Topic: LIVERPOOL TRANSFER THREAD 2023 - archived discussions about what’s offensive

[killer-heels]

I don't think Bellingham is the answer, as good as he is and will be for many years to come.

We all knew it would be a signing that would most likely blow our whole budget on, when in reality we need 3-4 top signings to the team this summer.

What's frustrating and will anger fans is that it looks like we have waited 1-2 seasons to bring him in and neglect the midfield, potentially missing out on CL because of it, just for us to be 'priced out'.

The decision making from the club in the market has been dreadful recently after years of being the club others looked up to in the market.

I think ultimately that is it. As a club we shouldnt wait for anyone. But to wait for someone only for us not to bother would be peak stupidity.

There are a lot of things the club has lost this season and the belief that they make good, sensible decisions is now one of them. We look quite an inept club.

[clinical]

Apart from finance available the other huge question is whose doing the planning and the buying this summer?
If the easy ‘get the worlds most dynamic young MF’ thing doesn’t pan out whose in charge of creating and executing plan B?

This is my concern. Would be gutted to miss out on Bellingham. But never really thought it was going to happen anyway given who owns us. The most important thing would be getting a couple of world class alternatives lined up. Like Barella for instance. Barella for £65m-£70m if true would be a good deal. But if we can't afford £110m for Bellingham I doubt we can afford two world class midfielders either. So Nunes with a £13m downpayment it is.

[MD1990]

i would love if we got Ugarte. Looks a super player just what we need.

[redk84]

never once been excited about the prospect of us signing bellingham...as never thought we would front the money for him and even if we did it wouldn't fill me with hope of getting the number of mids we need to rebuild it properly due to the years of neglect.

just want whatever we do to work not just short/medium term but long term as the midfield needs to be sorted correctly due to it being so important to our system, as we have seen this year.

Just sign whoever is right for klopp and let him work. We can't be fucking around trying to fix problems of our own creation.

It's definitely easier said than done, and just because we had a great hit rate with transfers in klopp's tenure doesn't mean that is the way it will always be.

[eeekaj]

I think ultimately that is it. As a club we shouldnt wait for anyone. But to wait for someone only for us not to bother would be peak stupidity.

There are a lot of things the club has lost this season and the belief that they make good, sensible decisions is now one of them. We look quite an inept club.

Agreed. It's not just the transfer decisions that look bewildering at the moment. The medical department, the ownership, staff randomly leaving without much explanation. It has become one big confusion to what we were only a year ago.

[eeekaj]

i would love if we got Ugarte. Looks a super player just what we need.

Ugarte and Mount cover what we need in midfield, along with a new CB and possibly a Bobby replacement and that's a much better window than just splashing out on Bellingham.

[killer-heels]

Ugarte and Mount cover what we need in midfield, along with a new CB and possibly a Bobby replacement and that's a much better window than just splashing out on Bellingham.

Would want a right back as well. Trent needs someone who can get in ahead of him.

[tubby]

I dunno about it being embarrassing if we don't get Bellingham.  I don't think anyone outside of the Liverpool fanbase thinks it's a goer anyway.

[killer-heels]

I dunno about it being embarrassing if we don't get Bellingham.  I don't think anyone outside of the Liverpool fanbase thinks it's a goer anyway.

Yeah I mean Rio Ferdinand did a good job of making it seem how absurd it was him signing for us.

[Chris~]

Would be completely embarrassing missing out on Bellingham now, getting rejected by a player happens, no problem but ruining the team, costing us 10s and 10s of millions on no CL revenue potentially, waiting for a year for a player who then says no would be a new scale of humiliation.

That said, it feels like journos are just pouring out guesswork articles now as Jude and his family give nothing away and we don't either so we'll have to see. Am expecting just two midfielders though, one of whom will get injured in pre season, the other will "need time to adapt" so we'll still be starting James Milner at Man Utd away on the the second weekend of the season or something.

Yeah it's either guess work or just articles for the sake of it at this point. Unless someone says offer in or something similairnit seems best to just ignore all the talk even from reliable journalists now as they're become so obsessed with getting clicks through transfer stories.

3-4 weeks ago The Athletic/Ornstein
https://theathletic.com/4240258/2023/02/23/bellingham-liverpool-united-real-madrid/?source=emp_shared_article

On Madrid and Bellingham
'But sources close to the club insist they have almost no chance of doing the deal because of the financials'

City
'City are not believed to be favourites for Bellingham'

Us
'the fee Dortmund want would be almost twice Liverpool’s club-record transfer, so whether they have the money or not is to be seen. Nevertheless, Klopp has been impressed by Bellingham and is more likely to spend big on him than sign two players with the same money.'

