Summer 2022 Transfer Thread

[Moo]

1 minute ago, m0e said:

It was definitely a massive goal "at the time" because we didn't know how it would play out.

 

Now we know how it played out, it wasn't so massive.

 

These are 2 completely different things, the latter of which is revision.

Well I know I wasn't the only one saying at the time "imagine how that's made the teams around us feel, they'll be gutted...and the boost that's given to our players going into the next match" or words to that effect.

That goal and that result contributed to how it played out.  If you don't believe it had any psychological impact either way then fair enough.

[3 Stacks]

1 hour ago, HBenn said:

https://www-independent-co-uk.cdn.ampproject.org/v/s/www.independent.co.uk/sport/football/liverpool-transfer-news-konate-latest-b1853585.html?amp=&amp_gsa=1&amp_js_v=a9&usqp=mq331AQKKAFQArABIIACAw%3D%3D#amp_tf=From %1%24s&aoh=16581806314357&referrer=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.google.com&ampshare=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.independent.co.uk%2Fsport%2Ffootball%2Fliverpool-transfer-news-konate-latest-b1853585.html

 

You know when people raise the issue at the time that isn't hindsight right?

 

Klopp was exasperated by it and clearly was reluctant to play Phillips and Williams at the back as he felt they werent ready. 

 

We agreed a deal for Caleta Carr for £30m and they pulled out because it was too late for them to find a replacement as we left it to the absolute last minute.

 

It isn't too much of a jump to see that Klopp rated him higher than Kabak and Davies as we bid for him first (and is supported by the article above). It isn't too much of a jump to think had he had more confidence in his centre halves he would have played them sooner and put Fabinho back in midfield sooner.

 

Our results picked up when Fabinho back in midfield and he was forced to play Williams and Phillips at centre half. 

 

We went into the season with 3 centre halves, one of which couldn't stay fit at the time (Matip), one of which had a tendency to pick up injuries (Gomez) and one who played every game (Van Dijk). 

 

From memory, a lot of fans said it was a big risk then after letting Lovren go (again, not hindsight). The argument against signing a centre half was the budget only stretched so far. 

 

Same argument was made when Gini went that we ran a risk of being vulnerable to injuries by not replacing our most reliable midfielder. Argument back was that we weren't doing the bare minimum and would address it this summer. 

 

Hopefully all of those budget issues were pandemic driven and the owners have learned from them as budget has not been raised as an issue this summer.

You're not getting what I'm saying. If you were saying we had a problem that summer, that would have been correct and not hindsight. But to pretend spending on a defender in January would have had us do better, is.

 

Caleta-Car isn't good. He would have possibly been a smidge better than Phillips, especially as he would have been adapting to a new team and league. He's a decent french league defender at best.

 

And as had been said numerous times, the midfield and our problems in defense that year are incomparable. If you're waiting for the club to learn something that isn't "don't start a season with insufficient numbers at a position group" you'll be waiting a while.

[m0e]

3 minutes ago, Moo said:

Well I know I wasn't the only one saying at the time "imagine how that's made the teams around us feel, they'll be gutted...and the boost that's given to our players going into the next match" or words to that effect.

That goal and that result contributed to how it played out.  If you don't believe it had any psychological impact either way then fair enough.

Did you believe:

 

1- at least one of Leicester and Chelsea were dropping points when they actually played each other next?

 

2- we were going to beat Burnley away regardless of our result versus West Brom?

 

3- we were going to beat Palace at home?

 

4- Leicester were not going to swing a double digit goal difference v Spurs?

 

I did, and I'm certainly not in the minority.

[TheHowieLama]

1 minute ago, m0e said:

Did you believe:

 

1- at least one of Leicester and Chelsea were dropping points when they actually played each other next?

 

2- we were going to beat Burnley away regardless of our result versus West Brom?

 

3- we were going to beat Palace at home?

 

4- Leicester were not going to swing a double digit goal difference v Spurs?

 

I did, and I'm certainly not in the minority.

That must have been a nice acca - how much did you win?

[Moo]

19 minutes ago, m0e said:

Did you believe:

 

1- at least one of Leicester and Chelsea were dropping points when they actually played each other next?

