Liverpool Discussion

[LFCMadLad]

I had a long standing debate on here with a few that wanted Can gone. I didn't get it at the time and I don't now. He's quality and will only get better. 

[LFCMike]

Just now, LFCMadLad said:

I had a long standing debate on here with a few that wanted Can gone. I didn't get it at the time and I don't now. He's quality and will only get better. 

He was crap for large parts of last season mate. The last 6 months doesn't change that

[LFCMadLad]

Just now, LFCMike said:

He was crap for large parts of last season mate. The last 6 months doesn't change that

You could always see the potential though, just needed to add consistency, like all young players do. He was also carrying an injury last season that obviously didn't help.

You don't become a German International aged 20 if you're crap. 

[LFCMike]

2 minutes ago, LFCMadLad said:

You could always see the potential though, just needed to add consistency, like all young players do. He was also carrying an injury last season that obviously didn't help.

You don't become a German International aged 20 if you're crap. 

Yeah he showed glimpses of what he was about, I don't dispute that but I think a lot of people were thinking if he's not signing a new contract, cash in on him because he's not shown enough to be making certain demands from us in terms of his new contract

[LFCMadLad]

3 minutes ago, LFCMike said:

Yeah he showed glimpses of what he was about, I don't dispute that but I think a lot of people were thinking if he's not signing a new contract, cash in on him because he's not shown enough to be making certain demands from us in terms of his new contract

I get that but the debate I was having was against some on here claiming Can simply wasn't good enough, even as a squad player. I mean, it was utterly ridiculous. 

Anyway, looks like he'll be going Juve for free next summer which is definitely our loss and their gain. 

[Rick]

You never know, he may want to be here next season if we bring in who we are linked with. 

[LFCMadLad]

24 minutes ago, FOYM said:

You never know, he may want to be here next season if we bring in who we are linked with. 

I think that's the reason he won't sign a new deal to be honest. He looks at our options in midfield (only really gets in because Coutinho & Lallana are out) with Keita also coming and wonders how he gets regular games. He's too good to be a bench warmer. 

[Danny]

36 minutes ago, FOYM said:

You never know, he may want to be here next season if we bring in who we are linked with. 

I'd be surprised if he chose you lot over Juventus.

[Dr. Gonzo]

One for the FSG Out Crowd:

Never forget the dire fucking straights we were in 7 years to the day.

[Burning Gold]

7 minutes ago, Dr. Gonzo said:

One for the FSG Out Crowd:

Never forget the dire fucking straights we were in 7 years to the day.

Christ. I remember a mate trying to convince me that Carlton Cole could be a 20-25 goal a season striker in our team.

[HK85]

1 minute ago, Burning Gold said:

Christ. I remember a mate trying to convince me that Carlton Cole could be a 20-25 goal a season striker in our team.

Probably madlad. 

[LFCMike]

13 minutes ago, Dr. Gonzo said:

One for the FSG Out Crowd:

Never forget the dire fucking straights we were in 7 years to the day.

I'm going to take that this is aimed at partly me. Firstly, I've never said FSG out or anything like it. I've been very critical of the way they've run the club at times yeah. Does the fact they've not had us on the brink of administration mean much of their ownership has been good enough? Of course it doesn't. If we compare every ownership to our previous one then we're setting very low standards

[LFCMadLad]

20 minutes ago, HK85 said:

Probably madlad. 

He'd probably only score about 5 in your team and still be your best striker 

[Dr. Gonzo]

1 hour ago, LFCMike said:

I'm going to take that this is aimed at partly me. Firstly, I've never said FSG out or anything like it. I've been very critical of the way they've run the club at times yeah. Does the fact they've not had us on the brink of administration mean much of their ownership has been good enough? Of course it doesn't. If we compare every ownership to our previous one then we're setting very low standards

Not so much aimed at you tbh. I've got a few friends who fucking hate FSG for anything that ever goes wrong with the club and they don't really give a shit when shit goes well. I think 7 years on from where we were, we've made decent progress. We've had some setbacks with bad signings, management mistakes (at the first team level and in the executive decision making level for us).

All things considered, they've taken us from the Hodgson days, made a few pretty massive errors with transfers during King Kenny's 2nd stint - as well as keeping him for more than the season where he steadied the ship post Hodge-podge, kept faith with Brendan a bit too long once it was clear he was out of ideas post-Suarez. And the whole thing with VvD this summer and continually missing out on targets last summer with our low-balling bids are frustrating for sure.

