Its difficult for me. They really did save us when they bought us so I will give them another window being saying anything. Ayre on the other hand...
Apparently we agreed the buyout fee for Kono and terms. There are two versions as to why it failed 1.The owner refused to sanction the move...seems unlikely as we met the buy out clause in the players contract...but this is Ukraine so I don't know what their legal system is like 2. The buy out was 15m. We wanted to pay 50% now and 50% next year. They wanted 75% now and 25% next year To be honest if it was 2 then we are very sad and skint, basically a mid table club outlook. Having said that I think what we have is sufficient for a top 4 place. I would have been more upset if it was a DM we were after and it fallen through
need to add my two cents. In short; this is ridiculous. why? it is subjecture and each and every case can be debated from the other side. In the end ONLY the owners will judge this and if they judge ayre wanting they will act... if not.. they won't mkhitaryan... chose another club Costa chose to stay at his club that was on the up and look at where they are Willian... chose another club Salah.. chose another club now konoplyanka... situation unknown appears someone decided to dig his oar in and refuse to do business On its face accusing ayra of being the sole link between all and being incompetent is ridiculous cos frankly not f'n one of you were in the room. I showed last week salah had links to chelsea in december. If true then chelsea stepping in with a oneliner is patently a silly statement. If the player and club we were negotiating were just waiting for cheslea then its down to a LOT more than ayre, ie the whole recruitment policy. frankly if ayre flew to ukraine to hammer out a deal then at 10:50pm the deal was on paper in front of a guy... well.. how is taht bad negotiation. we just don't know and are knee jerking. Then to throw in the likes of aspas and alberto and the like and say its all ayre's fault but young brendan gets off scot free? come on. players chosen were delivered. nobody has ever claimed a player was ever signed that the manager didn't want. I'd suggest that our over arching strategy, FSG, and the targets all need to be discussed here, not ayre on his own. It seems the length of time plus being then turned down is what is annoying guys.
We'll never be able to pinpoint one specific reason for why our negotiations with "big" players continuously seem to break down, in my own eyes it's a collective issue. With that said, I am happy with the squad, it's just this season we've had so many injuries that I'm starting to think it's not a coincidence and that perhaps the casualties will not stop here. BUT, hopefully we can maintain this good form and finish top four, which will ultimately make our lives much easier when it does come to landing targets in the Summer. Of course if we miss out, many will look back at January and pinpoint lack of signings as a benchmark for where it all went wrong. I do think we missed a trick, mainly due to clubs around us not heavily strengthening, whether it comes back to bite us on the arse or not we will wait and see.
More concerned about the transfer committee and the targeting of positions that were less crucial. Let's see how it goes in the summer, that will tell us more about transfer policy, spending etc.
I don't believe in you, either. I agree with you, though. We don't know why deals fall through, but it's happening a lot and we must be doing something wrong.
I do agree. I would have obviously preferred to add players as to stand still = to regress whether or not you have 6 points on someone the salford press want to catch you or not. We shall see. In the end if we targeted certain names would you a) rather we got the likes of sturridge who's performing at a goal a game nearly or b) get anyone and have another carroll? thats not to say we didn't deliberately end up with aspas and the rest by our own fault. I feel that the only way to compete today is to first get CL then PAY the mercenaries. salah is a prime example 26 players on loan at chelsea... he might play a few form the bench but i'll predict him moving on after 2 years. willian can run but his end delivery isn't all that. costa on the other hand chose well in my view... he stayed where he was where he saw a chance at glory. sensible... when the chavs come in with 60mil? he'll go then.. but he'll know that athletico will have peaked. finally.... LFC... we are paying for performance, playng lower wages for non europe and trying to grow revenue. why just single out ayre for this collective policy cos a few transfers don't work out? we just don't know enough of the details and most likely unitl John henry replaces the guy for transfers we won't know if henry doesn't agree I'd almost like henry to come out and defend the guy in his next interview (prob 3 months time)
What's this patronising bullshit about none of us being in the room so we can't possibly know what went on or comment on the situation? You don't see us training through the week but you still insist on criticising players and asking why Rodgers plays them and doesn't sell them? The manager has missed out on 8 of his targets in 1 year and a half, that's nearly a full team of players the board have failed to get him. We have a young manager trying to get us back into the top 4 and we aren't even backing him properly. How many more transfers do we have to **** up before we are allowed to think this Ian Ayre might just not be very good at negotiating. The excuse of the owners would probably be that they backed Dalglish & Comolli with a lot of money and ended up getting their fingers burnt but I don't see how Rodgers should be penalised for the people that were here before him.
