Topic: What's really going on? Selling, 'rebuilding the squad', what?

[suttonoot]

a few on here blaming kenny he spent blah blah blah , he never left us short , 2 strikers we have , borini well proven and little luis we will score a barrel load , as for welsh dragon "fickle fans" were you at anfield last night , it was full of whoppers , we were shite 90% possesion doesnt win games scoring goals does , we have already paid our season tickets and full price as a member for half a season, got fuck knows how many new commercial deals in place but cant spend £5m on a goalscorer well played yanks this aint baseball

[Anywhichwayicant]

Sound window.

We've shifted ageing players and deadwood, and refurbished with newer, fresher linen. Squad is a little thin, but provides the youngsters at the club with a tangible hope of making a name for himself.

I'm not overly concerned about our lack of striking options, my concern is with the likelihood that Morgan and Yesil are going to be turned into work horses, and shifted into wider positions, in order to accommodate Suarez up top.

[TALBERT]

Irina Lebedeva ‏@Irinka_LFC
Now I understand why FSG didn't approach Rafa. Now I understand... Imagine his reaction. #lfc
 Retweeted by Jim Boardman

TRUTH.

Brendan is the new Roy Hodgsen

Speak out Brendan!!!!!!!

[Passmaster Molby]

Irina Lebedeva ‏@Irinka_LFC
Now I understand why FSG didn't approach Rafa. Now I understand... Imagine his reaction. #lfc
 Retweeted by Jim Boardman

TRUTH.

I think Rafa is probably feeling like he dodged a bullet after seeing the lack of real finance available this window. An ambitious manager like him would have been climbing the walls with rage today - I bet you Rodgers is doing that right now.

[jonjosuso]

Suarez straight red against Arsenal 

[Not funny reecehenebry]

Irina Lebedeva ‏@Irinka_LFC
Now I understand why FSG didn't approach Rafa. Now I understand... Imagine his reaction. #lfc
 Retweeted by Jim Boardman

TRUTH.

We all knew this, being Rafa in took balls. Fsg didn't have enough.

[shelovesyou]

Well if the owners wanted to get the fans behind the new manager they pretty well much just did it. Clever.

[SerbianScouser]

Very true, hope Rodgers doesn't hide his frustrations on Sunday.

Only Rodgers was insisting on offloading Carroll not FSG.

[Juliman]

Tonight did not make me disappointed about this transfer window. It just made me more furious about last summer's transfer window.

[Warks Moustache]

Very true, hope Rodgers doesn't hide his frustrations on Sunday.

I hope Rodgers says very little about it. The last thing this club needs is more instability. Lets all pull together for once.

[peachybum]

Liam Tomkins ‏@liam_tomkins
I estimate #LFC's net spend this summer at approx £16.1m, with a net saving of around £14.3m on wages over the next year.

That's not including tv money , prize money , sponsorship money etc oh yeah we will end up like Leeds if we had bought a striker 

We're trying to sort ourselves out ffs. Our wage bill was way too high and needed to be cut. Its been cut alot but that will help in the long term whilst causing some short term pain. We made major mistakes in the transfer market and we've tried to cut our loses as much as possible. Yes they could have dragged it out 2 or 3 windows but again its best for the long term to just get it done.

We've done some majoy surgery but if we are to rebuild ourselves into a CL team(and i mean do it properly not just spend £500m like City and Chelsea) then it needed to be done. Spurs did it by having a very strict realistic wage structure and buying youth and building up a squad. Our advantage over Spurs is our commercial revenue which means we can pay more wages and we can keep the likes of Suarez and Skrtel during this rebuild.

[Camarero25]

Some are exaggerating how bad the squad is though. We didn't sign a striker (and we should have done) but how much better off were we really with Carroll, Adam and Spearing here? They hardly would have played.

We'll still finish top 6 imo.

[kiddie]

Why are people blaming BR.  Its obvious he's been f@~ked  over by those above him.  He said himself he would be mad to let AC go with out replacement. In my opinion he was told they would get clint no matter what.  I think there is something else behind this, it just does'nt ring true to me the way everything has gone, would'nt be suprissed to see some sort of BIG (bad news) announcment in next couple of days.

[suttonoot]

morgan isnt ready yet lad

[Tom_B]

Go ask Leeds and Portsmouth what happens when your owners don't care about that.

It's not that black and white.

[Guz-kop]

To be honest we've done a good job trimming the squad and getting rid of players who really have contributed very little. The 3 that were - Maxi, Kuyt and Bellamy - well potentially we've lost/sold three and bought 2 (Assaidi and Borini) plus shown that we'll use Sterling if need be.