So no real.fhnage for us, but City and Dortmund have seemingly flipped in weeks ,which may be true, but seems like if things can change that quick why bother hanging on to their words, especially when they're non-committal.

[Ste08]

Under this ownership he was never coming here. To think we used to have the best recruitment strategy in the league. What a complete shambles window after window pretending we were waiting to sign Bellingham turning our nose up at midfielder after midfielder and torpedoing a whole season. Great job to all involved.

[Gerry Attrick]

If Ornstein is right I think we can deduce that our transfer budget isn’t very large. If we had a lot to spend we wouldn’t blink at paying it for Bellingham if we’re so obsessed with him. I would say it’ll be cheaper players like Mount or Nunes than pivoting to other big names like Barella.

[Wghennessy]

Why would Bellingham use up all of out budget but it wouldnt for other clubs? It isnt like we've had massive transfer windows recently.

[Jean Girard]

How do we get Liverpool fans to click during an international break when they mostly couldn't give a flying fuck about about football?

[killer-heels]

Why would Bellingham use up all of out budget but it wouldnt for other clubs? It isnt like we've had massive transfer windows recently.

If you saw the accounts you will see that as a club we dont actually have that much money. The likes other clubs have used state funding, owner money and debt to finance deals.

Remember when we signed Gakpo, Klopp said we stretched ourselves financially to do the deal. A lot of our money is going into infrastructure and wages.

[Sharado]

The thing is when we're linked with signings but nothing is going to happen the club nip it in the bud and everyone moves on. We could have done this with Bellingham as in what fucking world was he going to move for a low fee? Could have said ages ago he's class but we can't afford him. We chose to let this rumble on and on and presumably chose to let ornstein have this info today. Why, on both counts?

[clinical]

If you saw the accounts you will see that as a club we dont actually have that much money. The likes other clubs have used state funding, owner money and debt to finance deals.

Remember when we signed Gakpo, Klopp said we stretched ourselves financially to do the deal. A lot of our money is going into infrastructure and wages.

I think we would have needed investment or a sale. Neither seem likely given the news.

[Wghennessy]

If you saw the accounts you will see that as a club we dont actually have that much money. The likes other clubs have used state funding, owner money and debt to finance deals.

Remember when we signed Gakpo, Klopp said we stretched ourselves financially to do the deal. A lot of our money is going into infrastructure and wages.

You dont pay it all upfront. Chelsea arent state funded...United spent 240 mil in the summer...they arent state funded.

Im simply not buying that we cant afford this deal. Its bloody embarrassing that we have essentially wasted a season and two transfer windows knowing we needed midfielders but were waiting for Jude only for us to claim it would be too expensive.

How much did we think it was going to cost because 120+mil has been the price for 12 months!

[Gifted Right Foot]

So that's 2 years wasted waiting for the right midfielders only to miss out on both  .  Surely they have a plan b in place this time. 

[RedBec1993]

No one from the club will be giving Ornstein info… it’s pure guesswork. Plus stating the obvious in regards to financial power. I can’t see us walking away after this long.

[Sharado]

No one from the club will be giving Ornstein info… it’s pure guesswork. Plus stating the obvious in regards to financial power. I can’t see us walking away after this long.

Believe what you like but ornstein didn't write an article based on guesswork. He's one of the best, most trusted journalists out there.

[killer-heels]

No one from the club will be giving Ornstein info… it’s pure guesswork. Plus stating the obvious in regards to financial power. I can’t see us walking away after this long.

He does have sources at the club to be fair and thats been evident for a while.

[clinical]

So that's 2 years wasted waiting for the right midfielders only to miss out on both  .  Surely they have a plan b in place this time.

It would have been better news if Bellingham rejected us. The fact is he hasn't and it seems to be finance based. Which means plan b is much cheaper players. Our scouting has to be on point. If the best they can come up with is Nunes we're in trouble.

[Stockholm Syndrome]

We'll sign Nunes and Mount and that will be it I think

We'll not do well with that I don't feel

[killer-heels]

We'll sign Nunes and Mount and that will be it I think

We'll not do well with that I don't feel

Mount is good. Nunes is not.

[RedBec1993]

He does have sources at the club to be fair and thats been evident for a while.

Surely just telling him what they want him to know though, not exact info.

