Liverpool FC Team Talk/Gossip/Rumours Thread 12/13

whatawaster

Mr Alan wrote: »

It's not, although I'm sure a higher profile manager may have made it easier to get him. But I have no issue with Rodgers over it.



£25m would certainly be able to attract a top striker to us.

£25m looks like our entire net-spend for this window. How would you fill the rest of the gaps in the squad?

Mr Alan

whatawaster wrote: »

£25m looks like our entire net-spend for this window. How would you fill the rest of the gaps in the squad?

Do you not keep claiming we're gonna conduct more business before the window is closed?

Keep Kuyt, keep Aquilani.

Shed Maxi, Bellamy, Cole.

Bring in striker at £20m-£25m. Midfielder/winger at around ten.

Then away we go.

noodler

Mr Alan wrote: »

Articles = solid
Tweets from same journalists who write articles = to be ignored

Weird.

Articles = Usually proved, at least enough to the paper's responsibility.

Tweets = whatever brainfarts and gossip even respected Journos hear which they or the paper's don't have to take any real responsibility for.

opr

suso30fernandez: At Liverpool's airport now. Flying to Malaga at 16:55. Monday,tuesday and wednesday off... Hope the boys(reserves)get a win tomorrow.

Reserves play the first game of the season on Monday so strange that he isn't involved and is flying to Spain?

Edit - Ah Spain u-20's have a game this week.

Opr

whatawaster

Mr Alan wrote: »

Do you not keep claiming we're gonna conduct more business before the window is closed?

Keep Kuyt, keep Aquilani.

Shed Maxi, Bellamy, Cole.

Bring in striker at £20m-£25m. Midfielder at around ten.

Then away we go.

I think any more business we do will be funded by sales of Adam and/or Carroll.

Keeping Kuyt and Aquilani for another year will also cost the guts of £10 million which is missing from your calculations. As is your plan to get rid of Cole. How will you do that?

Leiva

opr wrote: »

Reserves play the first game of the season on Monday so strange that he isn't involved and is flying to Spain?

Edit - Ah Spain u-20's have a game this week.

Opr

Any news on him signing a new contract ?

whatawaster

opr wrote: »

Reserves play the first game of the season on Monday so strange that he isn't involved and is flying to Spain?

Edit - Ah Spain u-20's have a game this week.

Opr

I believe he is suspended for the first reserve match also, having been sent off in our final game of last season

opr

Leiva wrote: »

Any news on him signing a new contract ?

Not that I've read. The last thing I read was someone who claimed to have a very good source who was saying he has been told he won't have any involvement with the first team until he signs a new contract. I worry that clubs may have approached him under the table during the Euro's with a view to signing a pre contract after Christmas. It's all highly speculative though so I guess we just have to wait and see. That said it's strange if everything is ok that he still hasn't signed a new one.

Opr

whatawaster

opr wrote: »

Not that I've read. The last thing I read was someone who claimed to have a very good source who was saying he has been told he won't have any involvement with the first team until he signs a new contract. I worry that clubs may have approached him under the table during the Euro's with a view to signing a pre contract at after Christmas. It's all highly speculative thought so I guess we just have to wait and see. That said it's a little strange if everything is ok that he still hasn't signed a new one.

Opr

It's all very odd. I'd love to know what's really going on.

He seems very happy at Liverpool judging by his tweets, and then there was him saying he was looking for houses in Liverpool.

I think he is on fairly crazy money for a youth player, maybe the club aren't willing to give him much, if any, of an increase.

Sappy404

Here's Richard Buxton's interpretation, which I asume is where the 'we had a deal sorted but p*ssed about' angle is coming from:

Nuri Sahin, Liverpool and Arsenal #LFC #AFC
Nuri Sahin's loan move to Arsenal looks like it will be completed in the next 24 hours or so - something which many Liverpool fans are struggling to comprehend given how close they were to finalising a deal.

The explanation is fairly simple and, from an Anfield perspective, all too predictable sadly.

Liverpool had agreed a deal for a season-long loan with Real Madrid but Sahin remained intent on moving to Arsenal despite their initial interest waning.

Jose Mourinho and former Reds midfielder Xabi Alonso coerced the Turkey international into agreeing in principle to move to Merseyside. Liverpool's mistake was in refusing to push through the deal urgently, which suited Madrid as they were confident of Arsenal's renewed interest.

Arsene Wenger did return for Sahin, which has led to Brendan Rodgers now missing out on a second player in his summer transfer plans.