If Rodgers had turned round today and said he was happy with the squad as it is and hadnt been so explicit that we needed a replacement for Carroll if he left then I don't think it be so annoying. The fact that this morning he was expecting not one but two players to come is galling.

I guess we'll see. Borini will get a lot of playing time and there'll be pressure on him. Downing will have to pull his finger out as well and I suspect we'll see him back further up the pitch as well. If we consider him as potentially part of the front three then we have 8 defenders for 4 positions, 6 who are comfortable in the middle of the park for 3 positions and 4 for the front three positions plus Raheem Sterling and god help us, Joe Cole. We're stretched, that's for sure.

[Dowahwiddy]

Some people need to get a grip. Was it only a month ago that we were faced with losing both skrtl and agger. Alongside Luis potentially moving to psg? Since then we've secured players on long term contracts, brought in a number of exciting youngsters aswel as bringing players from the academy into the first team squad. Perhaps im on me own but announcing the end is nigh because we didn't sign Clint fuckin Dempsey is probably going a Tad too far. All of  sudden because we missed out on a 29 year old midfielder we can't compete?  Im still open minded about FSG. It's not perfect but it could have been alot worse. For now I'm going to do what I've always done and get behind the team and be a supporter

[Dave D]

That's two transfer windows in a row that our mangers have been fucked over, our managers, not theirs.

At what point do people start saying, hold on a fucking minute how long is it going to take to turn this ship around, do we accept another 10 years of bouncing between 6th and 14th place with the clock being set to zero every year and our smiling chairman and PR plants telling us to "wait and see"

They're moving into their 3rd year in charge, things are bad, but not as bad as they are making out. If they were a government moving into their 3rd year in charge with no time scale on how long the cutbacks are going to last for, how long would it be tolerated?

It's alright to call them c*nts, because they are and so are the board. I don't think they're going to lose any sleep over it.

The important thing is backing the manager 100% throughout the season and fuck the suits in charge.

[lostpet.]

a leaner younger Liverpool is nothing to be sneezed at, esp if it means sterling gets more game time , whats our average age now then, gotta be pretty low

[TSC]

I disagree, we are clearly restructuring the wage bill. If we were solely cutting the wage bill giving Skrtel and Suarez new contracts makes no sense.

FSG has repeatedly stated they are happy to pay high wages, as long as it is to players who produce on the pitch.

Easy to say you're willing to pay high wages when in reality you sign no-one to actually pay wages to.

Fucking smokescreen from the beginning.  Now it's confirmed.  At least we all now know what they're about & what we're up against.

[KingKolo]

You could argue that Kenny Dalglish and Damien Comolli did as much damage to Liverpool as Gillett and Hicks.

Absolutely fucking shocking.

Carroll, Downing, Henderson - £75m.  Fucking criminal.

Everyone's moaning about our lack of willingness to spend this window, but you can't blame FSG after they had their fingers so badly burned.

[lucas65]

Rodgers did brilliantly with nobodies last year. He has some class to work with here so give the bloke a chance.Its not the dog in the fight, it's the fight in the dog. COME ON YOU REDS.

[egosmile]

I haven't got a problem with the fact we haven't signed a striker. I have a problem with loaning out Carrol without a replacement. Stupid, stupid move.

[Camarero25]

Only Rodgers was insisting on offloading Carroll not FSG.

Presumably he'd been promised a replacement though.

[BarryCrocker]

Window closed. Time for our best summer signings Jen Chang and Paul Tomkins to start earning their wages.

[liverpoolfan1]

One of them will have to be on the bench mate, if Suarez and Borini start every game. Otherwise, no recognized striker on bench.

`
And despite what many posters like to delude themselves with Morgan is not yet ready to be relied upon to score goals for us on a consistent basis let alone put in good performances week in week out. And Yesil has not even played a single minute for us.
`
These two should have been slowly introduced into the team and letting them develop. Rather we are going to be putting way too much pressure on them and the same fans who are bigging them up now will be the first ones to get on their backs if they don't live up to the pressure.

[juan1001]

Today John Henry has defined himself as the Gordon Gekko of Football...

[Warks Moustache]

We all knew this, being Rafa in took balls. Fsg didn't have enough.

Rafa was railing against owners whose policy of loading the club with debt was crippling the club and setting it up for administration. How is this remotely comparable?

[Red_Rich]

To sum up this transfer window .... Kept our defence in tact (good), improved the midfield a lot (very good!), weakened an already poor forward line (bad ... and will ultimately cost us dearly in our persuit of CL).

