PODCAST: Leeds 1 Liverpool 6 - Match Reaction & Bellingham talk

We used to be fed there is no budget as such if the right player comes along we absolutely will invest. It's a good point about clubs with revenues smaller than ours can out spend us and United we should at least be able to get close to what they spend in a window every now and then. I cant wait for the next spoonful of jam for next few years. Its nuts to swerve on a player every single club wants and we have a real chance of getting because the owners are frugal as fuck. He could be massive for us, like Klopps tenure because of FSG its going to end up being what ifs, if they only invested that bit more.

Agreed, although I'd say "frugal as fuck" applies to the overall budget rather than not paying out for a specific player. It's up to Klopp how he spends the budget and he's the one not wanting to spend it on Bellingham. 

For example, they didn't stop him spending £80m on Darwin despite him only having had one really impressive season.

They should be making every possible penny available to him this summer, but I think we all know that won't happen. If the budget was £250m would Klopp be walking away from Bellingham? Unlikely.

2 hours ago, dave u said:

Agreed, although I'd say "frugal as fuck" applies to the overall budget rather than not paying out for a specific player. It's up to Klopp how he spends the budget and he's the one not wanting to spend it on Bellingham. 

 

For example, they didn't stop him spending £80m on Darwin despite him only having had one really impressive season.

 

They should be making every possible penny available to him this summer, but I think we all know that won't happen. If the budget was £250m would Klopp be walking away from Bellingham? Unlikely.

£250m? Of course he wont have a budget of a quarter of a billion quid, Dave.

Only Real, and a fucked-up Chelsea have spent that much in a single transfer window. If he gets half that, plus sales, I'd be very happy and think it would be enough. 

23 hours ago, Razoray said:

Someone posted on here today that the £75m we paid for Van Dijk in 2018 is equivalent to £130m today. I realise there is a cost of living crisis in the UK but there is no way that the cost of anything should rise by 58% in 5 and a half years. 

 

That may have been me and if so it wasn't meant in inflationary terms.  It was in response to someone saying FSG don't spend big and I replied that they do [when they sell big] and made a comparison between the the size of the VVD transfer and the potential Bellingham transfer, in terms of the high profile nature of the signing, plus inflation, plus English tax, plus age comparison, plus midfielders & forwards tend to cost more.  Thus bridging the gap between 75 and 120.

p.s. nearly everything in the UK has gone up by 58% or more in the space of the last 12 months!

On 19/04/2023 at 00:21, Razoray said:

I know it's still fucking ridiculous but didn't Boehly go into the Chelsea dressing room after the game rather than before? They really are a plastic, shit club. 

 

I read a stat from after their Brighton game that stated that it was the most shots (26) faced by a Chelsea team in a game since 2004. Someone tweeted "most since their formation". I laughed anyway. 

Have you seen the Thiago Silva video where he talks about how all the transfers have unsettled players and it needs to stop? Also said they had to enlarge the change rooms because of the increased squad size.

9 hours ago, Razoray said:

£250m? Of course he wont have a budget of a quarter of a billion quid, Dave.

Only Real, and a fucked-up Chelsea have spent that much in a single transfer window. If he gets half that, plus sales, I'd be very happy and think it would be enough. 

I'm saying he should have, based on what we haven't spent over the years due to 'keeping our powder dry' plus all of the players coming off the wage bill etc.

One of those footy finance nerds did a breakdown on twitter of what we should be able to spend this summer and it was in excess of 200m. @Paul will remember it better than me as he's referenced it a couple of times. Fees aren't paid up front so they wouldn't actually be writing a cheque for 250m, but they should be able to commit to that.

We could spend very big without falling foul of FFP, but it would need to be made available to Klopp and that's where we agree it won't happen.

So my point is that based on what we haven't spent, coupled with the record income thats been coming in, we should be able to afford Bellingham plus a couple more.

1 hour ago, CapeRed said:

Have you seen the Thiago Silva video where he talks about how all the transfers have unsettled players and it needs to stop? Also said they had to enlarge the change rooms because of the increased squad size.

Like something out of Ted Lasso, or Dream Team from the 90s

2 hours ago, dave u said:

 

I'm saying he should have, based on what we haven't spent over the years due to 'keeping our powder dry' plus all of the players coming off the wage bill etc.

 

One of those footy finance nerds did a breakdown on twitter of what we should be able to spend this summer and it was in excess of 200m. @Paul will remember it better than me as he's referenced it a couple of times. Fees aren't paid up front so they wouldn't actually be writing a cheque for 250m, but they should be able to commit to that.

 

We could spend very big without falling foul of FFP, but it would need to be made available to Klopp and that's where we agree it won't happen.

 

So my point is that based on what we haven't spent, coupled with the record income thats been coming in, we should be able to afford Bellingham plus a couple more.

I hope you are wrong but fear you will be right.

I'd be amazed if we could afford Bellingham and remain totally unconvinced that we'll be spending a minimum of £110-£120m net in the summer.  

It's almost impossible for me to imagine we'll be spending more than £70-90m net under the circumstances.

35 minutes ago, Moo said:

I'd be amazed if we could afford Bellingham and remain totally unconvinced that we'll be spending a minimum of £110-£120m net in the summer.  

It's almost impossible for me to imagine we'll be spending more than £70-90m net under the circumstances.

Net spend is completely meaningless. Check out Swiss Ramble on Twitter for a detailed analysis of our finances relating to FFP and what we can afford. 

1 hour ago, Paul said:

Net spend is completely meaningless. Check out Swiss Ramble on Twitter for a detailed analysis of our finances relating to FFP and what we can afford. 

You may consider it meaningless in financial terms but if it means selling Salah, for example, to fund purchases then it's meaningful.

