I believe in paying for potential, but the figures being bandied about are ridiculous. He looks very good, but for the money quoted your looking at signing the next stevie.
Look, hot properties are hot properties. you can debate until the cows come home. In the end you have to look at the models that have made dortmund, benfica and brighton highly profitable clubs and compare it to the model we have cos only one club in the former group has won a damned thing and thats only cos their league allows them to. Dortmund, benifca and brighton emply massive scouting networks and analytics while also taking the exact risk that a player like bellingham at 16 was. LFC pretend to do this but actually we go in for nunez once proven in europe at 85mil (eventual fee) and thats fine cos our model allows us to win things. LFC rarely take a risk. Minamino at 7mil .zero risk transfer. he was never ever ever good enough to play for LFC or oust a forward. But we got some cup goals out of him, a loan fee off southampton and a transfer fee doubling the price. Carvalho. another zero risk tribunal fee player. Likely to be flipped in a couple years Elliott. again 4mil... no risk. Bajcetic 250k etc We were never ever ever going to pay birmingham 30mil for a 16 year old bellingham. Not in a million years. But dortmund would. thier pay off is selling him on. They know full well they can do this so are happy to. We don't actually want to sell on. We want to win things so our model is less risk and more proven players but ones with value. Our list of signings who will increase in value and are proven is quite long. Gakpo is proven in europe and internationally, his fee was relatively small. Nunez was the same, diaz was the same, jota even. If we want bellingham then he's the next vvd move. he's proven himself up and down europe and internationally for england and he's the next hot property so the fee will be what the market and selling club sets. VVD was 75mil. Cheslea have set the market for midfielders with 105mil for fernandez. dormtund have the contract length to demand their 130mil.... and someone will pay.
absolutely. Fabinho transformed and unbalanced midfield into a mean one but also contributed runs forward at the right time. superb buy. It'll be interesting to see what the next change is, it has to work as an overall 11. With nunez and gakpo i just think we have now totally different weaponry to score goals with so while the fast break is still there we need to get faster ball and pile into the box for crosses now. So what you suggest as a double pivot of 6s and having one advanced CM really joining that press but joining the box late would work. Bellingham for the goals. I think we are almost at a 4231 system with the forwards we have but i do like the look of what gakpo is starting to show as false 9. Its hard to know which way it will go next.
someone will pay it. is fernandez the next kante? i sort of doubt it. (Chelsea still paid it) is caicedo the next kante? i sincerely doubt it. (why arsenal bottled it) At least arsenal showed a bit of sense Look at real: touchameni - 80mil paid for by casimero going to utd for 70mil. (thats sense) camavinga 30mil - absolute bargain alba - free- replace ramos who is sent packing. rudiger free - sell varane for 40mil (again makes good sense given his injuries) rodrigyo - 45mil (bought as potential) vinitcus jnr 50mil also potential the worst thing they did in last 5 years is hazard. I'll bet real shift 2 or 3 they don't need to get bellingham in. thye've made a profit every year for 3 years now on transfers. yet look at their team.
And I'm not saying we shouldn't go for him at £100mill+. I just think we need to be pretty darn sure he's going to continue to improve, and that analytics has to be done with someone more specialized in that than I am. If we spend over £100mill on one player he has to be the right fit. That's a large sum for us, we're already in a difficult spot for midfield and time isn't on our side. Real Madrid can spend £100mill and if it doesn't work out, no problem, it's not like they're spending their own money anyway... I'll be delighted if we get Jude... But it would almost be a relief if we didn't.. . Signing Jude would be a massive gamble like breaking the wage structure for Salah was. Lost the gamble with Salah, can't lose again with Jude.
