Topic: Emre Can

[Koprich]

How do we measure that guaranteed £30 million that you know someone offered us against the goals he scored last season which we know pushed us into the CL places?

I'm not suggesting we should have sold him earlier, I'm suggesting we should have gotten a contract signed.

Negotiations should have started earlier, we should have been less stingey (we gave 100k to Lovren, our worst player in the starting 11 so I think we can afford whatever Can wanted) and if strictly necessary, we should have found a way to give Can comfort that he could leave if he wanted.

A big wage offer would have got that contract signed in the summer. Even if we'd upped our previous offer by a whopping 50kpw, it would be 11 years before that increased wage offer cost more than a lost 30m transfer fee. (I realise that's basic fag-packet maths and there are performance fees to consider but you get the point).

I cannot overstate how bad players leaving on a free is, financially.

[CraigDS]

I'm not suggesting we should have sold him earlier, I'm suggesting we should have gotten a contract signed.

Negotiations should have started earlier, we should have been less stingey (we gave 100k to Lovren, our worst player in the starting 11 so I think we can afford whatever Can wanted) and if strictly necessary, we should have found a way to give Can comfort that he could leave if he wanted.

A big wage offer would have got that contract signed in the summer. Even if we'd upped our previous offer by a whopping 50kpw, it would be 11 years before that increased wage offer cost more than a lost 30m transfer fee. (I realise that's basic fag-packet maths and there are performance fees to consider but you get the point).

I cannot overstate how bad players leaving on a free is, financially.

How bad is giving Can £50k a week above what we were prepared to give him, because he held the club to ransom by running his contract down, when it comes to renegotiating with other players?

How bad is that, financially?

[PoetryInMotion]

I'm sorry but Al is spot on in my opinion. Everyone wants to think the best of the club and we are all biased and want to defend it at all costs but it is very hard to disagree with much of what he says. It's the way it works, everyone buries their heads and calls everyone else bedwetters and then eventually when it turns to shite the same people are back telling us it won't get any worse, have some faith and stop wetting the bed. I see nothing wrong in questioning the direction our owners have taken us in and some of the absolute howlers, particularly in the transfer market, that have cost us under their stewardship. In the last few months alone we missed out on our key transfer target, a centre half for a world record fee because some nobhead leaked that we'd "won the battle for his signature" to the press, and now it's become clear that we've chucked 30/40 million in transfer fees down the pan, and that's not even considering the amount of time and investment wasted on bringing him through.

Like I posted earlier, I think Emre Can is more than replacable and he really isn't the calibre of player that should expect a step up from Liverpool. But the point is that we haven't brought in ready made world class talent because we either can't afford them or it's against our philosophy as a club. The philosophy is supposed to be to bring in young players cheaply, nurture them and either enjoy the fruits of their world class years or be able to sell them on for big money. By dropping a bollock on this one we have done neither of those things, instead we have wasted years of coaching on a player who has won no trophies under us who will now walk out for nothing and get a gig at a better team. It makes a mocklery of whatever it is that we're supposed to be doing.

Naby Keita is ready-made and a huge upgrade on Can.

[Koprich]

How bad is giving Can £50k a week above what we were prepared to give him, because he held the club to ransom by running his contract down, when it comes to renegotiating with other players?

How bad is that, financially?

He is a starting player who scored a few key goals last year and approaching his prime. Not that hard to spin it/justify.

Sometimes money>pride/principal in business and modern football is just business.

[El Lobo]

I'm not suggesting we should have sold him earlier, I'm suggesting we should have gotten a contract signed.

Ahh I see, I got confused by when you said we'd lost out on £30 million in transfer fees. My bad, its all very clear now 

[JP!]

Tara then.

Nowhere near as good as he seems to think he is.

[CraigDS]

He is a starting player who scored a few key goals last year and approaching his prime. Not that hard to spin it/justify.

Sometimes money>pride in business and modern football is just business.

Pride? It’s negotiation.

An agent seeing us give a player £50k a week over what we wanted because he held out on his contract will see that as a prime bargaining chip to work with, and will do the same. Same as if he then saw a buyout clause being in there too.

The club will be looking medium to long term, not just at the situation of one player.

[Koprich]

Pride? It’s negotiation.