[Wghennessy]

So that's 2 years wasted waiting for the right midfielders only to miss out on both  .  Surely they have a plan b in place this time.

Absolute shambles. Like ive said, how much did they think he'd cost?

Its just getting boring seeing other clubs able to sign a player like Bellingham yet we have to settle yet again for the level below.

[LovelyCushionedHeader]

No one from the club will be giving Ornstein info… it’s pure guesswork. Plus stating the obvious in regards to financial power. I can’t see us walking away after this long.

Or he might have asked someone and they've just said "oh I dunno, he's a bit expensive isn't he".

[killer-heels]

Surely just telling him what they want him to know though, not exact info.

Why would we tell him we cant afford him?

[Wghennessy]

Surely just telling him what they want him to know though, not exact info.

At the end of the day if Ornstein was saying we've agreed a deal to sign him we'd be celebrating it in here. He's a solid source.

[Stockholm Syndrome]

Mount is good. Nunes is not.

Mount is good, but isn't very good at what we need.

Nunes is just not very good

By the sounds of it we won't have enough money for anything else so that'll not help us.

Honestly by the sound of Mounts demands as well I am not entirely sure we sign him either

[Hazell]

We’re signing Toto Schillachi?

I was thinking more it's just another manic Monday.

[killer-heels]

The most important thing is who is the next player that the Echo and Mac Red can make mileage out of. First there was Mbappe, then there was Bellingham. Who is next?

[ScouserAtHeart]

John Henry did ask for spending caps to be put in place, so this shouldn't really come as too much of a surprise

[Stockholm Syndrome]

This is legit really bad, to throw away an entire season chasing after a midfielder we can't afford and knowing it, it's really really bad.

With it being down to financial constraints as well I don't think we'll have money to come close to solving our issues either, not even a patch up job.

I think at most we sign 2 £50 million players, Nunes and some other midtable player. If we are lucky it will be Europa league quarter final level

[Gerry Attrick]

Also, David Ornstein’s piece ties in with a snippet we heard from some people inside Liverpool saying there are concerns about putting all our eggs in one basket. Believe that was Joyce, but can’t be certain. Regardless, these are good journalists who are not clickbaiters in the traditional sense of the word. They’re just telling us what we don’t want to hear but Ornstein in particular has the best contact book in the English game I feel.

[Zlen]

No matter the cost of Bellingham, surely there is a case to be made for him actually being good value for money. Even at well over 100 million. And whatever you may say about FSG ownership, they do appreciate good value for money deals. Bellingham is THE number one rising English star alongside Saka. He is a midfielder without a single gap in his skillset and is still only 19. Whatever you pay for him, similar to Van Dijk and Ali deals - it may look like peanuts in just a season or two. Because you hope to keep him for 5-6 years at least.

[JackWard33]

We'll sign Nunes and Mount and that will be it I think

We'll not do well with that I don't feel

I’d go odds against either of them
I think Mount is likely to end up at Qatar or Saudi
Nunes just doesn’t look good enough - it’s one thing to think we’ll give him a year in the PL but we’re not going to have stopped scouting him and he hasn’t shown anything to suggest he’d make it here

[Haggis36]

If Ornstein is right I think we can deduce that our transfer budget isn’t very large. If we had a lot to spend we wouldn’t blink at paying it for Bellingham if we’re so obsessed with him. I would say it’ll be cheaper players like Mount or Nunes than pivoting to other big names like Barella.

Not sure you need the Ornstein piece to deduce that, a cursory glance at our record under FSG would tell you the same thing. It’s the same story every season, leak a bunch of vague shit about us having a really big summer, enough to keep the fans excited and speculating, and then invariably back track saying we can’t afford it, maybe citing some oil clubs so it’s *not our fault*.

Apart from the obvious colossal failure of strategy here (that points to just another area of the club being an absolute shambles) I’d be less concerned about Bellingham and more concerned whether we have the budget to do much of anything this summer. We arguably need 3+ players to go straight into the starting eleven and another 2 for the squad but I reckon we’re looking at two decent midfielders at best.

[Stockholm Syndrome]

I’d go odds against either of them
I think Mount is likely to end up at Qatar or Saudi
Nunes just doesn’t look good enough - it’s one thing to think we’ll give him a year in the PL but we’re not going to have stopped scouting him and he hasn’t shown anything to suggest he’d make it here

Nunes isn't very good, but we still seem strongly linked and talk was as if a deal was agreed.

Also we appear to be fucking broke so yeah Nunes is ideal for that, low wages, low transfer fee, can get him in and say job done maybe