We've also signed twelve players in that time too. Judging players is slightly different as we actually see something to judge. They could be the best trainer in the world, if they don't perform in a game its pointless.
spurious. I judge players BASED ON WHAT I DO SEE. for example... aspas, i see totally ineffective anonymous performances which lead me to believe he's nothing more than a journeyman. I don't assume he's amazing in training nor do i assume he's terrible either. I see him not brought on in games we are easily winning. contrast this to; I see negotiations take place behind closed doors and fial at the 11th hour... i see negotiations go on for 2 months over salah and then chelsea buy him. I do not assume that the other club steps in after never being involved nor so i assume that we low balled the selling clubs. I would put it to you THAT ACTUALLY YOU'VE NO CLUE WHETHER OR NOT AYRE IS ANY GOOD.... I'd once again state that the only way you'll know is when Henry either moves him aside or stands up and defends the guy. Finally you do not see why rodgers should be penalised? whats that about... nobodies being penalised. The CLUB needs to be looked after, the owners have to live within their means, the club cannot afford to throw 35mil at a player like carroll again in my view so if the instruction is to negotiate hard and the policy as stated by upper management numerous time is to pay for performance. Therefore, in my view, if thats the basis of our actions we as fans must accept winning some and losing some. In short we cannot discount getting sahko for 17mil on the last day in summer but call for ayres head when one winger turns us down and then another has some unknown action prevent his move on the last day. We cannot discount the successful transactions then go mad when we are beaten out by others when a player has a choice. This is my view, i'll stick by it until the evidence actually comes in... you are entitled to your view. I merely think it is based on half the evidence. if thats patronising you fine... cos frankly I don't think if ayre delivered a 40mil player in the summer you'd change your mind.
More than slightly, it's crucial. Imagine if none of us ever saw the games and only the results. If we kept on losing, we'd say the team was ****e, but without seeing it we couldn't analyse it and say why. Our transfer committee and negotiators seems to fail a lot, but none of us is in the position to know what they are doing wrong.
How do you know they aren't having personal issues, fitness issues or still adapting to the style of the team? Its only when it suits people's argument that they say we haven't seen what went on or got all the details so we can't comment.
Why does every transfer come back to Carroll? Why not mention Suarez, when we only valued him at £12m until Torres was on the verge of being sold? So technically we overpaid for Suarez (or what we thought his value was) and we ended up with one the worlds best talents and the fee turned out to be a bargain. I'm not saying we should overpay for everyone we are bidding for but if the manager truly believes that X player can make a difference then the owners and Ayre should make every effort to sign that player, no matter if we overpay by a couple of million.
I'd say its the other way around. Players get made the scapegoat. Plus, I didn't say we were in a position to judge, I said we were better placed to judge (compared to the transfer stuff) as we see them play so there is something there for us to judge them on. Slating Ayre isn't justified no matter how you paint it up. As MITO said, where was everyone when he managed to get Sakho? Especially considering everything in the plank deal was done but for a stubborn billionaire refusing to sign. How is that Ayre's fault?
At the end of R5L's coverage of the end of the window, they were discussing the Liverpool situation. Ben Smith (who I don't like) made a comment that I had to agree with. The gist of what he said was that Liverpool's transfer actions were probably no better and no worse than other clubs BUT that their dealings were always conducted in the full glare of the media. He put this down to the fact that Liverpool as a city was like a football village and that everybody talked to everybody else. Naturally he claimed that it was a sign of good journalism - which I'm not so sure of. I do believe that is part of the problem here. Whoever negotiates on our behalf already has a noose waiting before he even starts. At the moment it appears like its us and Arsenal that are the whipping boys - we fail and Arsen(al) is too mean. As for disparaging Ayre that really is unfair. None of us have seen him operate at the negotiating table. However, we do see the players perform week in and weak out. Having said that there does come a time when your success/failure record does need to be examined.
The **** ups in the transfer market haven't always been down to yesterday's alleged reason, Lucaaas is correct imo of assuming fsg learned the hard way about footy transfer fees and the worth of ponytails connected to overpriced donkeys heads, so their frugality along with Ayre's dithering and us entering in serious transfer business on the final day. In future find your target, as soon as the window opens make a bid and sort out personal terms with the player/players, if that fails use plan B and wear a tin hat and wait for the **** to hit the fan on not606.
It may be the case that our targets are unrealistic. If United or Chelsea came in for Suarez when we signed him, we wouldn't have got him. Willian and mkhitaryan were targeted by people with more money than we could pay and had more to offer at the time, as was Salah. If nobody else had come in we would have got them. Yesterday nobody else showed an interest but something ****ed up, it sounds like with the other club. Not much we can do about that if that is the case. At the moment we have to target quality players who will move for no gaurantee of CL football yet and accept realistic wages, they are hard to sign once someone else starts sniffing round. Its frustrating, I do think Ayre is doing something wrong, and it bothers me that we didn't seem to go for a CM.
Someone list the players we've missed out on (cast iron misses) and bar Dempsey and Sigurdson, I'll give you a reason they didn't join
Even with those two the reason is clear, Spurs were willing to pay more wage were they not? That's where an ambassador wild be good who should be involved in selling the club to players. Someone who is a legend and can sell a footballing vision to players and make them willing to accept a few quid less as a result. That's the area id let Kenny get involved in.
Fair point but you could also say people don't praise our approach since it meant we didn't get those two. I just think people are over reacting through emotions. Sure, we all wanted to see one or two new faces but it didn't happen for whatever reason. To slag Ayre because we missed out on lots of players despite there being a legitimate reason for most is not fair IMO. Each to their own though.