Even financially it demonstrates the spend on top of money brought in from sales, that has relevance.

Do you still think we're spending £250m in the summer (whether net or gross)?

1 hour ago, Paul said:

Net spend is completely meaningless. Check out Swiss Ramble on Twitter for a detailed analysis of our finances relating to FFP and what we can afford. 

I don’t think it’s meaningless at all. It might not be entirely accurate to use overall transfer fees as a direct net spend comparison because of amortisation but it’s still relevant to some degree.

5 hours ago, dave u said:

 

I'm saying he should have, based on what we haven't spent over the years due to 'keeping our powder dry' plus all of the players coming off the wage bill etc.

 

One of those footy finance nerds did a breakdown on twitter of what we should be able to spend this summer and it was in excess of 200m. @Paul will remember it better than me as he's referenced it a couple of times. Fees aren't paid up front so they wouldn't actually be writing a cheque for 250m, but they should be able to commit to that.

 

We could spend very big without falling foul of FFP, but it would need to be made available to Klopp and that's where we agree it won't happen.

 

So my point is that based on what we haven't spent, coupled with the record income thats been coming in, we should be able to afford Bellingham plus a couple more.

is that SwissRamble ? He’s great, very detailed and informative.

Interesting comment to his LFC 21/22 accounts post from one particular twitter user, maybe we should get the lad on here …. ;)

20 hours ago, Brownie said:

I don’t think it’s meaningless at all. It might not be entirely accurate to use overall transfer fees as a direct net spend comparison because of amortisation but it’s still relevant to some degree.

To arbitrarily just ignore wages, which is by far the higher expenditure at a club like ours, renders it completely meaningless. It also doesn’t refer to income, agent fees or player bonuses or any other costs directly related to player spending whatsoever. The only way to meaningfully assess a club’s spending is to look at the accounts. Anything else just leads to a completely distorted view.
 

You might as well compare pigs and bananas if you use net spend to compare what Liverpool and, say, Villa spend on players. Look at Haaland. Lazy pundits widely describe him as a bargain at £60m compared to Darwin at £85m. However, he’s on treble the wages and there was a £40m fee paid to his agent. Net spend says City have got a bargain when in actually fact he’s probably the most expensive player in PL history. 

20 hours ago, Moo said:

 

You may consider it meaningless in financial terms but if it means selling Salah, for example, to fund purchases then it's meaningful.

Even financially it demonstrates the spend on top of money brought in from sales, that has relevance.

Do you still think we're spending £250m in the summer (whether net or gross)?

 

I’ve never said we will spend. I’ve said we can. I also think Klopp intend to do lots of business. What that eventually adds up to is unknowable, but I think it will be big. If it isn’t Klopp will be under pressure in my view as the money will be there. As he’s basically said himself, we’ve got the money for Bellingham but we want to spend it differently. 

52 minutes ago, Paul said:

I’ve never said we will spend. I’ve said we can. I also think Klopp intend to do lots of business. What that eventually adds up to is unknowable, but I think it will be big. If it isn’t Klopp will be under pressure in my view as the money will be there. As he’s basically said himself, we’ve got the money for Bellingham but we want to spend it differently. 

You believe he has the money available for Bellingham on top of, say, another £100m-£120m to buy a few other players. And if so he'll choose not to do the Bellingham deal? So you basically think ~£250m will be made available for Klopp to spend in transfer fees this summer?

Because I don't think Klopp has said that at all.

1 hour ago, Paul said:

To arbitrarily just ignore wages, which is by far the higher expenditure at a club like ours, renders it completely meaningless. It also doesn’t refer to income, agent fees or player bonuses or any other costs directly related to player spending whatsoever. The only way to meaningfully assess a club’s spending is to look at the accounts. Anything else just leads to a completely distorted view.
 

You might as well compare pigs and bananas if you use net spend to compare what Liverpool and, say, Villa spend on players. Look at Haaland. Lazy pundits widely describe him as a bargain at £60m compared to Darwin at £85m. However, he’s on treble the wages and there was a £40m fee paid to his agent. Net spend says City have got a bargain when in actually fact he’s probably the most expensive player in PL history. 

So it’s not that Net spend isn’t valid, it’s that in isolation without considering wages, agent fees etc it doesn’t mean anything.

To be valid, we should consider net spend to be holistic including those items ?

Great POD, especially about Bellingham and the midfield spot on lads.also the Scouting team getting some of these cheap rough diamonds like Brighton and Benfica do.

A lot of talk about why our season has been the way it is, can’t work out why we’re so up and down. But I think you touched on it when talking about Jota.

He was awful but once he scored his tail was up, confidence flowing and he looked a lot better and I think that’s the same for the team. I’m sure it’s been done to death on here this season so apologies if I’m repeating others view.

Since the start of 22 we’ve seldom started a game on fire, as we used too, but at the back end of 21/22 season we kept going behind but had that inner belief, confidence and trophies to chase the mentality monsters to turn it around. This season we’ve just not had that as we go in the pitch and being reactionary.
 

With a lack of off season, the whole physiological blow of not getting the CL and Prem last season, plus a short off season have all created a perfect storm, add in the injuries and we’re just low on belief and confidence.
 

This season we’ve started games looking bereft of shape, drive and without confidence, lacking that inner belief and therefore the on field actions have driven our success. In those games like Brentford, Wolves, Brighton, Bournemouth we were poor and as soon as we conceded whatever confidence we had went and we capitulated with heavy losses on the flip side when we nick that goal, we’ve got that boost and kicked on hence the big wins at United, Bournemouth, Rangers and Leeds.

We need that offseason to boost the energy and mental sharpness to enable us to regain the confidence.