I don’t know what’s opposite of red-tinted glasses but I think that’s what’s going on with the likes of Mane and Stevie because of their moves to Saudi Arabia. Not that I’m in favour of that, to be clear, but reading comments like this, one would think that Mane was stealing a living here - the reality is that without his stellar debut season, there would be no Salah or Van Dijk at Liverpool. Not to mention his later exploits…
Aside from Salah, who’s been playing for quite a while in a league reserved for the likes of Kenny, Rush and Stevie, we haven’t had a winger of Mane’s quality since McManaman. Diaz doesn’t come close for most of the time. I’d be heavily focusing on getting Liverpool’s attack right this summer if it was up to me.
It’s funny how people’s memories differ. Mané was incredible for us. My memories are of countless matches where he was both our best attacker and best defender.
Diaz hasn’t come close to replacing him IMO, though I never put that expectation on him
The stars seem to be aligning for a big summer, to set us up for the next cycle of success under Slot. It would be fantastic if he wins the league at his first attempt, with only 10M Chiesa added to his squad. But then clearly he will have learned a lot about all of them, and will of course have worked along the way with Hughes to talk about how the squad will be shaped for the future.
My best guess is only VVD will renew of the 3 big contracts, but let’s see.
I could see 6 incoming signings, possibly even more.
Centre forward - first choice
Right wing - first choice if Salah goes
Left back - first choice, with Robbo or Tsimikas as the back up
Centre midfield - 5th choice, who will see more action and add to the main 4 options Slot uses
Centre defender - prob a third choice option who will see plenty of action, with a long term view to becoming a main man after VVD
Solanke, Harvey and Ings were all technically free transfers as their contracts were up. Maybe later down the line we had to pay a nominal fee, maybe not. No real difference to paying a signing on/bonus fee for a Milner/Matip.
Solanke, Elliot and Ings were signed subject to tribunal setting a fee (£3m for Solanke, £6m for Ings, £1.5m plus potential further £2.8m in bonuses for Elliott). I’m not sure they were considered ‘nominal’ fees at the time, nor would I equate it to signing bonuses for Matip and Milner given they were established players.
as a reaction for how boring these sort of posts are.