The first time i saw Mascherano was in the worl cup and i said to my son "we need that player", i couldn`t believe it when he went to West Ham and was gutted when he moved to you. Tevez never came into it for me.
Don't get me wrong, you can't buy a squad of worldies, I have nothing against signing Can, Manquillo etc. But Liverpool should have also bought a couple of top players. Put it this way, would you have been happy if we'd bought Blind and Rojo but no Di Maria and Herrera as well? As I said I can understand a punt on Can, Manquillo, Markovich, but then I know plenty of Liverpool fans who were hoping Lallana, Lambert wouldn't happen. They wanted better...a bit of quality in addition to the lesser known players. Fair point Gerrez although Alonso came in before.
In fairness no, but at least Blind and Rojo were in positions where we needed players. Pool lost one of the top five or six strikers in the world, the only player they lost from a team that came second in the league, their priority should have been to try and replace him then build on the rest of the squad.
No it should not have been our priority! You conveniently ignore 3 major issues. Firstly the club has committed itself to building its future on younger players. Secondly, we knew last season that we had a paper thin squad which needed to be expanded with better quality than currently existed within the club. Finally, there was no player available who could have taken on the Suarez role. Now I'm not saying that Suarez was/is the best player in the world but he is unique. Your club has chosen a different strategy and that is working just about as well as ours presently. However give Can, Manquillo Lallana and maybe Markovic a few years and they will have increased in value more than your 'ready-mades'.
This was brought up when Rodgers first signed up. Having seen us get CL and buy the players that we did, with BR saying we missed out on top targets, to seeing United buy/get Di maria, Falcao, Blind, Rojo, all without CL just makes you think about that manager/club pull. If we had a simeone or klopp would we have got a bigger stature of player? Maybe, hard to tell though.
Half the world turned down Man Utd, Di Maria said he didn't want to move but was forced out, Falcao is crocked and was at a failed money club, Blind and Rojo are nobodies
Astro, I have known you on here a long time, but those are some rose tinted specs man!!! Falcao and Di Maria no good????????? Blind and Rojo had a host of teams to choose from but probably fall in the late wonderkid category. Falcao and Di Maria though, have pedigree. To be fair, I think both those players would have worked in our system better!!!!
I didn't say Falcao and Di Maria are no good, but Di Maria would not have accepted Man Utd if not told to leave, and Falcao only left because Monaco are in deep **** and few other clubs in the world are desperate enough to support his wages
Torres was only 22 when he joined LFC. He was a young player who hadn't scored more than 20 leagues in one season. He was a very good player with a promising career ahead of him. He wasn't ready for a massive club like Barca/Real/Man Utd (at that time) hence why they weren't in for him. Suarez joined when he was 24 I believe - again, relatively young and only proved himself in the Dutch league. He wasn't a massive draw to the big clubs hence why we got him. We did exactly the same with Costa before last season where he was incredible. You probably hadn't even heard of Costa 2 years when we tried to go for him - because he wasn't top class. Had we got him then, he would have joined the long list of amazing strikers to have played for LFC. Mascherano was another good player who had been playing for WEST HAM before he joined LFC. Yet another example of us buying a player BEFORE they developed to the next level. So whilst I agree with you that these are the types of players we should be going for, they were classed as tier 2 players (players who aren't top class just yet). I can't remember us actually ever buying a ready made world class player. It's simply not what we do - either through affordability or being attractive enough.
frankly torres reminded me of alan shearer... in terms of carrer... alan shearer at southampton wasn't all that in terms of delivery but the world and their mother knew what was coming. same for torres. treble is right. everyone knew what torres was. LFC are buying on hope. What LFC need if we are not going for the top player is real scouting that isn't oh maybe markovic is x or y... some nut bag picked aspas FFS!!!! they need to recognise a suarez when he was at gronegin not ajax.. should be buying the players like silva, mata etc if they really beleive. an eye for a player is the question. LFC did go for cost and were told we were nuts cos he was a thug. jimmy is right. The lad is tops. he was not getting a game til athletico sold falcao. our issue is we should have bought him BEFORE they sold him . the world knew costa whe nwe did go for him.
As MITO says everyone knew about Torres. I remember that time very well. He had rejected United earlier, he wouldn't go to his bitter rivals Madrid, and was tipped for Barca when the time was right, but not while Etoo and Ronaldhino were still considered an integral part of their attack. Rafa, credit to him did what Fergie did with players in Britain, or what Wenger did with the French, he slipped in undercover and did the dirty, persuading Torres to join. As for Mascherano - like Tevez, once showcased at West Ham, was easily recognised as a top defensive midfielder. They had both already reached the next level. United took Tevez and Liverpool took Mascherano. The term world class gets banded about and muddies the waters so ignore that. But we're talking about recognised top footballers and there's a clear difference AT THE TIME OF BUYING EACH between Torres and Lallana. You can carry on putting all your eggs in one basket, betting it all on your youth system supplemented with below par hopefuls.......if you were in Italy or Spain, BUT what was the last team to establish themselves in the top 4 in the Prem doing that??? In fact I've just seen a poster above focusing on the increase in value of your players in the future. Some of you have got your priorities all wrong IMO.