An agent seeing us give a player £50k a week over what we wanted because he held out on his contract will see that as a prime bargaining chip to work with, and will do the same. Same as if he then saw a buyout clause being in there too.

The club will be looking medium to long term, not just at the situation of one player.

You make out like our negotiations are streamed on live TV.

[El Lobo]

You make out like our negotiations are streamed on live TV.

Come on mate, you can't honestly be that naïve to think that players (and more importantly agents) wouldn't talk to each other about their new contracts?

[classycarra]

Are the people that are really worried about losing Can, as a player rather than business asset, the same ones who panicked about selling Allen?

Have they not learned not to throw their toys out the pram yet? We improved on him massively (both in terms of fit in the team/fitness/physicality as well as actually scoring goals) with Gini, it should be relatively easy to do the same with Can.

[Koprich]

Come on mate, you can't honestly be that naïve to think that players (and more importantly agents) wouldn't talk to each other about their new contracts?

They've signed NDAs so if we caught wind of it we'd take them to the cleaners. I'm sure certain things get shared of course but it's not as open a book as some fans like to make out.

Anyway, the skill in negotiation is figuring out what you need to give them in order for them to sign but a) making them feel like they've worked hard for it and got a great deal and b) not giving them everything you could have. The first point is really important otherwise, as you say, people will keep pushing for more and more endlessly.

If we had skilled negotiators, Can and his agent would come away feeling like they'd gotten themselves a great deal but not that we are push-overs.

This ties into my long-standing stance that Edwards and his team aren't up to scratch on the negotiations-side of things. It's been a weakness in our club since before Edwards was promoted but it's not gotten any better either. We need to bring in someone with a genuine talent for closing deals to work with Edwards who's skillset seems to lie elsewhere.

[El Lobo]

They've signed NDAs so if we caught wind of it we'd take them to the cleaners. I'm sure certain things get shared of course but it's not as open a book as some fans like to make out.

Anyway, the skill in negotiation is figuring out what you need to give them in order for them to sign but a) making them feel like they've worked hard for it and got a great deal and b) not giving them everything you could have. The first point is really important otherwise, as you say, people will keep pushing for more and more endlessly.

If we had skilled negotiators, Can and his agent would come away feeling like they'd gotten themselves a great deal but not that we are push-overs.

This ties into my long-standing stance that Edwards and his team aren't up to scratch on the negotiations-side of things. It's been a weakness in our club since before Edwards was promoted but it's not gotten any better either. We need to bring in someone with a genuine talent for closing deals to work with Edwards who's skillset seems to lie elsewhere.

It must be a pretty common occurrence for these guys to fail to get contracts signed which end up with players leaving, because they aren't up to scratch. But I'll be honest, I'm not as up to date with this sort of thing as you seem to be.

What are the other numerous examples of that sort of thing in terms of our contract renewals?

[classycarra]

They've signed NDAs so if we caught wind of it we'd take them to the cleaners. I'm sure certain things get shared of course but it's not as open a book as some fans like to make out.

Anyway, the skill in negotiation is figuring out what you need to give them in order for them to sign but a) making them feel like they've worked hard for it and got a great deal and b) not giving them everything you could have. The first point is really important otherwise, as you say, people will keep pushing for more and more endlessly.

If we had skilled negotiators, Can and his agent would come away feeling like they'd gotten themselves a great deal but not that we are push-overs.

This ties into my long-standing stance that Edwards and his team aren't up to scratch on the negotiations-side of things. It's been a weakness in our club since before Edwards was promoted but it's not gotten any better either. We need to bring in someone with a genuine talent for closing deals to work with Edwards who's skillset seems to lie elsewhere.

That's great and everything. How many negotiations have you sat in on?

You think that players and agents don't talk about negotiations because of NDAs, but you trust the very limited information you receive about negotiations from the media? Enough to make very oddly confident assertions and Edwards and his team (you don't even know who is negotiating for the club).

You realise that you trusting the leaks to the media isn't really compatible with your first sentence?

At least you recognise you are coming at this with an agenda, and trying to retrospectively fit this Can situation into it.

[hide5seek]

How long have United kept De Gea since he wanted out?

Point taken, how often does that happen though? De Gea will go, eventually and as a goalie can afford to wait longer than an outfield player.

[CraigDS]

You make out like our negotiations are streamed on live TV.