 

2- we were going to beat Burnley away regardless of our result versus West Brom?

 

3- we were going to beat Palace at home?

 

4- Leicester were not going to swing a double digit goal difference v Spurs?

 

I did, and I'm certainly not in the minority.

2. No, absolutely not, especially not going into those final few moments before the Allison header.  It was far from certain.

 

3. No guarantees there either.

 

The rest aren't worth answering.

It certainly felt like you were not in the majority at the time but that all depends on personal perspective of course.

 

 

 

[FrenchEyeGlass]

Who gives a flying fuck how momentous Allison's last gasp winner was in the grand scheme of CL qualification, the point remains that the club (see: owners) were a disgrace in how little it invested before the season started and whilst it was under way.

 

Most fans on here alone were shouting that we needed another CB before the season started (3 stacks, please learn the difference between hindsight and foresight...), but were shouted down with "if we really need somebody we'll just play Fab there". Look how that turned out.

 

The only reason we got Kabak, Phillips, and Davies on the last fucking day of the window is because of how toxic the fan sentiment and results had become over January. Otherwise they were willing to let us see out the season with no senior defenders. They knew we were two senior CBs short from October (November?), they had two-three months to bring somebody in for Jan 1st, and actively told Klopp we couldn't because "we had bills to pay". By the time they shat themselves, there was nobody available to buy. 

 

In parallel, they sold equity to Red Bird (at a pretty penny largely due to the valuation of LFC) and pocketed the money within the investment group. None of that money has transpired in extra investment in the club. That's how you turn a profit off of us - have us break even or make a small profit every year, but allow the asset valuation to grow in accordance with (or slightly beyond) the value inflation of the football industry and then sell of chunks of the asset.

 

People sit here and ridicule the "conspiracy theory" of FSG taking a profit from LFC without realizing it's not a conspiracy theory - its a documented truth. And I do not begrudge them for that. You bought something for 300m, it's now worth 3bn (or more, to be honest), fair fucks to you! But maybe you could invest some fucking money into the asset once in a while so we don't have to play a 37 year old James Milner in midfield again the other best team in the world and listen to cunts on here tell us it's the way Klopp wants it, as if he is some kind of sadomasachist.

[aRdja]

1 hour ago, FrenchEyeGlass said:

Who gives a flying fuck how momentous Allison's last gasp winner was in the grand scheme of CL qualification, the point remains that the club (see: owners) were a disgrace in how little it invested before the season started and whilst it was under way.

 

Most fans on here alone were shouting that we needed another CB before the season started (3 stacks, please learn the difference between hindsight and foresight...), but were shouted down with "if we really need somebody we'll just play Fab there". Look how that turned out.

 

The only reason we got Kabak, Phillips, and Davies on the last fucking day of the window is because of how toxic the fan sentiment and results had become over January. Otherwise they were willing to let us see out the season with no senior defenders. They knew we were two senior CBs short from October (November?), they had two-three months to bring somebody in for Jan 1st, and actively told Klopp we couldn't because "we had bills to pay". By the time they shat themselves, there was nobody available to buy. 

 

In parallel, they sold equity to Red Bird (at a pretty penny largely due to the valuation of LFC) and pocketed the money within the investment group. None of that money has transpired in extra investment in the club. That's how you turn a profit off of us - have us break even or make a small profit every year, but allow the asset valuation to grow in accordance with (or slightly beyond) the value inflation of the football industry and then sell of chunks of the asset.

 

People sit here and ridicule the "conspiracy theory" of FSG taking a profit from LFC without realizing it's not a conspiracy theory - its a documented truth. And I do not begrudge them for that. You bought something for 300m, it's now worth 3bn (or more, to be honest), fair fucks to you! But maybe you could invest some fucking money into the asset once in a while so we don't have to play a 37 year old James Milner in midfield again the other best team in the world and listen to cunts on here tell us it's the way Klopp wants it, as if he is some kind of sadomasachist.

A bit harsh on Milner that. He’s there on merit. Fernandinho is a year older than Milner and he started more games for the league winner than Milner did for us last season. Milner is one of nine midfield players, so we do have ample options for the three starting spots IMO. 

