of an oil state and cheat, and have managed to win four.
For me the expectation for Liverpool cannot be we win all the big cups every season. Like a KPI at work it’s impossible to meet, it does no-one any good to think in those terms. FSGs responsibility at this point should be to establish Liverpool as genuine competitors every season for the League and The European Cup. That doesn’t mean we win them every year, because no-one can do that.
FSG can’t do anything that guarantees we win the league or the European Cup. They can only put us there or there abouts. In retaining the squad that has delivered so much over the past three seasons, they are doing that. In my opinion, anyway.
But it can equally be stated that not investing in an option for the front three could by itself be a risk.
The point here is that everybody takes risk in one form or the other. Borrowing money to fund transfers may be a risk and a disaster in the future. But it could also be a chance to take advantage of unusually low fees…
My problem is the reflex readiness to adopt any and all narratives that allows one to drink the kool aid from the club…
The club will have considered this and carried out an extensive analysis of all these scenarios.
Werner wasnt available on an unusually low fee (and we can see from what Chelsea paid, it was much higher than most of us had expected), neither is Sancho, and Havertz wasnt particularly cheap. We’ve seen Villa, Newcastle, Leeds and Everton pay out suprising sums for players. We’re not really seeing much evidence this window of unusually low fees.
Firstly let’s stop the kool aid stuff. It’s really disrespectful to other people and needlessly inflammatory.
On your other point, I’m fine with that. If you think the club should be borrowing money to pay for signings then then that‘s sound. I completely disagree with you, and I think it’s a reckless position to take, but I can see where you are coming from.
What it comes down to is whether you believe football is getting back to normal any time soon. If you think the TV and Match Day money taps are coming back on again. My view is that we are a long way away from normality.
All I’ll say is that John Henry and his mates made their billions understanding risk, when to buy and when to sell. I think he knows what he’s doing.
What does confuse me is you saying you back FSGs stewardship of the club, but at the same time standing squarely against their core principles of self sufficiency, sustainability and fiscal prudence. That seems a bit random. Like the arguments I’d have on TIA a couple of years ago with people who said they like Klopp but wish he’d buy more players.
Talk of winning domestic cups always makes me think that we’d have won a couple over the last couple of years as well if we’d had the piss easy draws that City have had.
The difference between us that you see a request from a mod to stop describing people who disagree with you as ‘drinking Kool Aid’ and think it’s a good idea to double down on that.
I think people have been very patient with you, and spent the time explaining things to you that you clearly haven’t read or understood from the information out there. I’d suggest that you take a break from this thread now, before things go too far.