Players agents talk, it's in their best interests to know what each other have achieved as they can then use this to their advantage.

You're acting like agents have some sort of moral compass.

[CraigDS]

This ties into my long-standing stance that Edwards and his team aren't up to scratch on the negotiations-side of things. It's been a weakness in our club since before Edwards was promoted but it's not gotten any better either. We need to bring in someone with a genuine talent for closing deals to work with Edwards who's skillset seems to lie elsewhere.

Not gotten any better, based on what exactly?

What information, you know given they've all signed NDAs and shit, are you privvy to that you're able to form this view point with any sound basis?

[El Lobo]

That's great and everything. How many negotiations have you sat in on?

You think that players and agents don't talk about negotiations because of NDAs, but you trust the very limited information you receive about negotiations from the media? Enough to make very oddly confident assertions and Edwards and his team (you don't even know who is negotiating for the club).

You realise that you trusting the leaks to the media isn't really compatible with your first sentence?

At least you recognise you are coming at this with an agenda, and trying to retrospectively fit this Can situation into it.

Yeah fair play to him for that, would be a lot easier if more posters did that

[greeny01]

Difficult one for me because I rate him, but he's 23 and played nearly 150 games already...I just can't see how he's going to really markedly improve to justify the top earner wages he's allegedly after with the limitations in parts of his game, and he's not in my eyes going to be one of the best players in the squad.  Having said that no one knows what he's asking for really so I hope common ground can be met and he agrees a new deal without us losing face.

[TheBestSideDrew]

They've signed NDAs so if we caught wind of it we'd take them to the cleaners. I'm sure certain things get shared of course but it's not as open a book as some fans like to make out.

Anyway, the skill in negotiation is figuring out what you need to give them in order for them to sign but a) making them feel like they've worked hard for it and got a great deal and b) not giving them everything you could have. The first point is really important otherwise, as you say, people will keep pushing for more and more endlessly.

If we had skilled negotiators, Can and his agent would come away feeling like they'd gotten themselves a great deal but not that we are push-overs.

This ties into my long-standing stance that Edwards and his team aren't up to scratch on the negotiations-side of things. It's been a weakness in our club since before Edwards was promoted but it's not gotten any better either. We need to bring in someone with a genuine talent for closing deals to work with Edwards who's skillset seems to lie elsewhere.

Utter rubbish.

[Koprich]

That's great and everything. How many negotiations have you sat in on?

You think that players and agents don't talk about negotiations because of NDAs, but you trust the very limited information you receive about negotiations from the media? Enough to make very oddly confident assertions and Edwards and his team (you don't even know who is negotiating for the club).

You realise that you trusting the leaks to the media isn't really compatible with your first sentence?

At least you recognise you are coming at this with an agenda, and trying to retrospectively fit this Can situation into it.

I'm not, I don't want to go into my doubts about Edwards in much detail because people on here don't like to hear criticism of the club. I've been openly dubious about his talent for negotiating for a while and there's been quite a few clues pointing to that over the last year. We're diverting from the point I was making anyway and that is, mistakes must have been made with Can.

It looks to me that we left it too late and were naive in thinking that we could play hard-ball with only 12 months left on the current contract. At 24-18 months the balance of power slightly favours the club as the player/agent wants a pay rise but they're a long way away from being able to force a move At that point you can afford to play hard-ball for a while to reign-in their wage demands. At 12-6 months, that shifts very much in favour of the player as now they only have a short wait for a pay-rise from another club and the threat of moving on a free is substantial. (Like is said in my prior post, a conservative fee for Can would be 30m and that's 570kpw for 12 months!). Now we have 6 months left and it's looking like he's definitely moving on a free unless we take our pants down for his agent. That is disastrous and not a common occurrence. The only other top club I can think of how are consistently dumb enough to allow this to happen is Arsenal.

About leaks from through media, it's almost always little tit-bits of interesting information which is consistent with what I said. People will leak the odd detail about the contracts  because the actual contracts pass through numerous hands and it's hard to assign blame for a leak. However, they'll never discuss details about what is said in the negotiations because it's just far too easy pinpoint who the leak is and a slam-dunk case for the club lawyers. Agents are scumbags but they're not idiots.

[hide5seek]

Utter rubbish.