[Circa1892]

At least Rafa got a fucking lamp? This poor fucker got fuck all.

Is right. Probably the best back 8 in the league, and arguably one of the worst front three...

[redbyrdz]

Well said Lad, Easy to hold the Fsg line that Kenny failed, he wasn't given the time to fail to be fair.

Exactly. And his signings might've played a lot better this season, but instead we changed the manager and got rid or sidelined the players Kenny spend a season on to get to gel.

Also got three Wembley stubs sitting on my desk, not that convinced we're going to repeat that this season.

[swordfishtrombone]

Time for Brendan to focus on preparing and coaching his team.

[hem]

Also we had to pay wages to KD and backroom staff as well as compensation to Swansea for BR

OUTS

Kuyt
Maxi
Aurelio
Bellamy
Amoo
Darby
Aquilani
Carroll
Adam
Spearing
Ecclestone

Maybe wilson to follow.  Pacheco move fell through, dont know about doni, gulasaci yet either.

INS

Borini
Allen
Sahin
Assaidi
Yesil

Improved contracts for suarez and skrtl.

[Always_A_Red]

Definitely agree with this.

Just imagine if Suarez gets injured, we will be completely fucked.

It wouldnt suprise me if h isnt targetted by teams to injure now. He gets no protection from referees and other tems will know he s our only real threat.

Im sure Luis is as pissed off as we all are!

[gerrardsarmy]

OK, so without resorting to arguments etc what do we think the reasons behind it are?

So all the promising bits are still in place as it were. Stupid question probably but I assume the club (manager/board whoever) were exopating a couple of extra additions to finish things off? So what went wrong?

Keep it civil!

I've got no idea mate, hope we find out what happened eventually, whether that be off Rodgers or the owners. Apparently FUlham were quotIng us a higher price than what tHey were going to settle for villa and spurs, maybe we didn't think he was worth it? It's just so hard to understand. I'm fairly certain that Rodgers wouldn't have let Carroll go without thinking he is going to have an adequate replacement lined up?

That's the worrying thing from my point of view if Rodgers was promised a replacement if Carroll was to leave and didn't get it.

It certainly seems like Rodgers is paying for the mistakes of Kenny. No matter what way we look at it 100m spent regardless of player sales is a fair amount, and we didn't get the return we were expecting from it. I don't blame the owners for being a little more trepidatious when giving a new manager funds, maybe they wanna see what he can do with what we have before they go bankrolling him?

I'm not as pessimistic as some in here are, it kinda excites me that we could see a lot more of the youngsters over the course of the season.

We'll cope, we always have.

[Tom_B]

You could argue that Kenny Dalglish and Damien Comolli did as much damage to Liverpool as Gillett and Hicks.

Get to fuck mate. Fucking disgraceful comment.

[RK7]

On a bright note I think Allen was one of the deals of the window, he will without a doubt be our player of the year.

[LFC when it suits]

We can't risk any first choice players in the cup competitions. Suarez has been booked twice already this season so it will be grim when he is suspended. A shocking lack of ambition has been shown by FSG - they have effectively given Rodgers no backing whatsoever. No wonder they didn't want Benitez. Seems like we are doomed to asset stripping again and Rodgers will suffer after Dalglish like Benitez suffered after Houllier. Was buzzing after the Man City game - serious comedown this week

What are you talking about. Benitez didn't suffer after Houllier. He inherrited a team and added 2 players and one the biggest trophy in football. Houllier left this club in a good shape.

[tommy LFC]

The reaction of Brendan Rodgers will be very interesting, and will tell us a lot about him. I hope he doesn't just turn out to be a yes man. He's talked a good game so far, but if he is happy to allow transfer dealings like that then I will be worried.

[Geormajesty]

The thing that really baffles me:

At 8PM, when Dempsey fell through, we just gave up and went home. Why weren't their other options? Why didn't we try any other lines of enquiry?

We might not have got anything, but a £4m utility signing to fill a gap in the squad could have worked or been available somewhere. Why not spend 3 hours going all out to see if something could be done? A young striker to take a gamble on or an experienced one to help out?

It seems bizarre that we were so dependent on one target and had absolutely nothing else. This is the first time I feel genuinely disenfranchised by FSG's ownership. The benefit of the doubt has gone.

If I was Brendan Rodgers, I would be out the door first thing in the morning. FSG made him 'their man'. He was the young manager that fit their bill and they refused to back him.

Looking at it cynically, that might be why they went for Rodgers and Martinez, not Rafa or van Gaal or Villas-Boas. The personality of those three would've made them resign. They would've wanted actual money to spend.