Report: Liverpool confident of signing Keita to new deal

What is the purpose of the new deal apart from throwing good money after bad?

Seriously? We arent buying anybody in January are we!

Oh good. Another 4 years of underachievement and injuries.

in other news, the grass on the Anfield pitch was mowed again last night. That will contribute more to any success than Keita will.

Fantastic news. Really need to tie Chamberlain down to a new long term deal as well. 

Football Insider.

That gives me hope. 

Is the club fucking stupid? 

Serious question.

The club is a fucking joke. Not prepared to buy players which are needed but happy to either throw money away on the dross already here or considering there is supposedly no money for transfer they seem to let good players leave on a free. 

What does he think he's getting elsewhere if we don't offer him a new deal? A return to RBL on heavily reduced wages at best, surely?

If we offer him like £10k a week with a hefty appearance fee I'd be on board with that. I'd also be on board with just letting him go on a free as well like.

Logically you would think the plan is to just prevent getting nothing for him. 

Give him a new contract and sell him for £20m in the summer and use it towards a midfielder. Possibly a similar approach may happen with Gomez.

However with FSG you just never know, Jürgen may be told there is only budget for 1 new midfielder.

There is no asset here to protect. If this is true then we’re stuck with him for the enitirety of this new contract. No one other than us wants this bum.

Yeah I don't really get the idea behind "protecting his value". Let's say he gets a new deal on 50k a week, that's an amortisation cost of £2.6m a year in the balance sheet. A lot less than he's currently costing, but not nothing.

Instead of doing that we could go sign Hugo Guillamon on a free from Valencia. Or Douglas Luiz from Villa, or Alexis Mac Allister from Brighton. Likely similar wages to Keita, no transfer fee to amortise. Same £2.6m a year on the balance sheet and a lot more output on the pitch.

Btw If you're thinking I've just gone on transfermarkt and randomly selected midfielders available on free transfers, you'd be absolutely correct. That's the point, almost any other top level midfielder in Europe would offer more than Keita these days. Giving him a new contract doesn't protect his value if there is nothing to protect.

37 minutes ago, HBenn said:

Logically you would think the plan is to just prevent getting nothing for him. 

Give him a new contract and sell him for £20m in the summer and use it towards a midfielder. Possibly a similar approach may happen with Gomez.

However with FSG you just never know, Jürgen may be told there is only budget for 1 new midfielder.

Who do you think would pay £20 million for him?

Also why would the player move after signing a new contract when he'd get a much bigger contract offer by moving on a free?

Hearing Harry Kewell might be getting a new contract.

22 minutes ago, Numero Veinticinco said:

Hearing Harry Kewell might be getting a new contract.

Pretty good comparison. 

We’ve let far better players leave for nothing than him. Just what are they smoking at Kirkby. 

Part-payment towards getting Bellingham from Dortmund?

29 minutes ago, MegadriveMan said:

Who do you think would pay £20 million for him?

Also why would the player move after signing a new contract when he'd get a much bigger contract offer by moving on a free?

Well I wouldn't but on the basis a number of our fanbase believe he is a quality player someone might. For all we know interested parties may have been prepared to pay it if he hadn't have been going on a free next summer. 

I can see why he would reject a deal for the reasons you mentioned but I cannot see the logic for the club in offering a deal unless it was to protect his resale value. 

Worst case scenario is they don't expect to be able to bring in more than say 1 midfielder and so are legitimately hoping he can be relied upon, i.e. doing the same thing over and over again. Which I think Einstein said was the definition of insanity. 

He's been a very poor signing. You can only hope its a renewal just so we can make money with a sale.

Personally I don't think the fanbase is split at all and I would love just one journo to do an opinion piece where they said that unless the plan is to sell him in the summer this would be a hugely unpopular move and leave the vast majority of fans questioning the judgement of the club. 

18 minutes ago, Bobby Hundreds said:

He's been a very poor signing. You can only hope its a renewal just so we can make money with a sale.

Who buys him on the higher wages we'll give him with a new contract though?

His value because of his injury record, poor performances and current wages must be really low already. It's stupid to give him another deal. Just accept it hasn't worked out and let him leave.

I wondered why all of the church bells were ringing this morning.

In reality I assume it is a calculator signing. An extra 2 years costs say 10m, so they are gambling they will get more than that when he goes, and with a sticky situation in midfield Jurgen thinks he might get the odd game out of him in the interim.

Is it one for the 'shitness' thread that any fans who are not chartered accountants understand and relate the concept of amortisation to football ?

The club was that desperate to sign him they let him stay at Leipzig for a year and we all had very high hopes that Baby Keith as some called him was going to be a major player for us.

There have been a couple of decent things he's done but on the whole he's flattered to deceive and been a major disappointment.

A disastrous signing that the club shouldn't compound by offering a new contract.

Get rid. The sooner the better.

Maybe we have now replaced all of his dodgy parts and expect him not to break down so much any more.

Is this a fucking joke?