Appears my Vlahovic fancy is coming to an end. Atletico really has €70M to spend? What a move for him.
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They pay some stupendous amount for players not worth even half the amount. I seriously suspect they have something going on behind these deals.
As for Fiorentina… 
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As a squad depth option on a cheap deal that could offer something more direct at CF would anybody be happy to bring in Odsonne Edouard if/when Shaqiri moves on?
People keep talking about Barca players like Pedri we should think about trying for, taking advantage of the situation over there. But what about Ansu Fati? Entered last year of his contract and can they even extend it at the moment? He’s phenomenal, like when Sterling broke through here but a bit better! Then we could have him and Kaide Gordon developing behind the current front 4 ready to be our star forwards for years to come (not that Fati isn’t already a star capable of starting when needed already, just you know Klopp would introduce him slowly and develop him so much further). I often hear things like we don’t sign the Mbappes of this world we try to sign the next Mbappe but we don’t really, we sign promising players a few steps away from being the next Mbappe and they then have more steps to fail at. In Fati we could sign the actual, best placed player, to potentially be the next Mbappe. Usually he’d be completely off the table but with him just returning from a major injury and the chaos going on there financially maybe he could be an option. I’m surprised he’s not being linked to everyone to be honest.
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? (Narrator’s voice). We literally tried to sign Mbappe…
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… a couple of steps before he became “THE” Mbappe.
Literally about a year or two before he was sold for over £100m. We wanted him precisely at the point he was about to break out. Do you really think Liverpool aren’t constantly trying to do that? Of course we are, it’s practically our modus operandi.
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That’s my point we target kids when they’re young and promising, hoping that bringing them in they can take the next FEW steps with us and become the next big thing. Really not sure we’ve signed a “next big thing” the step before for quite some time. The more steps to go in their development the more likely we end up with an Ibe, Kent or Pacheco instead of a Sterling to use actual examples. If (and only my suggestion of him being someone I’d buy so probably wouldn’t be) we bought Fati we really would be buying the “next big thing/Mbappe/Messi” etc. for once instead of a kid several stages away from it in his development but with the potential to be it. Closest we’ve come to signing “next big thing” territory in quite a while is probably Salah or Elliott. Salah was ready for that step but went to Chelsea instead of here, went to Italy, got his career back on track, came here and surprised everyone by finally taking that step a few years late. Elliott was only a step or two away and I’ve got a good feeling he’s taken those steps now and ready to be it this season. But most of our recent signings have either been in their 20s already or gone into our academy because they aren’t the finished product. Guys like Camavinga and Fati are the next whatevers.
Totally disagree.
Mané has taken off since signing for us, Robertson has gone from relegation obscurity to the best LB in the world, Salah went from Roma thinking they’d ripped us off, to being one of the most prolific strikers the PL has ever seen, Coutinho went from £8m talent to £142m cash bonanza, we’ve tried to get Mbappé just at the point you seem to be saying we never try to sign someone about to develop into…well, HIM. You could even include the likes of Sturridge, Torres, Suarez…we tried for Aguero as well.
I really think you’re way off base here.
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Add Dembele to that list. We missed out on him when he went to Dortmund and although he has not gone on to have the career many thought he would, there is no doubt he was considered a top talent. I would also include Keita. We made him an offer to be part of our squad which he turned down before having a fantastic season leading to us buying him. There will be plenty of top talented youngsters we have had conversations with but have been unable to get the deal closed for a variety of reasons.
We also tried to sign Pulisic for £11m before he developed to a ‘£50m player’.
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Plenty more you can add to that list. Fabinho, Konate (we hope), Keita, you could even go back further and look at Henderson and Suarez.
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Just thinking about those we tried for and missed out on in recent years, Sane before his move to City, Sancho, Bellingham too before he went to Dortmund.
So maybe the question should be rephrased as, why don’t we succeed in obtaining this players?
Is it simply because you can only have a pathway for one or two of these elite future talents in to any one top team at a time?
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There’s a lot of competition for them, the environment for them to break out is better at a club like Dortmund…there are a whole host of reasons but not trying to sign them isn’t one of them!
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Agree 100%. Its a limited space issue.
These talents need to play to make that final step.
So, we brought Trent through from the academy, and we have Harvey. Is there room at present for any more?
(I’m sort of playing devil’s advocate here)
I think there is in CM midfield and potentially up front (through the middle). For a Camavinga or Bellingham although you could argue that even though they’re 18 they’ve already broken out.
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Err think I’m being misunderstood, guys in their twenties or who are surprisingly good after their moves can’t be “the next big thing”! To fit that category they’ve got to be widely recognised as a young player about to become a huge star with the next step of their career. You sign them and they make that step with you. Think the impact of Salah from Roma if he’d been 18-21 at the time and everyone was predicting big things for him.
If the argument is " we don’t sign the Mbappes of this world we sign guys nobody wanted and turn them into stars or develop our own kids into stars" I 100% agree that’s what we do. But what I often see is “we don’t sign the Mbappes of this world we sign the next Mbappe” which isn’t what I feel we do. The obvious contenders out there for that this summer are lads like Sancho (maybe), Haaland (although maybe it was his move to Dortmund), Bellingham, Camavinga, Fati, Pedri.
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Agree with the age range and understand what you mean. It’s the 17-20 age range you are talking about, or am I way off base
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And there’s a drastic difference between minutes off the bench versus starting week in week out. At the age profiles most of these future stars need to play week in week out. It’s actually really nice we’ve graduated from being a pure selling club model, like a Dortmund/Monaco etc etc, and adapted into our own version where we sustainably buy and also create space for “generational” talents to still play and grow.
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