Now who is strawmanning?
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The big point being missed is transfers need to be evaluated alongside wages… Fee’s are never usually the issue (bar maybe the payment structure) but our wage budget is probably at our max levels. From what I’ve read it’s why we backed off Sancho.
For the midfielder & forward we want I’d expect we need to shift on 4 players and then would have around £200k per week to split between the two new players. Jota for example is meant to be on around £75k.
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If you read fans comments here and elsewhere, listen to podcasts and such, there is a constant clamour for more signings and more money to be spent on players. For half the squad to be fucked off every season.
Saying that fan expectations around signings don’t tally with what Klopp wants isn’t strawmanning in the slightest.
When I’ve done the Everton cup, everyone taking part sell loads of player and end up buying loads in. We never do the business that fans want us to do.
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Nice discussion chaps, but who would you buy though?
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But it was mostly and we won’t be seeing a spend like that period again without a huge sale preceding it.
We were all pretty chuffed we only had to pay £5m up front for Jota last summer but that means there’s a pretty big bill still left to pay on him plus whatever the cost of Thiago installments and the £34m up front to pay for Konate.
We might be able to spend more than normal if we shift all the deadwood fast and for decent fees but that’s not really looking likely at the moment. Even then we won’t come close to that two window period of Virg, Alisson, Fabinho and Naby.
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Why won’t we?
Maybe I’m missing something here but a club that’s able to spend nearly £200m net over two seasons, increase revenues whilst paying that expenditure off, then isn’t able to match that level of spending once the payments are finished then something is up.
Our annual revenues have gone up. Last year we were paying out around £50m on that expenditure we are talking about, the previous two years around £100m but getting maybe around £40 from the Coutinho sale to help towards it. The year before £50m out helped specifically by the £40m from Coutinho (bringing that up because you are focused on how that one deal helped us). Now during those financial years in between we’ve hardly spent much for a club with our revenues, even the Thiago and Jota expenditure is more than covered by incoming money from the sales we’ve made since.
So a £50m outgoing bill is finished being paid, we’ve increased revenues, if we can’t now take on a financial commitment to match that £50m per year without increasing it or it needing to come from elsewhere something has gone quite wrong.
We’ve got an awful lot of sales to make, an awful lot before the actual squad sees any reduction. Those lists are obviously going to be bigger. We’ve actually been both good and bad at selling recently, good because we get unexpectedly good fees, bad because we don’t get as many players off the books because we stick to those valuations. I don’t think many want that many players in. Probably 3/4 more maximum.
Because part of the money that covers off that spending comes from selling Coutinho for about £140m. That’s why I keep mentioning him, his sale is integral to the spending that followed and I’ve no idea why you want to try and refute that fact. And the thing that is up is the wage bill. Significantly. What’s down that I don’t see mentioned in your workings out is the revenue decrease from all the coivd stuff.
Thiago was £20-£25m. Jota up to £45m. Tsimikas about £11m. Total £75m or thereabouts. We sold Lovren for about £10m and Brewster for about £24m. Few million here or there on loan fees and academy kids. Let’s be generous and call it £10m. By my maths that’s about £30m short of your “more than covered by incoming money from the sales we’ve made since” so forgive me if I don’t trust your other maths here.
However you want to chop it up, the sale of Coutinho is directly linked to the spending in that period. And given the fact we aren’t looking like we’ll make a sale of that size again this summer, the state of the wage bill and the covid linked revenue losses, there’s even less chance we see a spend close to that period you’re focussed on.
Camavinga and Mbappe, please. 
The finances are not my problem all I want is a sqaud that Klopp can shape into a winning unit.
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When Coutinho was sold we had already bought or tried to buy what we did that year. Coutinho getting sold then meant that was mostly recovered straight away so the following year we could then strengthen again. But to sat without selling Coutinho for £140m means we couldn’t have spent anything is nonsense. £140m doesn’t cover over £300m in purchases. If we’d kept Coutinho or lost him for nothing we still spend significantly over those two summers.
Looking at the accounts year at a time. Like FSG does. Having profits or losses in one year doesn’t impact the revenues of the year before or after. What we are now looking at is this summers spending which will be in the 2021/22 accounts which look like they will only have minimal influence from the pandemic.
Wages have gone up, that’s one of the drawbacks of an inflated squad and one of the main reasons I’ve stated elsewhere that nobody will be coming in till we can get people off the squad list/wage bill. That’s a different matter to whether we have cash to spend on transfer bills.
Since our last big spending seasons we’ve recouped roughly £75m in sales and spent roughly £85m in purchases so you were right we haven’t quite cleared what we’ve spent.
No-one we have no money, close the thread. FSG OUT!
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Not sure of the forensic nature of some of the discussion here. Broadly speaking, we are a club that lives to its means. We have bought some more expensive players, after saving up, or more specifically, after getting a large fee for Coutinho. And we have bought some cheaper players or brought some through from the kids to the first team. It’s a brilliant operation.
