Ne Moe Imya

The most amazing thing is that he was actually only the second best midfielder in their youth setup at the time he broke through. Ravel Morrison was one of the best teenagers I ever saw. The way he threw away his career made Pogba look mature and restrained by comparison. Never change, Manchester United.

Is that true? Scratch everything I said, then. Shouldn't be going anywhere near that. I was thinking if he was 45m and 150k/week-ish wages, I could see us spending 1/3 of the Salah fee on him. But if that's the wage packet he's on, then never mind. I do think when it comes to replacing Mo next summer that we don't necessarily have to blow the whole 100m on a huge, established star. Unless Mbappe is on the market or something, I don't see a player out there who'd be worth it. Just get a 20-22 year old for 40-60m (Ansu Fati? Adeyemi?) and don't put pressure on him while he bed in and we play some combination of Nunez/Diaz/Jota/Gakpo. The alternative is overspending on someone like Sane, and I'd rather see the extra money go towards a top youngish CB.

Ooh, I can see that, actually. He was sensational for Dortmund, but immature and he chose exactly the wrong club to move to. If he'd come here he'd have come into a cohesive dressing room with a great manager and a culture of hard work and excellence. Instead he went to a club with a divided dressing room full of knobheads and a permanent hot seat under whoever their manager is at the moment. On the one hand, he seems to be a bit of a dickhead. On the other, he'd probably come in with a burning passion to succeed and show everyone at City and United they were wrong, and if anyone could shape that into a player it'd be Klopp. Bit of a risk but I wouldn't be opposed for 45m.

Gnasher is right about one thing - the Ukrainian losses are going to be MASSIVE when the war is over and the bodycount is released. However, it's very hard to find a Ukrainian who doesn't support the war despite this fact. Mostly because they know they'll all have to watch their grandmothers, aunts, and young nieces suffer outrageous abuse at the hands of the Russian army if they lose, and watch their mayors and council members marched off to torture.

Still reckon Darwin outscores him this season, even if he stays until next summer. I'm going with Nunez 27, Salah 24 in all comps.

So much smoke around that one I reckon there's bound to be fire there somewhere. I think Andre is, at this point, by far the most likely target for us in January. Never seen him play but his passing and defensive stats look excellent, so as long as the scouts think he's up to it athletically, I'm all for it. To be honest I've been all for it ever since I read a Fluminense fan describing him as "like a 22-year old Fabinho."

I think it's hilarious that Gnasher keeps posting that Ukrainians are about to start demanding peace talks. If anyone in Ukraine thought that there was a non-zero chance that Putin would actually hold up Russia's side of the agreement, it might be a conversation. However, despite the crushing losses the Ukrainians are suffering, the option of trading some of their territory for a "peace" that will only last as long as it takes Russia to re-arm itself is polling about 15%, last time I checked. It seems that you need to run your thoughts on armchairs and Western bloodthirst past a few Ukrainians before you come on here, Gnash.

The Russian ability to live in absolutely horrific conditions and yet feel a totally bizarre ethnic pride in everything is unmatched. Watch the second half of this, where a supposed "expert" on Ukraine mocks Ukrainian as a non-language, a barbarian culture, who could only hope to be as cultured and elevated as Russians: This kind of thing is on TV there on a daily basis. There was a hilarious video recently of someone walking the streets in a Russian village asking people how they felt about the country. There was a woman in her 70s or 80s, drawing water out of a village well that she had to carry back to her house as it didn't have running water, but all she could talk about was how "glorious Mother Russia is and how richly we all live."

I actually think it's a great sign that Ukraine is cracking down heavily on corruption. In Russia, the only time anyone ever gets arrested for corruption is when there's infighting in the pro-Putin ranks and the government wants to make an example of someone who stepped out of line. The rest of the time, corruption is the very reason that those officials are in position of power, to ensure that they keep the conveyor belt of cash running upstairs. It's ignored, even when it's patently obvious. One thing that has been fascinating to watch is how Ukraine, who was way ahead of Russia on this but still struggling with a massive culture of corruption of their own, has changed. The existential nature of the fight has meant that the tolerance of petty corruption and graft from the regular population has basically dwindled to zero at the same time that they've developed an independent media environment. So I'm sure that Russia's backers (and those who pretend that neutrality and "both sides are bad" aren't the same thing as backing Russia) are going to make propaganda hay out of the Ukrainians arresting oligarchs and sacking ministers. However, I'm also sure that it's a sign that in Ukraine, things have changed. Ukrainians, unlike Russians, no longer sit and say "yeah, these guys steal, but if you replace them, the new ones might steal more, so ..." When you're in a fight for your life, your tolerance for that sort of thing evaporates.