Love your user name

[CraigDS]

If a 2012 article had mentioned a futuristic 2013 bid that hadn't yet occurred then maybe just maybe it might just of been acceptable to utter the abomination the English language that is the phrase 'fake news'.

You claimed: "Same with Suarez we offered him a new deal AFTER Arsenal came knocking."

To back this up you post up some article not even mentioning Arsenal and now flip flopped to other clubs wanting him.

Well yeah, it's not a surprise that top clubs want top players.

Is that the Alli who wanted to stay at MK Dons right up to the point where Spurs offered him 10k a week.

Is this more "common knowledge"? I mean I've told you that Alli has given his version of events which contradict your own, but I guess you're saying you know what happened with Alli better than Alli knows what happened with Alli?

That would be the horses mouth that wanted to stay at MK but joined Spurs for 10k a week.

He stayed there for the season after signing for Spurs, so yeah.

I prefer to believe the Liverpool manager who said he wanted to sign Alli a bit like the the same Liverpool manager who wanted to sign Virgil Van Dijk from Celtic for a pittance

Bizarre, as you normally bang on about how you can't believe what managers say.

I'd say it's strange to see you flip flop from one viewpoint to another to suit your argument, but then again it really really isn't.

As I said I try to post reasoned cognitive responses it doesn't always happen but I do try, what I don't do is shout 'fake news'

Mate, when you stop posting utter made up bullshit, which is fabricated in that tinfoil hat covered head of yours and nowhere else, then you might start getting cognitive responses to genuine facts.

[CraigDS]

I'm not, I don't want to go into my doubts about Edwards in much detail because people on here don't like to hear criticism of the club. I've been openly dubious about his talent for negotiating for a while and there's been quite a few clues pointing to that over the last year. We're diverting from the point I was making anyway and that is, mistakes must have been made with Can.

Nah come on, I'd say this was pertinent to the Can situation so let's hear these clues which have formed your option.

Agents are scumbags but they're not idiots.

How do clubs learn of release clauses then?

[classycarra]

I'm not, I don't want to go into my doubts about Edwards in much detail because people on here don't like to hear criticism of the club.

Speaking only for myself, I couldn't care less if the criticism is valid. It's the fantasists who twist everything into a criticism of the club, with constant boring agenda driven whinging who are the annoying ones.

The kind of people citing the £30mil loss (hahaha) form him leaving on a free, who would have whinged about the club cashing in on a young player if they sold him for £30mil this close-season or the one in 2016 (even if it was for as ridiculous a fee as 30mil, which that fee was a season or two ago). Of course he still wouldn't command it now, unless a City or PSG or other rich premier league team starting a bidding war between themselves, but that hasn't been forthcoming has it?

[RJH]

They've signed NDAs so if we caught wind of it we'd take them to the cleaners. I'm sure certain things get shared of course but it's not as open a book as some fans like to make out.

So what NDA was broken to enable you to get this info:

we gave 100k to Lovren, our worst player in the starting 11

[John C]

What would be/have been the cost of not having him available in the squad this year and last?

This is an extremely important point which people don't wish to consider.

The Can situation is the FSG stick-beating gift, but ....

How bad is giving Can £50k a week above what we were prepared to give him, because he held the club to ransom by running his contract down, when it comes to renegotiating with other players?

How bad is that, financially?

Unfortunately we're not going to be the complete beneficiaries in every player transaction and few seem to be able to context the club may wish to retain Can within their own terms but negotiating may result in in him walking away. Shit happens sometimes. At least we'll save a massive salary.

PM me in May 2018 if he needs a lift anywhere.

[Mighty_Red]

Are the people that are really worried about losing Can, as a player rather than business asset, the same ones who panicked about selling Allen?

Have they not learned not to throw their toys out the pram yet? We improved on him massively (both in terms of fit in the team/fitness/physicality as well as actually scoring goals) with Gini, it should be relatively easy to do the same with Can.

Agreed, this a big point we need to understand. Honestly, I despair at some of the circular arguments and the willingness to use every negative situation to take pot shots at the club.

Sterling has taken 2 years to become worth the £50m we got for him (albeit it worth a bit more now) and in those two years we have got Mane & Salah which are upgrades on him.

Summer 2016, Allen will not sign a new contract so we sell him and get Gini in. Don't forget that we didn't get much for Allen as we wasnt wanted by top 8 clubs.

