I think he'd like to keep him but knows he wants to be elsewhere. That's the problem - if Aqua wanted to be here, he'd be welcome, he's a fine player. But... I think, sadly, that the writing has been on the wall for a long time with him.
Not for me, not without a **** load of hard work and commitment in games to show his loyalty and passion for Liverpool Football Club
I think the owners aim is to reduce the weekly wage bill by £500k - they have reduced it by £200k by getting rid of Kuyt and Maxi, and the other big earners who are expendable are Carroll, Cole and Aqua. (Rory Smith, The Times).
I would imagine there are other players on more than Carroll. Gerrard and Carragher are guaranteed to be on more along with Reina, Johnson, Enrique, Agger, Skrtel, Lucas and Suarez but I don't expect to see any of them leave. What about others like Downing, Adam and Bellamy? They will be getting quite a chunk too. I'd guess that shifting Cole, Aquilani, Carroll, Downing, Adam and Bellamy on would see the wage bill drop at least £540k per week, plus the £200k already highlighted for Kuyt and Maxi. That's £38.48m per annum PS - not saying I want to see all these players leave
I could imagine Kuyt being able to earn that much but I don't think we initially signed on £100k, did we renew his contract? I don't think we did considering he was in his last year and had a £1m release clause built in still. Doubt Maxi would have been although, didn't we get him on a free or for next to nothing?
Getting players on a free usually means you are paying them more money, as the club doesn't need to pay a transfer for them they tend to be in higher demand and can negotiate higher fees. So I suspect Maxi and Cole were/are on higher fees than their contribution merits. Out of interest (Newcastle fan here) what is your general view of your transfer policy? It seems to me that you are accepting that you aren't likely to be able to compete with the top 3-4 clubs in the league for the top top players and are instead going for slightly younger players who wont hit their peak for a couple of years. Personally i think its the right way for you to go at the moment but it means you're going to be competing for 4th rather than higher, i just can't see Man Utd, Man City or Chelsea going in for the likes of Dempsey and Allen (good players though they are).
It is all about taking one step at a time. The first step is to build a side capable of challenging for a Champions League place. If signing players like Dempsey or Allen help us to do that and possibly get fourth, it will enable us to sign better players in the future. This would take us on to step two which will be qualifying for Champions League football on a regular basis. And so on... I'm happy to see us signing young up and coming players but we need to keep quality experienced players amongst them too. We have a few of them at the club already such as Gerrard, Reina, Agger, Skrtel, Johnson and Enrique, plus Carragher but I expect him to be a bit part player nowadays
Another quick point on wages: In 2011, our wages to revenue was 70% (£129m / £184m). Man Utd's is 46%, Arsenal is 55% and Spurs are 56%. Both Spurs and Arsenal have lower wage bills but still finished considerably higher than us. It shows that we need to increase revenue substantially or lower the wage bill. I'm glad the board are looking at improving both areas.
They won't go away for the same reason the Carroll rumours won't go away. Because Skrtel/Rodgers didn't shut the door when asked a question
Wages to Revenue percentage is always an interesting one. When we (Newcastle) were midway through Bobby Robsons management we were in the top 2-3 positions in the league with about 33% of our revenue being spent on wages. After Sounness, Roeder, Allardyce the rumour was that it was more like 85% - its a "live for today and forget about tomorrow" way of managing that you seem to be rightly moving away from. If a manager feels stable they're more likely to look after the long term interests of a club, I hope Rodgers gets at least 2 full seasons.
Not sure but will try and find out. I presume they do include CL revenue. It looks as if we're still paying CL wages despite not having the revenue.