But all things considered, we could be having much more major ownership issues. Arsenal, for instance, look to have a real divide between board members who want to see the club ambitious and those who are okay with just getting steady money. Monaco are minted and their new model for their club is to routinely sell off their very best players at huge profits - which is obviously not ideal if you want to win things.

We don't have the best financial backing in our league. But those teams in our league that do are: 1.) Man Citeh - oil baron plaything, 2.) Chelsea - oil baron plaything, 3.) Man Utd - the literal embodiment of everything terrible and evil about humanity. I think while FSG are not the richest of owners, they've still given us decent financial backing (compare our net spend to clubs with more similar financial footing than us for the past few years, as opposed to Citeh/Chelsea/the other manc club - it's not like they've been incredibly stingy). But they haven't always had the best decision making - which is understandable considering they've had success with baseball and tried to port that knowledge over even though it is a fundamentally different sport. Shit like the failed Carroll/Downing experiment with a statistically good crosser of the ball and a statistically good header of the ball make sense when you consider what worked for the Boston Red Sox - but when you look at how those signings fundamentally changed how our squad was set up to play, and when you realise stats aren't as important in football (although the data is still useful in some senses) as they are in baseball... it shows they had learning to do.

I've had doubts with FSG's ambition in the past as well. But between standing up for not selling Suarez to Arsenal (and then a season later, selling for much more money - more than double if I remember right), bringing in Klopp (rather than persisting with Rodgers), insisting we hang onto Coutinho (who if we do sell this window, we will be getting an insane price for - even though it's not really in our best interests too if we can't land Lemar), and the serious amounts of money we've been looking to drop on individual players this season (the amounts for VVD, Keita, and Lemar are all insane - Salah and Mane look like absolute bargains with the state of this market right now)... I find it hard to argue that FSG haven't demonstrated a significant commitment to improving Liverpool.

The moneymen are there to sign the checks. If things aren't working out then, it's on our recruitment team and coaching staff moreso than a board that's giving financial backing. And to be honest, other than the VVD fuckup this summer and Karius... I don't think we got a lot wrong in recruitment last season. This season, I think it was unwise to really be focused on certain players for key areas that need strengthening - it's always a decent idea to have backups... you have to admit, our persistence in trying to land our number one targets shows ambition.

Especially for a club that for decades has had problems landing our top targets.

But a real major point of my initial post was basically: wow, remember how shit Hodgson & G&H were? Because holy shit it was bad.

[LFCMadLad]

1 hour ago, Dr. Gonzo said:

Not so much aimed at you tbh. I've got a few friends who fucking hate FSG for anything that ever goes wrong with the club and they don't really give a shit when shit goes well. I think 7 years on from where we were, we've made decent progress. We've had some setbacks with bad signings, management mistakes (at the first team level and in the executive decision making level for us).

All things considered, they've taken us from the Hodgson days, made a few pretty massive errors with transfers during King Kenny's 2nd stint - as well as keeping him for more than the season where he steadied the ship post Hodge-podge, kept faith with Brendan a bit too long once it was clear he was out of ideas post-Suarez. And the whole thing with VvD this summer and continually missing out on targets last summer with our low-balling bids are frustrating for sure.

But all things considered, we could be having much more major ownership issues. Arsenal, for instance, look to have a real divide between board members who want to see the club ambitious and those who are okay with just getting steady money. Monaco are minted and their new model for their club is to routinely sell off their very best players at huge profits - which is obviously not ideal if you want to win things.

We don't have the best financial backing in our league. But those teams in our league that do are: 1.) Man Citeh - oil baron plaything, 2.) Chelsea - oil baron plaything, 3.) Man Utd - the literal embodiment of everything terrible and evil about humanity. I think while FSG are not the richest of owners, they've still given us decent financial backing (compare our net spend to clubs with more similar financial footing than us for the past few years, as opposed to Citeh/Chelsea/the other manc club - it's not like they've been incredibly stingy). But they haven't always had the best decision making - which is understandable considering they've had success with baseball and tried to port that knowledge over even though it is a fundamentally different sport. Shit like the failed Carroll/Downing experiment with a statistically good crosser of the ball and a statistically good header of the ball make sense when you consider what worked for the Boston Red Sox - but when you look at how those signings fundamentally changed how our squad was set up to play, and when you realise stats aren't as important in football (although the data is still useful in some senses) as they are in baseball... it shows they had learning to do.