Negotiations have not been a strong point for Liverpool in recent times and it will be something Rodgers sets about to address in the coming months and years.

It's kind of at odds with the oft-stated idea that Real would have preferred he come to us. Buxton is asserting that they wanted an improved offer from Arsenal. If that's the case it's entirely possible that Liverpool did push Real once the deal was agreed but were told that it couldn't be rushed until the player was spoken to, or that Real told Liverpool the deal was done but Arsenal came in before it was signed by the player.

Mr Alan

whatawaster wrote: »

I think any more business we do will be funded by sales of Adam and/or Carroll.

Keeping Kuyt and Aquilani for another year will also cost the guts of £10 million which is missing from your calculations. As is your plan to get rid of Cole. How will you do that?

Didn't we have to pay off Aquilani anyway?

Re: wages, do you think we're paying the players we sign in peanuts?

I'd only be bringing in 2 players as opposed to the 4 you're advocating. We'd still have cut our wage I reckon.

jenno86

Buxtons a spoofer.

He used to be good a few years ago but not any more.

whatawaster

Mr Alan wrote: »

Didn't we have to pay off Aquilani anyway?

Re: wages, do you think we're paying the players we sign in peanuts?

I'd only be bringing in 2 players as opposed to the 4 you're advocating. We'd still have cut our wage I reckon.

I believe the Aquilani transfer involved them paying us a £7 million fee and us paying £5 million to Aquilani as a payoff. So we received £2 million for him net. If we kept him we'd be paying his wages, which are probably £3m/£4m a year. That's a total cost of keeping him of £5-£6 million.

Wages reported for players we have signed are something like: Borini £35K a week. Allen £40K a week. Assaidi £20K per week. The total wages for the 3 of them are pretty much covered by Kuyt's wages. If we bring in more players it will be to replace the wages currently paid to Adam and Carroll. That's my way.

How will you get rid of Cole and plug the £10m-plus wages differential under your way?

murpho999

Mr Alan wrote: »

It's not, although I'm sure a higher profile manager may have made it easier to get him. But I have no issue with Rodgers over it.



£25m would certainly be able to attract a top striker to us.

£25m would be enough to buy van Persie but he would never have come to us.

I think players of that quality are being sapped up by CL clubs leaving us with scraps.

whatawaster

jenno86 wrote: »

Buxtons a spoofer.

He used to be good a few years ago but not any more.

Most of them are spoofers. Some of them just spoof less than others.

Even Barrett was writing last week about Suarez being on just £35K last year. I don't think he has nearly as much info since he left the echo.

joe123

murpho999 wrote: »

£25m would be enough to buy van Persie but he would never have come to us.

I think players of that quality are being sapped up by CL clubs leaving us with scraps.

Van Persie....and his wages up on 150 grand a week or whatever hes meant to be on.

Im curious as to what striker we could realistically sign who actually wants to come to us. Say we had 20 million to spend on a striker. Where and who do you go to? Its all a bit depressing.

Genuinely gutted about missing out on Sahin. Such a quality player.

Yakult

Take it Arsenal have signed Sahin then? Can't say we all didn't see that coming as soon as they went in for him and his desire to go to Arsenal in the first place. Just a reflection of the club and its not good.

whatawaster

joe123 wrote: »

Van Persie....and his wages up on 150 grand a week or whatever hes meant to be on.

Im curious as to what striker we could realistically sign who actually wants to come to us. Say we had 20 million to spend on a striker. Where and who do you go to? Its all a bit depressing.

We probably wouldn't need to spend £20 million on a striker. Outside the real superstars of football Liverpool would still have a lot of pulling power.

I would guarantee you there is plenty of striking talent in Holland, Belgium, France, Portugal, Russia, Turkey, Scandenavia.

Mr Alan

whatawaster wrote: »

I believe the Aquilani transfer involved them paying us a £7 million fee and us paying £5 million to Aquilani as a payoff. So we received £2 million for him net. If we kept him we'd be paying his wages, which are probably £3m/£4m a year. That's a total cost of keeping him of £5-£6 million.

Wages reported for players we have signed are something like: Borini £35K a week. Allen £40K a week. Assaidi £20K per week. The total wages for the 3 of them are pretty much covered by Kuyt's wages. If we bring in more players it will be to replace the wages currently paid to Adam and Carroll. That's my way.

How will you get rid of Cole and plug the £10m-plus wages differential under your way?