VVD 75mil the prior transfer record was going to be kieta commitment to buy at 50mil made in 2017 summer window Beofre that it was 37mil for salah in 2017 and before that 35mil for andy carroll in 2011 We have now got the record at 85mil for darwin nunez. Are we saying we couldn't afford to get darwin nunez? We have bought the following over windows Gakpo 40mil Nunez 85mil Diaz 47mil Konate 437mil Jota 45mil 1 year break Alisson 67mil VVD 75mil Fabinho40mil Keita 50mil salah 37mil Ox 40mil Mane 34mil Windy 25mil the thing is we sold coutinho to fund in large part the vvd/alisson singings and sold the likes of benteke to fund mane, sahko and the like to fund salah. We have now built up the clubs revenues and "largely" played the market selling dead wood like lovren and ings, etc to part fund those really expensive buys. We are runing about 50mil next a season spend if we look at things so one big massvie buy is not goign to break LFC if there is cash to pay it. the other side is simple too firmino 180k Keita 120k ox 120k artur (not sure how much of his 100k a week wages we pay) phillps 65k milner 60k adrian 50k thats 100% locked in wage drops. 780k a week nearly. We can affrod one more salah. don't you worry. Nunez is supposedly only on 140k, diaz is on 55k and gakpo only 60k. they are all hungry to get a new contract and increase thier wages. its not about just one buy. its about the squad and the work needed to make it competitive. this is why kelleher being sold make sense. GK: Alisson, Pitaluga, Davies (need to make these HG) RB: Trent, Ramsay, bradley (another likely to be sold) LB: Robertson, Tsimikas RCB: Konate, Matip (matip will be next to go) LCB: VVD GOmez (this is getting concerning) no 6: Fabinho Bajcetic, morton. RCM: henderson, Elliott (this is not good) LCM: thiago, jones (this is serious) LW: diaz, nunez falkse 9: gakpo, jota RW; Salah, doak, gordon (this is probably actually elliott) this summer midifelders are vital. the following year some cbs will probabaly arrive too late. how do we fund 2 CMs minimum? how do we fund a CB? how do we get a cheap keeper to fill quotas. I don't think wages will be a huge issue over 4 players with nearly 800k a week coming back to us. Its transfer fee thats the concern.
What I’d say is, I have a hell of a lot more confidence on signings under this management than any other before. How many big signings have we got wrong? Keita? Ox? Even then I’d say Keita is more down to injuries and ox had a good patch before that big injury. Signings over 30-40m Ali vvd konate keita ox fab gini salah mane nunez gakpo jota diaz prob missed some? The hit rate on big transfers has been brilliant and challenge anyone to find a club that’s done better, and that’s why although it’s frustrating when we don’t bring any in. In the long run, it works. we couldn’t get vvd. Didn’t panic and waited 6 months. Now we could have gone for someone else cheaper, not been as good, vvd goes to city and who knows what would happen. It’s why this midfield thing last summer I’ve been less worried about. We missed out on our target and are now waiting. Yea in the short term we may have had a poor season (can’t be all down to missing out on 1 player) but hopefully it will mean we see the rewards over the next few.
Also the thing about Bellingham and the cost it’s kind of irrelevant. It should alas be irrelevant for fans anyway as it’s not our money and as long as it’s not putting the club spending behind it’s means and has repercussions then who cares? weve shown in past if we want someone we’ll spend big. And klopps said before we don’t really have budgets, but if money is there and player is needed they’ll do all they can to get them. it’s tricky because if we need 1 midfielders and Bellingham at 100mmstops us getting that second, could argue isn’t worth it. but if we want 2 players, get Bellingham for 100m and the other for 30m does it really matter? What if we got Bellingham for 80 and other for 50? What if we got them both for 30m? In grand scheme of things unless it restricts us elsewhere the overral cost means nothing
As an old economics professor once said: The true cost of something is what you have to give up to aquire it. Or, what you could have got instead. £100mill is three or so "SOLID" but unspectacular players. If Bellingham turns out to be world class ... That's worth whole. If he turns out to be a flop... We could have had three or four squadies to fill in for injuries, or a couple of decent first team players.
yeah but... gakpo, diaz and... that's 100mil so they don't have to be **** just cos they cost 30mil or whatever..
Was going to point this out to but felt it would be a waste of time. Bad enough pointing it out to opposition fans, never mind having to do so to our own
Well John Henry said wise investment... so... clearly a moron can spend 100mil in a heartbeat in prem
it's a valid point to say 64 as that's what enables our cash flow situation. add ons are our friend even if the add ons have to be accounted for eventually
not sure what cash flow has to do with this and the add ons only need to be "accounted" for if and when they are met at which time we will all be happy aspresumably some of them refer to us winning stuff .