I've had doubts with FSG's ambition in the past as well. But between standing up for not selling Suarez to Arsenal (and then a season later, selling for much more money - more than double if I remember right), bringing in Klopp (rather than persisting with Rodgers), insisting we hang onto Coutinho (who if we do sell this window, we will be getting an insane price for - even though it's not really in our best interests too if we can't land Lemar), and the serious amounts of money we've been looking to drop on individual players this season (the amounts for VVD, Keita, and Lemar are all insane - Salah and Mane look like absolute bargains with the state of this market right now)... I find it hard to argue that FSG haven't demonstrated a significant commitment to improving Liverpool.

The moneymen are there to sign the checks. If things aren't working out then, it's on our recruitment team and coaching staff moreso than a board that's giving financial backing. And to be honest, other than the VVD fuckup this summer and Karius... I don't think we got a lot wrong in recruitment last season. This season, I think it was unwise to really be focused on certain players for key areas that need strengthening - it's always a decent idea to have backups... you have to admit, our persistence in trying to land our number one targets shows ambition.

Especially for a club that for decades has had problems landing our top targets.

But a real major point of my initial post was basically: wow, remember how shit Hodgson & G&H were? Because holy shit it was bad.

Spot on as usual. 

[LFCMike]

13 hours ago, Dr. Gonzo said:

Not so much aimed at you tbh. I've got a few friends who fucking hate FSG for anything that ever goes wrong with the club and they don't really give a shit when shit goes well. I think 7 years on from where we were, we've made decent progress. We've had some setbacks with bad signings, management mistakes (at the first team level and in the executive decision making level for us).

All things considered, they've taken us from the Hodgson days, made a few pretty massive errors with transfers during King Kenny's 2nd stint - as well as keeping him for more than the season where he steadied the ship post Hodge-podge, kept faith with Brendan a bit too long once it was clear he was out of ideas post-Suarez. And the whole thing with VvD this summer and continually missing out on targets last summer with our low-balling bids are frustrating for sure.

But all things considered, we could be having much more major ownership issues. Arsenal, for instance, look to have a real divide between board members who want to see the club ambitious and those who are okay with just getting steady money. Monaco are minted and their new model for their club is to routinely sell off their very best players at huge profits - which is obviously not ideal if you want to win things.

We don't have the best financial backing in our league. But those teams in our league that do are: 1.) Man Citeh - oil baron plaything, 2.) Chelsea - oil baron plaything, 3.) Man Utd - the literal embodiment of everything terrible and evil about humanity. I think while FSG are not the richest of owners, they've still given us decent financial backing (compare our net spend to clubs with more similar financial footing than us for the past few years, as opposed to Citeh/Chelsea/the other manc club - it's not like they've been incredibly stingy). But they haven't always had the best decision making - which is understandable considering they've had success with baseball and tried to port that knowledge over even though it is a fundamentally different sport. Shit like the failed Carroll/Downing experiment with a statistically good crosser of the ball and a statistically good header of the ball make sense when you consider what worked for the Boston Red Sox - but when you look at how those signings fundamentally changed how our squad was set up to play, and when you realise stats aren't as important in football (although the data is still useful in some senses) as they are in baseball... it shows they had learning to do.

I've had doubts with FSG's ambition in the past as well. But between standing up for not selling Suarez to Arsenal (and then a season later, selling for much more money - more than double if I remember right), bringing in Klopp (rather than persisting with Rodgers), insisting we hang onto Coutinho (who if we do sell this window, we will be getting an insane price for - even though it's not really in our best interests too if we can't land Lemar), and the serious amounts of money we've been looking to drop on individual players this season (the amounts for VVD, Keita, and Lemar are all insane - Salah and Mane look like absolute bargains with the state of this market right now)... I find it hard to argue that FSG haven't demonstrated a significant commitment to improving Liverpool.

The moneymen are there to sign the checks. If things aren't working out then, it's on our recruitment team and coaching staff moreso than a board that's giving financial backing. And to be honest, other than the VVD fuckup this summer and Karius... I don't think we got a lot wrong in recruitment last season. This season, I think it was unwise to really be focused on certain players for key areas that need strengthening - it's always a decent idea to have backups... you have to admit, our persistence in trying to land our number one targets shows ambition.

Especially for a club that for decades has had problems landing our top targets.

But a real major point of my initial post was basically: wow, remember how shit Hodgson & G&H were? Because holy shit it was bad.

Some fair comments for the most part. I still hold doubts over our recruitment process. It is improved since Klopp certainly, the summer windows at least. There's a chance for the club to answer some of those doubts that I and others hold over the next couple of days. No new additions would see is left short again.

