That is where I disagree with Fitzy's excellent OP. Don't put the people who have concerns over the lack of spending on the squad in the same boat as the spoilt twitter extremist mob.
Completely agree with this. There's scope for people to raise concerns about playing squad, investment etc without resorting to some of the extreme views we see on social media. Whether you are very much against the owners, generally supportive or somewhere in the middle I think most people can agree that a section of our fans are taking it too far.
Hurling sexist insults at the principal owners Wife on Instagram, piling in on people like Swiss Ramble who provide a factual summary of Liverpool's accounts, calling for demonstration against the owners due to transfer spend in the midst of a global pandemic are examples of behaviour that isn't reasonable. In fact it's deplorable type behaviour in parts.
There is an acceptable middle ground though. As long as people are open to a discussion and the evidence in front of them. My concern a little bit with debates on owners, transfers and specific players is that people become entrenched in their opinion and/or project their personal opinions and feelings onto what they think other people are thinking. My pet hate is people saying Klopp must be unhappy or that he's defending the owners despite being unhappy. Who knows if that is true or not. Klopp seems an honest man and he's rarely complained about transfers in his entire time at the club. Last January is the only major example where he's spoken up. Why would he not be speaking up if he was unhappy now? To the contrary, in public he seem relatively pleased with the squad composition going into the season.
The other aspect is that people need to see the other viewpoint and stop being quite so liberal with the truth. Al, I don't want to pick on you but the below isn't true based on the figures I have used (lfchistroy.net). Spend is about 133M and sales equal 117M. That's including the ad-ons for various deals (mainly sales of Brewster and Hoever).
FSG have made a net transfer profit over the last three seasons
The below is an opinion that says the decision not to replace Wijandlum or replace Lovren a year later is in essence a financial decision. I wanted to ask whether you've ever considered the alternative potential reality to this? That we repacled Lovren with Thiago, because there was the opportunity to exploit a situation to get a World Class player on board. That part of the decision was to keep Wijnaldum for another season and use Fabinho as 4th choice centre back (given we now had 1 extra midfield option) That this may have been a Klopp/recruitment team based decision rather than a decision that was completely dictated by finances. As Wijnaldum left we bought a new CB. In essence Lovren and Winadulm were replaced with Thiago and Konate but in a different order than expected.
We haven't replaced Gini who was practically indestructible and we haven't brought in another top quality attacker.
The only signing we have made is to bring in a replacement for Lovren, something that quite clearly should have been done a year ago.
How many games do we lose the 3 players to the AFCON for? How many league games? I'm assuming it's a fair few given it amounts to a 'big chunk of the busiest part of the season'.
Given the likelihood that we will lose Mo, Sadio and Naby for a big chunk of the busiest part of the season I think there are reasons to be disappointed with the lack of recruitment.
I think there's genuine debate to be had about our ownership model and in particular how we've navigated (and are going to have to continue to navigate) through the financial losses due to Covid19. I think there genuine debate to be had about long term succession to this squad and how we potentially deal with Klopp leaving in 3 seasons time. But you can only have a debate on these matters, and others, if people are in some way open to both sides of the argument. That applies to both sides also.
Twisted truths and representing opinion as fact don't help any debate. When it comes to discussions about FSG I do worry that we've gone to far along in the process that some people are so entrenched in their opinions. I suspect the reality is that for a proportion of people, despite being able see the positives and the limitations of our ownership model, there is no moving on their opinion. This comment is not necessarily aimed at you Al or anyone specifically on here, more a general feeling I'm getting. I think if we are not careful entrenched strong opinions could see a split in the fanbase. The whole FSG thing feels like it could go the way of anti-vax or Brexit discussions. Different sides shouting as loud and as extreme views as they can, without anyone really listening.