 

 

[Jose Jones]

14 minutes ago, aRdja said:

A bit harsh on Milner that. He’s there on merit. Fernandinho is a year older than Milner and he started more games for the league winner than Milner did for us last season. Milner is one of nine midfield players, so we do have ample options for the three starting spots IMO. 

 

 

Yeah, Klopp loves Milner, and pushed for his last two contract extensions to keep him at the club and in the squad.

Mind you, he is German, so you can't rule out the sadomasochism.

[El Dangerous]

7 hours ago, m0e said:

Did you believe:

 

1- at least one of Leicester and Chelsea were dropping points when they actually played each other next?

 

2- we were going to beat Burnley away regardless of our result versus West Brom?

 

3- we were going to beat Palace at home?

 

4- Leicester were not going to swing a double digit goal difference v Spurs?

 

I did, and I'm certainly not in the minority.

Did you watch us play that season? At home? There were no guarantees we’d ever score again let alone win again.

[JohnnyH]

The last few pages of this thread demonstrating that we REALLY need football back because people are talking utter utter shite in the way only football fans can.  

[HBenn]

8 hours ago, m0e said:

You need to give your head a wobble, and stop pretending you're some psychoanalyst who understands the game.

No, I don't, especially when the vast majority of fans felt the same.

Having to rely on other teams dropping a lot of points from March and winning a game you don't look like winning in the 91st minute via a header from a goalkeeper means you got a lot of luck.

Being confident we would beat Burnley and Palace after that doesn't really mean a lot tbh.

[sh#t waffle]

I for one was completely calm when our goalkeeper scored a 92nd minute winner as I'd done the calculations and was confident it wouldn't mean much in the grand scheme of things. The players definitely felt similar, they could barely be arsed to raise a smile.

[Sugar Ape]

 

[HBenn]

9 hours ago, Moo said:

We all celebrated it like mad, everyone knew what a hammer blow it was to other teams, many pundits and ex-players commented on the psychology of it.

No need for revisionism.

I was watching it with a bunch of Leicester fans still on a high after the cup final and starting to think it was the perfect weekend.

 

As soon as Alisson scored it went to "we are going to blow top 4 again!"

[HBenn]

10 hours ago, 3 Stacks said:

You're not getting what I'm saying. If you were saying we had a problem that summer, that would have been correct and not hindsight. But to pretend spending on a defender in January would have had us do better, is.

 

Caleta-Car isn't good. He would have possibly been a smidge better than Phillips, especially as he would have been adapting to a new team and league. He's a decent french league defender at best.

 

And as had been said numerous times, the midfield and our problems in defense that year are incomparable. If you're waiting for the club to learn something that isn't "don't start a season with insufficient numbers at a position group" you'll be waiting a while.

If they didn't really rate Caleta-Car they wouldn't have bid for him fullstop.

Jurgen has gone on record as saying he didn't really want to play Phillips and Williams. The fact that, inspite of us really needing results, he didn't play them until March says an awful lot to that as well.

 

He now says he should have done it earlier and put Fabinho back in midfield. Had he paid £30m for a centre half, especially in those economic times, it's not unreasonable to suggest he would have played him and had the confidence move Fabinho back much sooner.

 

The point I am trying to make is though it is about giving us the best chance in the circumstances we find ourselves. I get there are budget constraints, but at times the model seems completely inflexible.

 

Sure some fans want the club to spend £200m every window but most just don't want to see us going into a season having to rely on injure prone players needing to stay fit for us to have a proper chance. Especially when we are not talking ridiculous net spends to mitigate that risk. Currently if Thiago goes down clutching his hamstring in late August a lot of people will be fearing the worst!

 

Inspite of all of that, as I said, the club well may have learnt lessons. The move in Jan to bring in Diaz left us with great squad depth and there hasnt been to much talk of the budget being an issue this time around, there is ages left in the window and most of all Jürgen seems happy. 

 

 

[Joey8FrogsLegs]

14 hours ago, Moo said:

Maybe I just rate him higher than other people seem to.  Who would you name in his age range (say 17-21?) who's more wanted and potentially available?