[Dr. Gonzo]

3 hours ago, LFCMike said:

Some fair comments for the most part. I still hold doubts over our recruitment process. It is improved since Klopp certainly, the summer windows at least. There's a chance for the club to answer some of those doubts that I and others hold over the next couple of days. No new additions would see is left short again.

I think our recruitment under them has been the biggest issue. And if we don't get a CB it's a massive failing on their part. But he club has also been given some serious backing this summer, if we fail to bring people in I blame the people who's job it is to sign players, rather than the people who are trying to pay shitloads for us to bring players in.

[LFCMike]

2 hours ago, Dr. Gonzo said:

I think our recruitment under them has been the biggest issue. And if we don't get a CB it's a massive failing on their part. But he club has also been given some serious backing this summer, if we fail to bring people in I blame the people who's job it is to sign players, rather than the people who are trying to pay shitloads for us to bring players in.

And FSG's President is a massive influence on our transfer committee. He is their man over here...

[Dr. Gonzo]

24 minutes ago, LFCMike said:

And FSG's President is a massive influence on our transfer committee. He is their man over here...

John Henry? He definitely is not the man in Liverpool for transfers in Liverpool. Our new CEO, Peter Moore, has even said he plays a very minimal role in transfers as well. The board of directors contains John Henry (FSG's Principle Owner & our club's as well), Tom Warner (our Chairman), and a few other people like King Kenny. But the real director who's most involved is Mike Gordon.

Michael Edwards, our sporting director, is the main man with regards to transfers. Ayre used to handle a lot of the negotiating with agents and shite like that- but that's no longer a part of our CEO's role. Mike Gordon is FSG's point person for Liverpool though. But I'm not sure how much of a role he has in transfers rather than sanctioning how much Klopp and Edwards have to spend. As far as I know, they're the two people with the most influence on who we look to bring in and how we look to bring them in. It's why I can't blame FSG if we don't sign VVD. We certainly had the financial backing to sign him. It's entirely on Edwards and Klopp for arranging direct communications with the player rather than his agent.

I'll tell you what though, we're looking a lot more competent this summer with Edwards as our sporting director than we ever looked with that shite French one we had with King Kenny, or for the 4 years of having a transfer committee made up of Edwards (as head of analysis then), a position called "head of recruitment" - which I think was Mike Gordon (which is maybe what you were referencing as being the massive influence on the transfer committee), Brendan Rodgers, and Ian Ayre (as the head of the transfer committee). When Klopp came in, FSG wanted to move back to a sporting director heading our recruitment efforts rather than a transfer committee where the largest voices were people who were businessmen and not football people. Michael Edwards still has to answer to the businessmen involved - our CEO, and our Board - but there's less direct involvement from people like Gordon & Moore on the football aspects of bringing people in. It's more the financial side. Which is the way it absolutely should be if the manager is not going to be the main man bringing players in.

Decent write-up on Edwards: https://www.thisisanfield.com/2016/11/michael-edwards-lowdown-liverpool-fcs-new-sporting-director/ - he was a big part of bringing in the more successful players from the transfer committee era. He's clearly got an eye for talent. It's the shite like tapping a player up on accident when there are loopholes around that, which basically every club uses, that made me question him. But overall, I think it's an improvement on the transfer committee considering we've signed in 2 of our top targets this summer (Salah and Keita), even if we've got to wait a year to get one of them.

In Other News:

We've agreed a fee with Arsenal that is absolutely outrageous (and more than Salah or Mane cost lol) for the Ox... who I think is a good player. But imo we're really just signing him for depth, unless Klopp can work some of that magic he worked on Lallana and push him on as a player.

 

[LFCMike]

Yeah I was referring to Mike Gordon

[Machado]

 

[Stan]

Origi has left the club to join Wolfsburg on loan.

[LFCMadLad]

3 minutes ago, Stan said:

Origi has left the club to join Wolfsburg on loan.

£6m fee with the option to recall. Not bad business 

[Dr. Gonzo]

We don't protec

We attac

But most importantly

We didn't sign a centrebac

Too lazy to google images to complete the meme. But a pretty good summation of our team.

[LFCMadLad]

8 minutes ago, Dr. Gonzo said:

We don't protec

We attac

But most importantly

We didn't sign a centrebac

Too lazy to google images to complete the meme. But a pretty good summation of our team.

Yep, back to the 'you score 3 we'll score 4' I suppose