Rice got shown for what he is at West Ham big fish in small pond.
Young - 19 I think, plays in Spain. Had mixed English and American heritage was a bit of a coupe for Bethalter to get him to declare for the US.
More an attacking mid than holding and from what I’ve seen in a handful of national team performances very inconsistent. Not surprising given his age and definitely has a lot of lot talent and potential.
I really think we should buy the most recent guy to have a good game at the world cup.
This is a popular, tried and tested policy that never fails.
Those 3 are great players but this match will demonstrate that spending 100s of millions on Rice and Bellingham does not guarantee success. Cheaper and equally effective, if not better, are always out there.
Agreed. Ever since El Haj Diouf and Salif Diao were signed on the back of Senegal beating France at the 2002 WC (instead of that proven slow goal misser Anelka and to replace lumpen cloggers Litmanen and Barmby) I’ve always felt the buy whomever makes a splash at the world cup is the best strategy. That we were beaten to James Rodriguez by Everton (they move fast over there - it only took them six years) still pains me and I do wonder what may have been if we had signed him to keep AOC and Keita company.
Maguire was culpable for the USA’s best chance when, he was busy hugging their player rather than defending and the ball went past him to Mckennie who blazed it over
Bernard Diomede was a World Cup winner.
How can you doubt this policy.
Oddly his career collapsed after he played 2 games for us.
It was Keita’s fault and FSG who did not invest to build up the rest of the squad after signing a superstar in Diomede
Bellingham.
I know England as a whole were poor last night, but I’d expect to see something more from a player who’s value is being talked about as somewhere in the region of £130 million.
Transfer fees are not about how good a player is; they’re about how stupid a buyer is.
Proof: Harry Maguire £80m and Jack Grealish £100m
Real signed him and it turned out to be not a great move.
Real were ahead of us at the time and maybe James would’ve been good for us, we don’t know, that’s all theory, but…
Football has moved on, if we’re signing a player vastly based on WC form, then honestly, we’re doing something wrong in our day to day work.
All these players should be known to our network, WC form can only influence a decision in a smaller capacity.
You think Litmanen was a lumpen clogger? I suppose that’s…well…an opinion.
This is when it becomes useful to have a world class analytics team, so you don’t end up with a Diouf ever again.
Does it take a world class analytics team to work out that buying the flavour of the month is a bad plan?
Yeah.
Mistakes will still happen, because no matter how good our analytics/decision makers are, nobody can predict the future.
But football has gone on, at least at the level Liverpool operate at.
If we sign the next Smicers, Bergers, Diaos, Dioufs, Diomedes… it will be mostly because we like what they do most of the time for their clubs. Plus maybe in a different context at international level, if they’re good there as well. Important, but not key.
Nothing wrong with Paddy and Vlad
Relative, up for discussion.
I was too young to watch football in 1996. Liked what Berger showed for us, I think he was a success. Needed to be fit, that was unfortunate. Smicer was a bit hot and cold. From what I know and remember, he never really became as important as one would’ve expected/hoped when we signed them. Decent combining player between the lines off the sides, but never dangerous enough to be a constant starter at that level to beat the likes of Arsenal, United, etc.
Some of that money (looked at in the context of time, inflation taken into consideration), we really didn’t get the quality that was wanted/needed. Diao and Diouf meant basically our transfer budget in 2002, after we came close in the league the year before. That was a really shit summer, we then just when backwards until Rafa’s appointment.
No, but it does mean that when someone like Adams or Musah puts out a good performance and they weren’t already on our radar, they can look deeper into their other matches and figure out if they could fit the profile of the type of player who fits in our system.
Although chances are with a world class analytics team, we already have this information.