Amrabat is good but he excelled as a DM in a team that defends deep. We play the opposite way where there is more space to cover. Would be interesting to see if he could adapt.
When I was younger it was always followed up with 'slim and fat'. And yes, not what he meant. I've always thought him to be the root of positivity within the club; it's contagious. He has self belief and fight and desire and they too are contagious; like his deep laugh. I wonder whether there is a problem with the owners not backing him in the transfer market and while it's been okay with him so far, he's seeing that despite his philosophy of working with what he's got, the odds are very unfairly stacked against him now with the unlimited spending that a few clubs are getting away with. Is the old saying in cards that you have to speculate to accumulate? He's not able to do that now without funds.
how do we have 400mil to spend? this is this old chestnut of amortisation again as if no money ever changed hands: We confuse how players transfers are expensed to the accounts with cash flow. example of gakpo. lets call it 42mil over 6 years this becomes 7mil per year over 6 years - this is BOOK VALUE and appears in the profit and loss account (which is exactly why juve are in trouble for cooking the books btw) the reality however is that when we start talking about cash flow and looking at where these player transfers actually go then things change. PSV are now a debtor on our books, i've no idea when the 42mil actually changes hands and neither does anyone else. it could be up front it could be in two instalments, it clear has add ons included as well. however these will inevitably appear in the debtors column when you then consider all of the wages we properly account for (unlike some clubs) and how other clubs have now ZERO debts (aka city and Chelsea) then they have far better looking cash flow depsite playing massive fees. in short its all well and good saying we have 400mil before hitting some threshold (which one??) but in reality the club has to pay the wages and the debts of the organisation and that takes cash flow and liquidity. 13mil per year back to fsg, 70odd mil for anfield road end, 50mil capital for kirkby to be depreciated and so forth and so on. 400mil simply doesn't exist (as solid said down the back of the sofa) I wish it did. we have to look to the arsenal example. they are historically sitting on cash since 2004 and wenger getting absolutely insanely invested in not spending money. they had the highest of all cash balances due to this policy that wenger continued and it was like watching scrooge counting his pennies. They then released the beats under edu etc and have been systematically sloshing that available cash out the door on all sorts for 3 or 4 years. they also absorbed all the covid losses. we've never had that cash and certainly don't have it now. The rivals don't seem to give a flying **** about such issues and magic revenue form thin air to justify whaetver they like.
Why don't we have the cash? We made as much as it was possible to make in prize money last season (almost). We spent very little. I can't remember how the extension is being financed but not directly by the owners? The club is valued at over ten times what they paid and they are reportedly looking to sell. Surely it makes sense to spend on players > continue the success > make the club even more attractive.
at the last reported accounts (not the very best ones) as of 31st may 2021 we had 31mil cash at hand. the next set of accounts will be out by end feb (latest allowed by prem rules) and cover 31st may 2022. We won;t even know then how much profit we made for the full glorious year we just had btw at one point arsenal had 230mil cash on hand. thats just to show the difference
I believe we do have cash but Klopp and Ljinders were hell bent on waiting for their number 1 targets and refused to budge from them. That was certainly the case in the summer but hopefully they are now more willing to move to Plan B if the Plan A fails.
I'm not sure about this. Klopp himself said that they need to take more risks in the transfer market. Make of that what you will but one interpretation is that we should be going for talent at their first club before waiting for them to prove themselves at a bigger club à la Enzo. See the talent, go for it straight away.