We have had lots of hits, hence we are competitive at the very top after spending a lot less on transfers than a few of our rivals.
We have had some misses, usually not disastrously so, but definitely a couple who didn’t quite live up to expectations. Selling our fringe players would have been easier in a non covid environment. Usually we ask a good price, and the reasoning is that protects the club, so we aren’t seen as pushovers who will give good players away for peanuts. That model will obviously be tested in this financial environment as there is less overall business being done.
As for Klopp, he likes a tight group, and he likes to grow it organically. He isn’t a check book manager, but on the other hand, of course he will welcome a good signing or two.
Konate is one such player, this summer. Let’s see what he becomes, but I have a strong suspicion that in a couple of years he will be deemed a bargain. Can we buy another at a similar level, for either midfield or attack? Or preferably both?
Might depend on sales. We could do with a midfielder and a striker to my mind, but if we have to go too low down the pecking order, due to budget and availability of players, we might stick with what we’ve got, as you have to be a good player to improve on the group we have.
Midfielder and striker for me please Jurgen.
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Nope. Summer before Coutinho went the net spend was about £50m. Coutinho is sold and Van Dijk arrives in the same week in January. Then follows the summer where we spend in excess of £160m whilst recouping only about £30m. That is where the Coutinho money goes.
Literally never said this or suggested this to be the case.
You have no idea what FSG do and you’ve shown you’re no accountant on numerous occasions so let’s not pretend you and the club are on the same page here.
So what happens in the set of accounts which were affected by the pandemic and we still had a significant net spend? We just ignore that.
It’s not the inflated squad, it’s the quality of the squad we have and the cost of keeping good players here and paying them bonuses for the success they achieve. We will reduce it by selling some players but we will add to it by improving and extending deals too. That is a hugely limiting factor in what we can do.
I’m not going to say any more on this. It’s pretty obvious your maths doesn’t add up to even basic scrutiny. I doubt there’s many expecting us to be able to spend anywhere close to what you’re suggesting given the only times we ever spent to that level have come immediately after the sales of star players for enormous fees and that doesn’t appear to be on the agenda this summer.
I can see both sides on this. Virgil was all but done in the summer, only for Werner to mess it up. That transfer was delayed to January, but we’d already made that commitment prior to selling Coutinho.
However, it could be that we were happy to make that commitment because we knew at some point over the next year some money would be coming in for Coutinho.
I was told that the transfer market would go on with nary a beat missed this summer, and I was wrong to think we’d struggle to sell because teams are skint.
Still waiting and hoping to be wrong about this, but I’m still not convinced. It all looks really sluggish, and I think that we are going to find it very difficult to shift Origi, Grujic, Wilson, Awoniyi, and Phillips. I just don’t think the market is there for them. The usual buyers for these lads are not spending.
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We tried to sign Virgil that summer but would we have gone ahead with other purchases in that window had we secured him then? Maybe, maybe not because we wouldn’t have had the cash too. And, would he have cost £75m in that summer window or did we pay a premium to get it done in January and to make Southampton willing to deal with us again after we pissed them off?
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From memory, I think we had to lob another £15m at Southampton to get it done. The story I’ve heard in a few places is that Klopp was balking at that price and wanted to walk away - it was Henry and Edwards who told him not to worry about the money. He’s that good.
I don’t know how the Summer would have played out had Van Dijk been landed when planned. I do think Klopp would have been backed to build ‘his team’, and a large part of that would have been that the club knew that the Coutinho money would be cashed at some point (although quite how much Barca gave us might have facilitated more/better players).
I also think fans are a bit guilty of looking at fees and doing a simple in/out balance to work out how much we’re spending or not spending. It’s obviously a lot more complicated than this.
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I don’t get where the conversation is coming from. There is absolutely no chance Pedri is going anywhere. Not only is he considered a currently important player to Barca, someone who would start a CL final for them if they were to play in one tomorrow, but getting rid of him will do absolutely nothing to address their salary issue.
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But the Van Dijk deal was set to go through the summer before - it was only when Werner got pissed and started running his gob that Saints got pissed and pulled out of the deal - we didn’t need to sell Coutinho for Virg.
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I think there was an acceptance that Phil would go soon after when we “agreed” to the initial 50m fee. Who knows if that played a role in us being willing to go that high at that point, but it certainly seems a reasonable speculation.
However, what has been very credibly reported was that once the deal fell through and the new price for virgil was determined Klopp was ready to walk away and it was his bosses he convinced him to pull the trigger. Again, this decision was made with the much more tangible understanding of money that the impending sale of Phil would bring in. Cause and effect or simply decisions that were independent and happened at the same time? Who knows for sure, but I think it’s pretty reasonable conclusion to come to that it was cause and effect given how rapidly what we were willing to pay increased.
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