dont really like to piss other teams fans off if i can help it,and if i do, i look at my posts and think" erm well bit over the top there," i wouldnt come on your board to piss you off on purpose,i am a footie fan and i just happens i support liverpool.
A unique position? please... Every year clubs face a battle to keep their stars, we were in your position when we lost Torres. Okay, Torres and Modric weren't playing exactly the same; but Torres still scored goals and in his last few games was really picking up his previous form. Then we lost him on the last day to Chelsea; there was obvious tapping up involved in getting him to hand in a transfer request. We lost him with 4 hours to go until the end of the transfer period for £50m. Do we regret it now? Not a chance, because we got Suarez and Carroll out of it. The fact is... if a player isn't happy (like Torres wasn't) they won't play to the best of their ability and it WILL affect the rest of the team negatively. Harry should be looking to sell him and bring in someone else; Modric isn't good enough to be irreplaceable.
He is irreplaceable, though. You totally missed the point of what PNP was saying, which ironically proved his point about other team's fans not understanding our unique position. Even if we got £50mill for him, like you did with Torres, we can't go and sign Aguero or Sneijder or another top player because we're not geared up financially for it and changing our wage structure to allow us to get these players would cost us most of the £50mill that it would cost us to replace him. Also, we have three highly desireable players in our squad, Modric, Bale & VDV, if we sell one of them we risk unsettling the rest and end up losing the top level players that make a big difference to our squad. Those three go and CL football will be a distant memory for us. If you look at Blackburn, they sold Santa Cruz and Bentley in successive seasons and kept most of the revenue because it doesn't take as much to maintain there level in the Premier League and the difference between 10th and 15 is tiny compared to the money they held on to. We're not in that position and neither are we in Liverpool's position where we can throw nearly £60mill immediately at players on high wages and a further £80mill a few months later. In summary, we can't afford to replace him in one transfer window, like the rest of the top 6, yet we can't afford to sell him and other stars over the coming seasons and drop down the table - ergo we cannot afford to sell him.
I do get your point; and I do understand that wage structure can be a difficult balance - but once you're in the Champion's league you have to satisfy your players or they will leave. My point about Modric is; when you first got him he was a £16.5m signing from Dinamo Zagreb. There is nothing to say you couldn't go and spend £9m on Esteban Granero who is arguably just as good, is likely to get offloaded and the extra transfer money from Modric would go towards his wages. The point is; you can't afford to keep him either. First and foremost you have to look at your team - because that's where the success comes from. It shouldn't matter what wages they're on if you get into the champion's league, because it's an almost guaranteed £25m. Therefore surely low wages should be sacrificed if it means you will get back into the champion's league and within a season make a profit. You don't get anywhere without spending a bit of money, even Arsenal who maintain their stubborn "We don't buy established players" thing; have to fork out massive amounts in wages, but still end up being at the top of the revenue table. So in summary... you also can't afford to keep him on the wages he's on. Otherwise you'll have a shadow of the player you once had and a team spirit to match that. Why would I need an explanation for that? He was beginning to improve when Kenny came in, then he left insisting he'd be better off elsewhere and just ended up being worse. Serves him right.
I, and others, have said it repeatedly, but to be able to pay top prices for top players, and their accompanying wages, you have to have the revenue stream. At the moment, every week in season that we are stuck at WHL, is another week of millions in potential revenue lost. If we want to compete consistently at the top level this problem needs to be sorted ASAP. If you want to balance the books - as Levy apparently wants to do - and, upon which, UEFA will eventually insist, then you can only pay out what you bring in.
In which case you had better hope that Uncle Kenny knows what he's doing and gets you back in the CL very quickly. Your books must be seriously unbalanced by now, and if you don't start producing more revenue very soon, you are bound to fall foul of the FFP rules. Let's face it, you're wage structure is a joke for a club that's not even in Europe!
Most of our players were signed when we were in Europe every season though; so we can't exactly lower all their wages and say "It's because we're not in Europe." Otherwise they will all leave... We won't fall foul of the FFP rules because we're still the top English club in the European Merchandise revenue table, and we have the second biggest fan base (behind Man Utd) in asia, leading to increased shirt sales over there. Not to mention a large deal with Standard Charter, and an even larger deal with Warrior sports next year. All in all, it means even at our current spending we're not making a loss.
I'll look at the figures.However, you must be producing some serious revenue from those shirt sales, if that's all true. How much longer those sales will continue if you don't improve rapidly, must be open to serious question. Your spending, currently, is second only to The Chavs, and Man ****ty. So, like I said, you'd better pray that Uncle Kenny knows what he's doing.