Well you have to remember I don't think we should be slashing our wages as drastically as we are.

I'd tell Cole he'll be with the kids or he can leave for nothing.

Save on those wages. Wages saved from Maxi, Bellamy, The Moroccan lad, Aurelio

I'm not particularly arsed going into it in more detail for now as I still cling to some hope that we've something up our sleeves so let's come back to it when the windows closed.

Zapp Brannigan

Pay whatever for Huntelaar. He's clinical, doesn't offer anything but goals but he'd be exactly what we need. Also he and Suarez had a really good partnership at Ajax if I remember correctly.

Mr Alan

whatawaster wrote: »

Most of them are spoofers. Some of them just spoof less than others.

Even Barrett was writing last week about Suarez being on just £35K last year. I don't think he has nearly as much info since he left the echo.

His sources are the main reason he's at The Times.

I'd not be hugely surprised if Suarez was on small monies with the promise of a big pay rise after his first year. We've done similar before.

Glico Man

joe123 wrote: »

Van Persie....and his wages up on 150 grand a week or whatever hes meant to be on.

Im curious as to what striker we could realistically sign who actually wants to come to us. Say we had 20 million to spend on a striker. Where and who do you go to? Its all a bit depressing.

Soldado, Cardozo, van Wolfswinkel, Huntelaar, Welliton. 5 options off the top of my head that could, arguably, be bought for less than £20 million.

Mr Alan

Zapp Brannigan wrote: »

Pay whatever for Huntelaar. He's clinical, doesn't offer anything but goals but he'd be exactly what we need. Also he and Suarez had a really good partnership at Ajax if I remember correctly.

Exactly what I'd have done.

joe123

aaronh007 wrote: »

Soldado, Cardozo, van Wolfswinkel, Huntelaar, Welliton. 5 options off the top of my head that could, arguably, be bought for less than £20 million.

Soldado would cost more than 20 million and Huntelaar definitely would - who was the top scorer in the Bundesliga last season. And didnt Chelsea try and sign Welliton last summer from 28 million or something?

Dont know much about Cordoza and every time ive watched Wolfswinkle play I thought he was very average. (Kept an eye on him since we were linked with him way back).

whatawaster

Mr Alan wrote: »

Well you have to remember I don't think we should be slashing our wages as drastically as we are.

So, debt then.

I'd tell Cole he'll be with the kids or he can leave for nothing.

Fanciful. There is very little hope of us getting out of our financial commitments to Cole. The best we could do is hope QPR or someone take him, but we'd still probably be paying £3m a year or so on him.

Save on those wages. Wages saved from Maxi, Bellamy, The Moroccan lad, Aurelio

Your plan

Wages saved under your plan: Bellamy £4m, Maxi £4m, Aurelio, £2m. Total = £10m.

New wages (estimated) - Central midfielder £2m, Striker £4m = £6m.

Total wages saved under your plan = £4m


Net transfer spend under your plan = £30-35m (20-25m striker + 10m midfielder)

Reality

In actual fact we have saved wages of:
Kuyt £4.5m, Aquilani £4m, Bellamy £4m, Maxi £4m, Aurelio £2m = £18.5m

New wages - Borini £2m, Allen £2m, Assaidi £1m = £5m

Total wages saved = £13.5 Million.

Net spend = Borini £10 + Allen £15 + Assaidi £3m - Kuyt (£1m) - Aquilani (£2m) = £24 million.

Under your plan we have spent an extra £6-£11m in fees and another £9.5m extra this year on wages. That's £15-£20 million I'm guessing we just don't have.


Not to mention that our options in wide areas would be severely lacking. Even more so than they are now imo

Glico Man

joe123 wrote: »

Soldado would cost more than 20 million and Huntelaar definitely would - who was the top scorer in the Bundesliga last season. And didnt Chelsea try and sign Welliton last summer from 28 million or something?

Dont know much about Cordoza and every time ive watched Wolfswinkle play I thought he was very average. (Kept an eye on him since we were linked with him way back).

You've not been watching the same matches I have then. Exceptionally clinical finisher, he scored 23 in 46 overall in his first season with Sporting.

Chancer3001

thats not a great record for portugal...

cj maxx

Zapp Brannigan wrote: »

Pay whatever for Huntelaar. He's clinical, doesn't offer anything but goals but he'd be exactly what we need. Also he and Suarez had a really good partnership at Ajax if I remember correctly.

ive havent seen much of huntelaar but if thats the donkey who played for ac milan against utd last year i wouldnt go near him . he coulda had a hatful (if i remember but am open to correction) but made a balls of every chance .big strong and the agility of an elephant. just the impression i got of him.