It may sound strange, but I don't think you can rate this window right now. If Endo comes in and is at least as good as Fabinho was last season (so, not great but OK) and we buy a better DM (Andre?) in January, then it's an 8.5/10. If Endo is shown up to be a pretender, a total panic buy that fills out a shirt but is no better than Bajcetic, or we have to regularly play a double pivot of Trent and MacAllister or something at DM just to keep him off the pitch, then it's a 6.5/10. It's still above average, given how good the reload is with MacAllister/Szobo/Gravenberch, but it could have been so much better. So it totally depends on what he is. I think it's likely he's somewhere in the middle (maybe Lucas Leiva's level?), so I'll give it a tentative 7.5/10.

That's an interesting one. He has had some injury problems but his talent is undeniable. He'd be on my shortlist for where to spend the bulk of the Salah money next summer. Right behind Kvaratskhelia, maybe, and one or two less realistic ones.

Said before the season that he would outscore Salah this year. Was beginning to doubt, but if that performance was anything to go by ...

I'm always a bit puzzled why people say things like this. I know that's kind of how it works in FM - you have a "warchest," you buy the right players and then you win the league. But in real life, I think statistically even peak Messi adds like 4 points/season to your expected points? The difference between where we are now and, let's say, adding Theate and Lavia is basically negligible in terms of where we finish this season. The mood of the fanbase would feel totally different for our transfer-driven discourse, and our fans would get to crow about the window like Chelsea fans do every window since Toddy took over. But then the actual football would start to get played and we'd all realise that upgrading a few backups here and there just doesn't actually make us that much better. The difference between going into this season as we are and with another DM and CB is pretty much 1-2 expected points over the course of the season, max. It could make a difference (as you noted) if we get some injuries, but honestly, even the gap between Lavia and Bajcetic, or the gap between Inacio and Matip is not season-changing. I'm not trying at all to say that transfers don't make a difference - those 1-2 points/season add up over a number of players! But I guess what I'm saying is that we would need a huge amount of luck to really compete with City either way.

I am 6'4" and weigh 260 and Trump is significantly heavier than I am. I would guess he's 300-310, if he's actually 6'3". Although that might be a lie as well - I could see him being 6'1" and maybe 280.

Thought he looked pretty good on the ball. The concern was off the ball, he definitely looked outpaced once or twice. Hard to judge much from a cameo when we were down to 10 men, though. Hopefully just a bit of getting his legs under him and he'll be OK. I don't think our expectations are super high, in my opinion if he can just give us what Fabinho gave us last year, that's good enough.

Did I go on a spree on Twitter sending out Caicedo memes to every Chelsea fan I could find? Let's just say I did not NOT do that.

I can just about understand the VAR not saying "it's a clear and obvious error" and reversing it, but it's obvious that they need to just send the referee to the monitor for things like this. I think the ref has heard the scream, seen the Bournemouth player rolling around and thought "he's hurt him there" and pulled out a red. If he saw the replay and realised where the ball was and that MacAllister has actually connected with the side of his foot, not the studs, there's zero chance he'd give a red for that. So why not send him to the monitor and just let him decide for himself?

If you're not following @NTXZO on Twitter you're missing out, always good for a chuckle.