Were we really going to sell Can in Klopps first summer window and get two midfielders in? Im pretty sure Klopp wouldve wanted to keep him and let the club persevere with contract talks.

Its obvious that these talks have ultimately failed and yes you would regard it as a failure on our part to not be able to persuade a player to commit to us but I don't think what we have done since can be criticised. I'm sure that had we got Keita this summer Can would've gone, but neither happened.

People talk about losing £30m but really its not that much, nobody would've paid that much in 16 and nobody did in 17. Even if they did, once you remove all the loyalty payments etc its better to let the guy go on a free and pay him less for 2 years.

Overall, we have done well to tie our top talents down but you wont always win all the time. He isnt central to our plans and we have upgraded on him for next year.

[kennedy81]

So it seems this has hinged on the inclusion of a release clause in his contract, which is against current club policy?

[CraigDS]

So it seems this has hinged on the inclusion of a release clause in his contract, which is against current club policy?

I imagine it depends on the finer details of the release clause - amount, when it can be activated, who it can be activated by, etc.

With the way transfer fees are increasing, I can see why clubs may be reluctant to even put a clause in that represents a players worth (their valuation) in todays market, as in 2 years time this could be drastically undervalued. This is even harder for a player who is still developing given a realistic valuation now could be extremely unrealistic in a year or two time if the player improves, and that's ignoring the previously mentioned transfer inflation.

Plus let's be honest, if a player is demanding a buyout clause it's because he has one eye on the exit door and wants to make that exit as smooth as possible - so the clause they will insist on will almost certainly be in their favour when it comes to the specific terms.

[Yiannis]

So it seems this has hinged on the inclusion of a release clause in his contract, which is against current club policy?

After last summer, more players will demand such thing. Let's see if it will become a short-lived trend or not.

[Koprich]

Nah come on, I'd say this was pertinent to the Can situation so let's hear these clues which have formed your option.


How do clubs learn of release clauses then?

OK fine but people on here tend to get upitty if you don't like what they hear. It's just inference by me of the information we have available but I am a contract negotiatior for a FTSE 100 company so I feel like I'm qualified to make educated guesses here.

Van Dijk was a big one for me. The leak was obviously (and widely reported) as club-scantioned. The timing of it was too signifiant for it to not be. We did it to try to fend-off a bidding war which I said at the time was hugely naive and would blow-up in our face. Any negotiator worth their salt will tell you that trying to bully people is the worst thing you can do. Even if you get your way in the immediate short-term, the resentment you get for it will cost you in the long-run. Didn't take long for it to cost us either. Now I am assuming it was sanctioned by Edwards & his team given it was clearly a strategic move but we don't know that for certain. That to me screamed inexperience.

I've explained already how I think huge errors were made with Can.

I'm not saying he's the worst guy ever because the Keita deal was a smart move and it's been widely reported that he's a data genius. I'm just saying that I am seeming indications of his negotiation skills being lacking. That's fine as long as as the club acknowledges that and brings in someone to delegate that to. I know there are a team of people there already that work on these things so maybe it's them that need replacing. Hard to comment based on the available information.

As for the leaks, to reiterate my post above: things get leaked but they're typically contract details, not details of the discussions. The reason for this is that contracts pass through a lot of hands and the leak could be from anywhere. Comments on the details of what happened round a negotiating table are very rarely leaked because it's a legal minefield and would irreparably damage the relationship between agent and club which isn't good for anyone.

The reason this is relevant is that we could have relaxed our stance on the Can negotiation towards the back end of last season to get the contract done without it being all over the papers that Can & his agent had pushed us around. Firstly because they'd be unlikely to leak anything besides the odd detail such as the wage (which as I said, given his age and goals he scored last season could easily be justified). Secondly, because if we had handled the negotiations skilfully, they wouldn't feel like they'd bent us over, they'd feel pleased that they got what they needed after a tough negotiation. That is the skill: making them feel pleased with the result but not that they pulled a fast one on you.

[Koprich]

So it seems this has hinged on the inclusion of a release clause in his contract, which is against current club policy?

That appears to be a big factor and I can respect us wanting to stick to our guns on that with the way football is going. However, I'd be willing to bet that more money or more of the money being guaranteed vs performance based might have relaxed that demand.