Sappy404

Zapp Brannigan wrote: »

Pay whatever for Huntelaar. He's clinical, doesn't offer anything but goals but he'd be exactly what we need. Also he and Suarez had a really good partnership at Ajax if I remember correctly.

Mr Alan wrote: »

Exactly what I'd have done.

The top scorer in the Bundesliga from last year? Who's team are qualified for the Champions' League group stages? Who's just turned 29?

Either my sarcasm detector is broken or you've failed to realise that we're far more likely to be bringing in loanees this summer than throwing money around to get world-class players in positions like his.

Even if all the wage-cutting measures were to allow for one massive striker signing before the end of the window, we'd never ever get Huntelaar. If that were the case we'd need to be looking at players on transfer lists or who are looking to move and who'd cost less as a result. Dzeko or Adebayor at City, for example.

opr

Yann M'Vila is leaving Rennes. If Arsenal have managed to bag him along with Sahin they will have done ridiculously good business this window.

Opr

retalivity

watching the barca game on a stream, balague (i think) mentioned that tello is on his way to liverpool?
i know he has a reputation as bull****ter...

Glico Man

Chancer3001 wrote: »

thats not a great record for portugal...

Gone are the days of Jardel hammering in near 40 goals for the season. Falcao had a fantastic record at Porto, but then he's an exceptional player. The top scorer in Liga Sagres last season was Cardozo with 20 goals.

Nuri Sahin

aaronh007 wrote: »

Soldado, Cardozo, van Wolfswinkel, Huntelaar, Welliton. 5 options off the top of my head that could, arguably, be bought for less than £20 million.

Valencia rejected a €30M bid from Spurs for Soldado, the player himself said he wants to stay with Valencia.

Cardozo and Huntelaar are getting on.

Nuri Sahin

retalivity wrote: »

watching the barca game on a stream, balague (i think) mentioned that tello is on his way to liverpool?
i know he has a reputation as bull****ter...

That's not happening. Player wants to stay at Barca.

redzerdrog

whatawaster wrote: »

Rodgers 1-0 Doubters

He’s proving that big players will want to play for him. Agger wants to stay, Suarez signs a new deal, Skrtel about to sign a new deal. Sahin choosing us over Arsenal. I thought they would only play under a Benitez or a Van Gaal?

Long way to go, but, hey, we’re 1-0 up. Something to hang on to.

indeed

Chancer3001

aaronh007 wrote: »

Gone are the days of Jardel hammering in near 40 goals for the season. Falcao had a fantastic record at Porto, but then he's an exceptional player. The top scorer in Liga Sagres last season was Cardozo with 20 goals.

Im not so sure. Maybe gone are the days of top top quality strikers in portugal!

When one plays there, like Falcao, they generally score hatfuls.

whatawaster

redzerdrog wrote: »

indeed

We've been caught on the break

Gbear

Whatever about Borini the fact remains that we still spent 15m quid on Allen in a position we didn't need to strengthen.
Even when the **** hit the fan we still created chance after chance last season in nearly every game.

Thus far we've got Assaidi, Carroll, Borini, Downing and Suarez for 3 positions. Even if we did get Borini (because he is after all a striker at least) that would've left us with 17m and 60k a week to get another attacking player. Even if we couldn't get the top quality we need goals and we could've definitely got someone in that price bracket. We're not that bad.

By slanting it 15m to a midfielder and 2/3m to a winger Rodgers looks like he's gotten it arseways.

Chucky the tree

Gbear wrote: »

Whatever about Borini the fact remains that we still spent 15m quid on Allen in a position we didn't need to strengthen.
Even when the **** hit the fan we still created chance after chance last season in nearly every game.

Thus far we've got Assaidi, Carroll, Borini, Downing and Suarez for 3 positions. Even if we did get Borini (because he is after all a striker at least) that would've left us with 17m and 60k a week to get another attacking player. Even if we couldn't get the top quality we need goals.

By slanting it 15m to a midfielder and 2/3m to a winger Rodgers looks like he's gotten it arseways.

You were happy with Adam as first choice? :eek:

Gbear

Chucky the tree wrote: »

You were happy with Adam as first choice? :eek:

Who said anything about Adam? I'd happily fire him out of a cannon.

