Siren songs wail around Anfield following Lucas Leivaâs latest knee injury and the shortage of cover Brendan Rodgers has for his Brazilian anchor. His Liverpool side, minus Lucas, are rated at odds of 3/4 to topple Merseyside nemeses Everton in their next outing, with the Ulsterman keen to see the back of the game so he can concentrate on thrashing out a deal for Napoli enforcer Gokhan Inler. The Swiss battering ram is deemed surplus to requirements at the San Paolo, where central midfielder Jorginho has already arrived and Tottenham defensive screen Etienne Capoue is thought to be close to joining him. Despite the potential overstocking, a player of Inlerâs calibre and pedigree wonât come cheap. Tenacious, hard-working and packing a lethal strike from range, the 29-year-old averages 3.5 tackles per game in Serie A alongside his two interceptions and a very respectable passing accuracy of 87.3 per cent. Impressive reading, indeed and few would argue that Inler would slot straight into the Lucas-shaped hole currently gaping in the Redsâ midfield. In stark contrast, Rodgers has a plethora of options available to him at centre-back and could be tempted to throw injury-prone Dane Daniel Agger into a potential switch in order to bring the price down. Napoli coach Rafa Benitez knows all about Aggerâs qualities having signed him for the Merseyside outfit from Brondby in 2006. The Spanish supremo is also believed to be keen to ship out stalwart stopper Paolo Cannavaro before the transfer window closes, desiring defenders with the sort of technical prowess Agger has in abundance. Should Cannavaro abscond, Benitez would require a new centre-back as much as Rodgers does a holding midfielder, meaning a transfer fee may not be necessary in order for Liverpool to bring in Inler.
one guy can read it that way... another he other way. the facts are there is a transfer committee and rodgers is part of that committee. after that it is all conjecture he said he was leaving things to the guys behind the scenes.. its as reasonable to assume the reason is he's working the team at a busy time as assuming he is breaking ranks and having a go. after that its all up in the air is not like he's not said the same stuff time and again.. last year same... this year his buzzword is nothing imminent and that started on jan 1!
Agger for Inler. Sounds good on paper, but would Agger want to move. His LFC tattoo's would look a bit out of place for a start. Inler is also older than our usual targets so would only be a stop gap for a couple of years then no resale value. Doesn't fit the buying requirements we normally have to abide by.
Some of you are so busy sounding-off like kids that you lose sight of reality. Some bloody agent defends himself by saying "you took too long" but then we shouldn't have been talking to either him or the club before the window opened. He didn't say just how many other suitors he's lined-up at the same time as us. Your only listening to one side of the story! Look around you. Apart from Chelsea who have everything going for them, very few big moves are yet taking place. The are only a few players with particular reasons (who are top class) who will risk a move just before the WC? Equally, clubs are viewing their own positions and are not keen to release players without having a replacement 'ready'. However, 'ready' is as precarious as with us!
Well its about time we made exceptions in certain circumstances, if they just have it as black and white as that 100% of the time I think its pretty stupid
Dave, as I said it's perfectly reasonable to have a strict budgetary policy regarding transfers and when you look back on those we've "missed out on" since adopting it, there are very few of those targets we should cry ourselves to sleep over. But..... There must be the acceptance that while we strictly adhere to it, the following becomes very difficult: Identifying players as realistic targets that will actually improve our first 11; a stated goal by the manager. Unearthing hereto undiscovered gems is as much luck and timing as science. The reality is that Any player better than our first 11 will probably cost more than 10 million quid and if we won't pay it......: At least 5 teams we are competing for 4 spots with ARE willing to "overspend" on those same players. And looking at targets and figures we're not talking about 50m here or there, we're talking sub 20m competing. Our valuation may be correct, it may safe guard our finances but it doesn't improve our team, as it stands it means we aren't competing in the market with our closest rivals. So I don't mind that the message is "steady realistic finances" but it's not compatible with winning things if your rivals get the players you think you need. Because again as I asked earlier if all these 10-15 players we're missing out on aren't that important to us, why the hell are we wasting two months negotiating with someone for them?
It will be interesting to see how the committee works. My understanding is that: Rodgers says he wants players for a particular position. The scouts identify targets. Ayre and his commercial team will negotiate the deal. Ayre and Rodgers contradicted one another re. Salah - and BR gives us the impression that the failing lies with Ayre and his team. Why aren't I surprised? Lol. What I find staggering is that we spent 2 month negotiating for a player we didn't really need. And for that - I blame Rodgers for not prioritising the more important positions that needed strengthening. But then again, none of us know exactly what is going on...
I don't even mind this. At least you get to see where the fault lies. It's a decision based on football. Like Moyes and Felani, wrong purchase but the managers call was backed. With committee we get this innuendo and deflection. No one tells the truth. I just can't successfully pair off the idea at this stage of the rebuild of targeting players and putting real effort into going for them if we dont consider them important enough to break an internal pricing structure that the market doesn't give a stuff about. As it stands our budget and recent history excludes us from the worlds current very best players. That's just realistic, we don't have 200 million to throw around. We then exclude ourselves by going for first choice players in the next quality band but not competing for them in price with our rivals if it goes beyond our limit. If we are constantly reduced to going for 2nd or 3rd on the list (they're not first for a reason) then we are gambling on a product we've already decided isn't ideal. The failure rate of these players is going to be higher. And we've now a very limited pool of targets to work from. This approach just doesn't balance with a serious attempt at winning anything in the next 3 years because it's unlikely your best players will hang around for three years hoping we luck into good additions or 5 years adding one good player a year. I don't mind if that's what we have to do but don't keep talking about us actually being competitive like we're mugs. We are not. Our current first 11 is just about competitive. Our squad over a year, without luck with injuries to us and rivals is not.