I actually think this is a pretty astute signing, given the situation we've put ourselves in. It's obviously not a good signing when you consider where we should have been this window, but once you miss out on Caicedo, then your options are: overpay for a young player who isn't any better than Bajcetic right now (though he might be a world-beater in 3-4 years) INSANELY overpay for someone like Doucoure or Paulinha (remember, Doucoure at this point is being talked about as a club record signing, more than we paid for van Dijk/Allisson/Nunez) buy someone for 15-25m who will probably be more or less as good for us as Henderson would have been had he stayed but who is on 1/3 the wages So given those three options, I'd say the third one is the best of a bad lot. Give Endo a 3-year contract and hope that he's a decent backup. His defensive numbers are pretty good (not great, but pretty good), his passing is ... meh, but not terrible, and he never gets injured. Worst case, he's another Klavan/Minamino (cheap player, did OK but not great, never really affected much). Best case, he's another Matip/Kuyt (cheap player, played a small but important role on some good teams). We still haven't replaced Fabinho but I think it's obvious at this point that we're going to have to depend on some combination of Thiago/Endo/Jones/Bajcetic to do that. We'll have to just get through at least until January, given that absolutely no one of the quality we really need is available this summer. And that means that whatever tiny dreams we may have had of pipping City to the title this season are probably snuffed out, but we should be reasonably confident of top 4 and who knows, maybe we can get a bit of luck and win a cup?

Not having this sort of thing at all. The two of you have completely missed the point of this thread, which is to throw our toys out of the pram at the slightest hint that Liverpool aren't buying the players we want, and also to slag off any other forumite who disagrees with us. You pair of atrocious gobshites.

It's always the same with right-wingers. All politicians are "corrupt," at least in subtle ways, so they find the minor issue or hypocrisy with one or two lefties and focus all their attention on that, meanwhile ignoring the obvious and systemic ways their own party is doing things 10x worse. The Ukraine thing is similar. You find one businessman war profiteering in Ukraine, so you can "both sides are corrupt" the situation and pretend you're being objective. News flash, Gnasher, I lived in Russia for years and ran a successful business there. I won't go into detail but let's just say that I had a lot of personal loss due to the situation. The level of corruption and graft AT EVERY LEVEL OF GOVERNMENT there would stagger you. In Ukraine, since the war, there has been a massive culture shift, where everyone in the country is working together to defend themselves against the Russians. Any corruption there, anyone making up contracts or paying bribes to get military construction deals, whatever is going to be discovered, because the people there are in an existential fight to survive! So sure, you'll get an old-school guy now and then trying to make a few extra bucks in the situation, but for the most part, even the corrupt officials are either scared to try it (knowing that someone is likely to rat them out) or have put their corrupt desires aside until the war is over. Meanwhile, in your beloved Russia, the most successful businessman in the last 18 months is Prigozhin, an openly corrupt, murderous (literally!) mercenary, who the actual Russian government is giving billions of rubles. Or, at least, they were until he attempted a coup. You have no idea what you're talking about when you compare Ukrainian to Russian corruption. It is not even close. The governor of the state where I used to live is the brother of the head of the mafia in the same region. The Russian government and the mafia are the same exact organisation and work closely together to enrich the men at the top. The same can simply not be said for Ukraine, and certainly not when you're talking about the post-Feb 2022 period!

Todd Boehly seems to approach the transfer window as the most important thing to actually win. Thus he signs the likes of Mudryk for 100m and their fans get to crow on Twitter about how big a club they are. To be fair, there are a lot of our fans that approach the transfer market the same way. I will never get over how devastated people were that we didn't sign Pepe that summer for 90m or whatever it was. Think of how we could have mocked the Arsenal fans if we'd persuaded him to join us instead! Caicedo is a bit different because unlike Mudryk and Pepe, there's some reasonable evidence that he's actually a very good player, but I'd still back us to finish ahead of Chelsea this season. Something to keep in mind when you're feeling down that they have good meme material for the next couple of days.

This is exactly right. All they have to do to end this instantly is say "111m, you say? Here's a bid, 111m exactly, all up front, no clauses" and it's over - Caicedo is doing whatever Chelsea's version of the lean is within a few hours. With Toddy taking over the negotiations and sending his previous negotiator out to fetch the coffees, it means some shenanigans are afoot. I expect some very dodgy FFP-boosting contracts to be signed in the next few hours and then Caicedo to become a Chelsea player in the next few days. But again, though the net spend boys will be howling in the streets about how this makes Liverpool look foolish, IMO it's all about Chelsea, this. We haven't done anything wrong at all, except bid for the same player that Todd Boehly wanted and now he's thrown the toys out the pram.