Chucky the tree

Gbear wrote: »

Who said anything about Adam? I'd happily fire him out of a cannon.

So who'd be your midfielders?

Glico Man

Chancer3001 wrote: »

Im not so sure. Maybe gone are the days of top top quality strikers in portugal!

When one plays there, like Falcao, they generally score hatfuls.

The exception rather than the rule. He may have scored hatfuls, but he has never been top scorer in Liga Sagres.

If you go as far back as say 1995, only Jardel has scored more than 30 goals in a single season. The closest to 30 that has been achieved is 26 by Cardozo.

So by saying van Wolfswinkel's return is poor is a disservice to him, the league (which has overtaken Ligue 1 in the European standings) and, no disrespect, but it shows that you don't really know what you're talking about.

Gbear

Chucky the tree wrote: »

So who'd be your mid fielders?

Lucas Henderson Gerrard.

Adam, Spearing on the bench with either a loanee in or someone else cheap as a stop gap.


That's considerably less worrying to me than not having fixed the massive lack of goals in our team.

I'd much rather have

Suarez

---

Carroll

---

£15m Player
with the above midfield than what we currently have.


There's still some time to sign another attacking player - maybe we'll get someone on loan; so I'm not panicking yet, but the fact remains that Rodgers fixed the part of our team that was considerably less broken than our attack.

djPSB

redzerdrog wrote: »

indeed

ooooh that was low. :pac:

Sully34

Gbear wrote: »

Lucas Henderson Gerrard.

Adam, Spearing on the bench with either a loanee in or someone else cheap as a stop gap.


That's considerably less worrying to me than not having fixed the massive lack of goals in our team.

I'd much rather have

Suarez

---

Carroll

---

£15m Player
with the above midfield than what we currently have.


There's still some time to sign another attacking player - maybe we'll get someone on loan; so I'm not panicking yet, but the fact remains that Rodgers fixed the part of our team that was considerably less broken than our attack.

I do believe Rodgers is in the middle of getting a striker in and think that he was afraid of losing out on a young talent like Allen if he didnt snap him up when he did

Chucky the tree

Gbear wrote: »

Lucas Henderson Gerrard.

Adam, Spearing on the bench with either a loanee in or someone else cheap as a stop gap.


That's considerably less worrying to me than not having fixed the massive lack of goals in our team.

I'd much rather have

Suarez

---

Carroll

---

£15m Player
with the above midfield than what we currently have.


There's still some time to sign another attacking player - maybe we'll get someone on loan; so I'm not panicking yet, but the fact remains that Rodgers fixed the part of our team that was considerably less broken than our attack.

Borini is our £15m player or does he not count because you haven't heard much about him? Also that midfield would be terrible. Gerrard can't last even half a season at this stage and even when he does play he's not great. Henderson isn't close to good enough either. CM was our biggest need when you look at our options outside of Lucas an especially when you fact in the fact he's coming back from a very serious injury. If lack of goals is our problem than Andy Carroll should be no where near our first team.

whatawaster

Gbear wrote: »

Lucas Henderson Gerrard.

Adam, Spearing on the bench with either a loanee in or someone else cheap as a stop gap.


That's considerably less worrying to me than not having fixed the massive lack of goals in our team.

I'd much rather have

Suarez

---

Carroll

---

£15m Player
with the above midfield than what we currently have.


There's still some time to sign another attacking player - maybe we'll get someone on loan; so I'm not panicking yet, but the fact remains that Rodgers fixed the part of our team that was considerably less broken than our attack.

I think he tried to fix the part of the team that he saw as most crucial to implementing his style of play.

Chancer3001

i disagree.

Nobodys scored more than 30 ok.

But look at the top scorers, its a list of players who are nowhere near the wolrd class bracket. Only average or below average players.

Nene, meyong, pena, fary faye are 4 top scorers in the last 10 or so years.

Just shows how crap the league is.


very very very few strikers from Portugal in the last 5 years or so would be good enough for Liverpool.

Look at their national team even, Helder Postiga is STILL the best striker they have!

djPSB

Pappis Cisse would have been the man, but we missed that boat.

Cardozo is a bit slow.

We basically need a Suarez that can finish.

Lodeiro from Ajax wouldn't be a bad option. We were linked with him last January.

Mr Alan

Chucky the tree wrote: »

Borini is our £15m player or does he not count because you haven't heard much about him?

I'd say people are just slightly concerned that our big forward acquisition has never scored double digits in a season & was deemed not good enough by Chelsea.