Liverpool were right to sell Torres as he clearly wanted out and it was reflected in his performances. The fact that they made out like bandits on the transfer fee was a bonus for them. The fact that he's still playing like a donkey for Chelsea, is another bonus for them. The fact that they spent £35m of that on Andy Carroll is staggering. But capturing Suarez was a masterstroke - In my opinion he is better than Torres. At Arsenal we've had the long running saga of Fabregas and Nasri - will they, won't they stay? Much of it is bluster and guff from the tabloids and both players when quized have said that they are happy at Arsenal and committed to the club. We've had it before though with Reyes. He clearly indicated that he wanted to leave and once that happened, holding on to him was delaying the inevitable. A player in the ranks who doesn't want to be there is bad news, no matter how good he is.
Totally disagree with you on Granero. He's not nearly as good, he's not even the same type of player and would likely cost us more than £9mill as he's a regular name in the Madrid side. I'll take your point though, we could spend a third of what we get for Modric and get a replacement that is just as good. We could, or we could end up with another Bentley or worse! Eitherway, we won't end up with a ready made replacement because that'd cost too much. We have a choice and it's not a very difficult one. a) Keep Modric to his £70k pw 6 year deal, even if he's unhappy. Keep together a squad that got us CL football and then competed in it well the following season. b) Sell him, spend the money on one or two top players, offering them wages(and subsequently our other big players) at an unsustainable level, unless we get regular Champions League football. Bearing in mind Liverpool are already outspending us by £85mill this transfer window and every other team above us are comfortably outspending us also, whilst failiure to finish in the top four would then be disasterous. c) Sell him, spend £10mill on Ngog and Joe Cole* and watch us return back to mid-table with the occasional adventure in the Europa League. You don't have to be Daniel Levy to see that b) and c) are unwise. *not a dig by the way.
The problem is, if you pick A) you're alienating a player who was an integral part of you getting into the CL. If we (as liverpool fans) have learnt anything about unhappy players it's that it's the best option to get rid asap. You don't want the burden of a sulky player in the ranks, and especially one that will start every game because they're a good player. Also; there isn't really a need to buy 1 or 2 top players. I suspect you know what your team needs... well you could go for a better balance and buy a good midfielder (that's not Modric standard) and another good striker (who's not Tevez etc.. standard) and still have money left to strengthen other positions. I'm just saying that it'd be unwise to keep an unhappy player, they can do irreparable damage to the team. There is an option d) and spend the money on an improven player like you did with Modric in the first place. I'm sure players like Banega, Diego, M'Vila or Defour would settle for £70-90k wages and with the exception of Banega wouldn't cost more than £15m.
Theirry Henry, the best player ever for Arsenal and probably the best the Premier league has seen too, was terrible in his last season for us. Because he wanted to go to Barcelona. In the end we had no option but to sell him, even given his massive talent, he was a negative influence in the team.
I'm not saying a) isn't without it's negatives but it's not really an option to choose b) or c). As for your d) we are already in the market for a "good" striker and we're being quoted £20mill for the likes of Osvaldo, Gyan and virtually every other player that would be an improvement on our current crop. Letting Modric go leaves a huge gap creatively that we cannot replace, if we sign a midfielder for £15mill we would be adding to our squad rather than our first 11. At £27mill there simply isn't an option other to keep him but even with an increased offer we are far better placed to give it a year. We haven't seen whether he will be affected on the pitch yet and a year is a long time in football, a season and he could be happy to stay, it was only a couple of months ago he was telling us how he hoped the squad would all stay whether we qualified for the CL again or not. You did the same with Torres and even though you might not consider it a success, it was a calculated risk and you still ended up getting the amount that Chelsea were supposedly prepared to offer a year before. I guess we'll just have to wait and see, who's right.
Henry hardly set the World alight once he joined Barcelona so who's to say whether his "terrible" form was due to being unhappy in his last year at Arsenal.
Surely you don't seriously believe this nonsense, do you, Piskie? If Nasri is so happy, why, with only one year left on his contract, won't he sign a new one? As for Fabregas, it is well known throughout the football world that he wants to go home. The only thing that seems to be preventing him handing in a written request, is his respect for Whinger. A respect which Whinger seems to be using to keep him hostage.
Because the season before his last, he scored 33 goals and led us to the Champions league final and in his final season he only scored 12
There's a contract being drawn up for Nasri right now, which he may well sign. Fabregas has never publicly said that he wants to leave Arsenal. In fact when he was last asked about it he said that he was 'happy at Arsenal, anything else would be speculation' and that he was looking forward 'to winning an important trophy with this team' and Nasri said that he was 'committed' to Arsenal. Their words, not mine