Macherano hardly played for West Ham. He started a few games but then was dropped and Rafa saw the potential and got the best out of him
The very best? The very best want success. They want at least almost guaranteed chances of CL, which we can't provide. But who needs them - if you got an eye for talent READY and HUNGRY to showcase themselves as the very best at a better club or in a better league! Suarez, Torres, Masch, Dalglish, Alonso, Barnes. However, BR unfortunately as things are cannot summon enough genuine words or actions to persuade such talents
Did you not see any of his games for Argentina in the world cup (before West Ham got him), he was superb. Rafa did well to get him from West Ham but if it wasn`t for the third party ownership both him and Tevez would have gone to top clubs in August of the previous year.
The point is Masch, just like Suarez, Torres, Dalglish, Alonso, Barnes, was a promising young talent on the cusp of proving his potential, just not yet one of the "very best". We have been great over the years at providing this final push to stardom, whilst staying away from already made stars. Similar for United until recently actually.
It is that final step that had been missing. If we keep losing the players when they are at their peak then we will remain on the fringes of the CL on a longer term basis. The likes of mascherano Alonso left us when they were near to the top of their game. They did a good job at their next club. Same with Suarez. It is likely he will give his best years to Barcelona. Not sure what the solution is. It is a vicious cycle. If The better players leave because the less successful you are this makes you even worse. In the old days there would have been a core of good players who would stay no matter what. Local lads, club allegiance, family ties.
West Ham and Pardew were twats. Even at such a young age, they had two world stars in their ranks and should have set the team around them. Tevez obviously dragged them from relegation in the end but it shouldn't have even been close Alonso wasn't a big name when we signed him. He was known but wasn't exactly being chased by all and sundry. Torres, Mascherano, Reina, etc were wanted by a few big clubs but it was Rafa that got them, they wanted to play for him. Edit: having read the above comments and caught up, it is quite amusing seeing people refer to Mascherano as potential at the time we signed him. He was already part of not only the Argentina setup but a first player for them! Sure, he had room for improvement but don't let Pardew's idiocy fool you into thinking he wasn't already a great player.
This - this is the point I'm making. Torres had a very good reputation when he was at At Madrid, but teams didn't take the risk on him because they didn't see him a top player yet. We bought him and developed him and made him world class. That's what we do. We're never go for the elite level of players. And I've said all along - players like Torres, Suarez, Alonso etc were tier 2 players when we bought them. This is the market we should be buying from. We bought players like Lovren and Lallana for tier 2 prices but are tier 3 players (if that makes sense). The tier 2 players we should be looking at now are: Lacazette Volland Firmino Shaqiri Schar Carvalho (tier 2 player but will command a tier 1 price) Problem is, we're leaving it far too late. These are players who would have seen LFC as the next step of their career to become world class. We had CL to attract them. The longer we leave it, the more they will continue to develop at their current clubs and that's when they make their name and the big elite clubs will snap them up.
and Jimmy I agree with this Alonso is the only one who was "the potential". But I think this is getting away from the overall point. For the sake of argument, even if we say you've traditionally bought tier 2 players, the number that have turned out to be poor buys has been disproportionately larger than those that have turned into top players. The policy is failing, the approach has proved to be (along with Carlthejackal's point above about holding onto said top players) to be the fundamental reason for Liverpool's underachievement over the last couple of decades. I don't disagree you need to buy tier 2 players AND that you need to bring through youth, BUT in modern football in England, if you want to compete you also need to buy recognised top players. You need a good mix. In fact going back to Carlthejackal's point, it's one way of ensuring that top players (when they are recognised as such at Liverpool) are encouraged and want to stay. It shows to them the club's ambition or lack of it. There's always a risk and implications when you start offering big wages, but seriously, there is really no chance a club like Liverpool is going to sink as a result. Just not going to happen. I think it's just an excuse tbh. If anything, the merchandising, stadium, sponsorship deals is where you need to focus on for that.
I think it depends on your definition of a top tier player. Are these the world class players? If so, what is your definition of world class? For me, a world class player (or top tier) is someone that wouldn't look out of place playing for any club in the world. That doesn't necessarily mean that get in that clubs first team as it stands either, it means they wouldn't be out of place at such a club. For example, I club could have Aguero, Suarez, Messi and C.Ronaldo in their ranks but Neymar or Bale wouldn't out of place if you swap them with any of those names. Its not about comparing other players because they could be playing in a time when we are blessed to have a abundance of talent. Messi and C.Roanldo are the perfect example of this. Both would be classed as the outright top player in any other era but they happen to be playing in the same time era. Liverpool NEVER sign a top tier world class player. I can't recall us doing so in the last twenty years, maybe the last ones were Kenny Dalglish and/or John Barnes. We buy players that have something to prove and skills to develop. We buy players to have their best years with us, we don't players because they've just had them. Take the crazy Andy Carroll deal out the question and we've never spent over £25m on someone. That's pretty crazy for a club of Liverpool's size. Especially when you consider our biggest rival was regularly doing that over ten years ago. Its not that we never had the funds either, we've had them. We just prefer not to buy the already made and proven superstar IMO.