Hell, just signing a short 2 year extension so we can sell him at value but without him being trapped here for another 5 years would have been preferable to the current scenario.

[CraigDS]

snip

OK so your whole opinion seems to be based on the news to the press about VVD (which we've no idea who it came from but for the sake of it you're going to assume it's the club as it backs up your argument), and the Can situation which was already an issue way before Edwards become head transfer honcho.

No offense mate, but that's next to fuck all to be forming opinions on.

[jepovic]

Can is replaceable,  but if it would've been easy to recruit better players than Can, we would have done that long ago.

[rob1966]

Give him £150k a week.

Then they can complain about that, and when he’s on the bench in a few seasons and not wanting to leave they can also complain that we offer too much to players and then we can’t move them on.

What pisses me off with the modern fan is they think us giving a player £3 million a season in wages is being cheap. Three fucking million quid for kicking a bag of wind about a pitch? My 7 yr old said it this morning, its disgusting what players earn, doctors and nurses save lives.

As for Can, we offered him a contract, he refused. There was no line of clubs beating our door down to sign him, so we weren't going to sell him for mega millions. We've made use of him in the time, rather than waste money on another dud. This season he's been culpable in a few goals where he has stood and done fuck all. If he stays or stays I'm not arsed, better players will come.

[Koprich]

OK so your whole opinion seems to be based on the news to the press about VVD (which we've no idea who it came from but for the sake of it you're going to assume it's the club as it backs up your argument), and the Can situation which was already an issue way before Edwards become head transfer honcho.

No offense mate, but that's next to fuck all to be forming opinions on.

That was an example. I'm not going to rant for pages, am I?

It's true that it was already getting late with Can but when got as late as this summer, we needed to be  dropping the hard ball and working towards giving them what they needed to sign. At that point, the potential loss of transfer revenue is more important than getting the best deal on that contract renewal.

If the release clause is a deal-breaker for us, fair enough but we needed to work out what else we needed to give them to get that deal done. More money, less performance-based, shorter contract term, bigger sign-on fee, gentleman's agreement on targeting a sale for summer 2018. There are a lot of things we could have done and I'm sure the correct combination of the above would have got that contract signed.

It is possible that Can has said he won't sign any contract unless it has a certain release clause but I personally find that hard to believe. If compensated sufficiently elsewhere, he'd buckle. Taken to the extreme, if we offered him 300kpw, he'd bloody sign that wouldn't he?

I think we've shown a bit of naivety here by not recognising the priority.

[jepovic]

After last summer, more players will demand such thing. Let's see if it will become a short-lived trend or not.

Yeah, we'll see. The fact that Neymar got his huge contract thanks to a release clause, while Coutinho was forced to stay, will surely make players consider it more often.

[CraigDS]

That was an example. I'm not going to rant for pages, am I?

Well you said you'd formed this opinion on clues, I asked you to post up what they were, and you replied with a 495 word, 6 paragraph post.

Now you'd imagine within that 495 word, 6 paragraph post you'd post the main clues you've used to form said opinion, and given you only posted two it leads for one to assess that these are the two main (and only two?) clues.

Unless for some bizarre reason you've written a 495 word, 6 paragraph response to a request for the clues which have formed your opinion and you've decided to post only some dubiously linked clues and left the main ones to remain a mystery that only the likes of Luther could solve?

[jepovic]

What pisses me off with the modern fan is they think us giving a player £3 million a season in wages is being cheap. Three fucking million quid for kicking a bag of wind about a pitch? My 7 yr old said it this morning, its disgusting what players earn, doctors and nurses save lives.

As for Can, we offered him a contract, he refused. There was no line of clubs beating our door down to sign him, so we weren't going to sell him for mega millions. We've made use of him in the time, rather than waste money on another dud. This season he's been culpable in a few goals where he has stood and done fuck all. If he stays or stays I'm not arsed, better players will come.

The wages are insane, but everyone from a sweatshop in Vietnam to a boardroom on wall Street compares themselves mainly with their coworkers. Can has played more than Milner, Sturridge and AOC, who all earn wages well over 100k. Why would Can settle for less than the guy who is his substitute?

I can guarantee you that Henderson and Gini would demand 150 k ish wages, if their contracts were up for renewal.

[Suareznumber7]

Players come and go.  It’s not the end of the world.