You never said anything about potentially available. You said the most wanted young footballer in the world. Which I dont think you’ll find many people outside England thinking.

 

That said I rate Bellingham very highly, and think he could be a brilliant signing for us. I also reckon we may get him, will boil down to wage demands. But I suspect he’s very concious in his choices, and may think we’re the right club for him.

 

As for better/more wanted young players in world football I’d start with Pedri. Also Gavi, Camavinga, Alphinso Davies and probably at least a handful more will be good shouts if you’re not English.

[Scott_M]

Great, the 20/21 defence issues are being discussed.

 

They’ve not been done to a very slow, painful and tedious death a billion times already. 

 

[m0e]

3 hours ago, El Dangerous said:

Did you watch us play that season? At home? There were no guarantees we’d ever score again let alone win again.

Yes, I watched us win game after game from March right up until the end of the season, where we finished 3rd, a couple of wins off 2nd.

 

You must be from the group that thought we'd do fuck all last season unless we bought Mbappe, Haaland, and Wijnaldum's replacement.

[Scott_M]

2 hours ago, Sugar Ape said:

 

Allegedly that’s who Dortmund want to replace Bellingham. 
 

Isn’t he more of an attacking midfielder? If so, given we already have Carvalho and Elliott, I can’t see us moving for him. 
 

Even if he’s not, I can’t see him getting the game time he’d need to develop with us. 

 

Apparently he wants £100k per week, which is ridiculous.

[m0e]

2 hours ago, sh#t waffle said:

I for one was completely calm when our goalkeeper scored a 92nd minute winner as I'd done the calculations and was confident it wouldn't mean much in the grand scheme of things. The players definitely felt similar, they could barely be arsed to raise a smile.

Shit waffle

[m0e]

2 hours ago, HBenn said:

I was watching it with a bunch of Leicester fans still on a high after the cup final and starting to think it was the perfect weekend.

 

As soon as Alisson scored it went to "we are going to blow top 4 again!"

Ahhhaaa. The final and most important piece of evidence.

 

The case rests, your honour.

[m0e]

11 hours ago, Moo said:

2. No, absolutely not, especially not going into those final few moments before the Allison header.  It was far from certain.

 

3. No guarantees there either.

 

The rest aren't worth answering.

It certainly felt like you were not in the majority at the time but that all depends on personal perspective of course.

 

 

 

So, you didn't think we'd beat Burnley and Palace. And you think that puts you in the majority?

 

"Fair enough"

[Scott_M]

2 minutes ago, m0e said:

So, you didn't think we'd beat Burnley and Palace. And you think that puts you in the majority?

 

"Fair enough"

I think the fact that Alisson’s goal kept qualifying in our own hands was the key factor. 
 

Leicester lost their last 2 games (Chelsea and Spurs) and Chelsea lost their last game (Villa). 

 

Although the Chelsea v Leicester game was always going to take it to the last day, I wouldn’t have been confident in Villa and / or Spurs doing us the favours they eventually did. 
 

I always trust us to do our job, I’m never confident relying on somebody else. 

[HBenn]

3 minutes ago, m0e said:

Ahhhaaa. The final and most important piece of evidence.

 

The case rests, your honour.

The point I made all along was that we were lucky. A large proportion of that luck was  because we relied on other teams performances.

 

So yeah if your acknowledging that Leicester blowing top 4 had a large influence then I suppose my case rests. Cheers.

[m0e]

2 minutes ago, Scott_M said:

I think the fact that Alisson’s goal kept qualifying in our own hands was the key factor. 
 

Leicester lost their last 2 games (Chelsea and Spurs) and Chelsea lost their last game (Villa). 

 

Although the Chelsea v Leicester game was always going to take it to the last day, I wouldn’t have been confident in Villa and / or Spurs doing us the favours they eventually did. 
 

I always trust us to do our job, I’m never confident relying on somebody else. 

The Leicester Chelsea game, whatever the result, would put it into our own hands if we drew West Brom.

 

All we had to do was win our 2 games.

 

That's my point.