Liverpool FC Team Talk, Gossip, Rumours 2024/25

Yeah tbf, I think Lavia handled himself with a bit of class throughout the whole thing. No agent talk, strops or public statements, transfer requests, fake injuries or refusing to train/travel etc. Caicedo on the other hand.....

I'm assuming that Liverpool cut ties with that whole transfer last week when they changed targets to Caicedo. Probably burnt their bridges with that player at the time too and Chelsea swooped in, with the job to convince the player that he was the man Liverpool wanted too big. It was pretty public that Liverpool switched to Caicedo.

I know there was reports earlier of Liverpool making a £60m bid but I don't believe it as nobody reliable with Liverpool news has reported it. Just one guy who is drip feeding Chelsea info the last week or so. It would suit Chelsea to have that news out there as the whole 'Chelsea win the race' makes them look better.

Time spent on Boards fighting fellow Liverpool fans is never wasted...wait...😕

I'm finding this funny now at this stage.

If any of us did our jobs this poorly we would be in sh*thsville

This is another level of ineptitude

I'd say what ever is going on behind the scenes there is a few people having a very stressful time of it. And deservedly so

Some points from the Joyce article. Taken from Reddit (I need to get away from that site):

• Instability with a 3rd Sporting Director in 2 years
• Joyce calls the internal decision making "frazzled"
• Joyce says we need to figure out ways of competing with 8 year contracts and the way football is going
• Again makes clear the "value" aspect of Lavia and us not wanting to go to 50. The club has denied a £60m bid
• We were offered Enzo Fernandez for 15m. We turned it down and he went to Benfica. The question is should we take more risks and bring in players before their value explodes
• Joyce also suggests a 4-2-3-1 as a way of bypassing having 0 DMs
• Calls Liverpool reactive rather than proactive. A clear problem

We need someone to step in and take control of the situation. Was this Schmadtke's job?

At this point in time, I think they were plamasing Lavia (and we're happy to sign him at a certain price) to keep him happy while they waited for a bigger fish to become available and then pounce. A delaying tactic can work out sometimes but this time it did not.

Good point bringing up Kone again. I know he got injured at the u21 Euros, but how bad is the injury?

Doucoure?

If they're hanging that low I'd speak to a doctor...

I think that's the issue. Both Kone and Paulhina where mooted as high priority targets but both got injured and there's not been a mention of either since.

PSV haven't received any enquiries about Sangare but Bayern, Liverpool and PSG have registered their interest with his agent.

Twitter translation: "No top club has yet reported to PSV for Sangaré. Neither does PSG. Interest from Liverpool, Paris Saint-Germain and Bayern is known to the agent because they have Sangaré on lists."

That's the loophole that Chelsea are exploiting. Not participating in a UEFA competition means they aren't concerned about it.

@_pauljoyce: There had been enough encouragement from Caicedo’s camp to convince the Anfield club to agree a £111 million deal with Brighton the previous evening, but it quickly became apparent that they had been used.

I'd disagree. Fab's fall off the cliff last year was shocking.

It was bad enough his complete drop in athleticism (long covid perhaps?) but his anticipation was gone. Without that at least, a complete liability.

Was it mentioned here earlier (or did I read it elsewhere) that his general fitness results were not that good during pre-season before being sold?

Last thing we need is a complete liability in front of an already shaky defence. Personally I'm happier with Bajcetic/MacAllister/Jones back there until we get someone in. At least they can run.

I fear we won’t even have to worry about getting to the later stages of the Europa League. These new tactics are dreadfully unsuited to two-legged knockout football. Any team can have a good 20-30 minutes spell out of the 180 and the game would be put beyond us.

It’s even sadder because knockout football was once Klopp’s biggest strength. He won his first 10 European two-legged ties in a row until Atletico beat us, and 14 out of 17 in all. It’s an insane record but it relied on doing the opposite of what we’re currently trying to do.

They all know we need a DM, everyone sees the desperation. We'll end up panic buying some overpriced turd. Get a few games, end up on the bench then be gone in a season or two. Guaranteed.

Palacios would be a good signing, he has a release clause of 35m,

Xabi rates him

''On the other hand, he underlined that dynamism and aggressiveness are the strongest aspects of his game, but that in recent times he has added a share of intelligence that allows him to make better decisions and be more time oriented. “Pala has that dynamism, that aggressiveness to recover the ball, but every time he interprets the sense of the game better, the moment of the match: when he has to play fast or a little slower, when to play short or in space. The better I played him, the better the team will play.”

35m, go get him.

A great front line that could not hit the target once against Chelsea. Jota was a ghost, Salah the invisible man, Diaz got his goal ,and vanished .

Yeah we can't let the potential of our front line be squandered through a lack of numbers or appropriate types of midfielders.

Get them in, lower level, raw, whatever and at least let us try.

We can't have this as our squad.

If Haaland was playing for Wolves tonight he'd have had 6

Jordan Henderson was on his haunches. He had given everything. The former Liverpool captain, and new talisman for Al-Ettifaq, had pushed himself to the physical limits in the service of his team, It was the sort of moment that has served previously to build the Henderson legend, except with a small difference: his team were 1-0 down here and there was still 87 minutes to play, it was 34.6C in the stadium at this point, with a level of humidity high enough to hydrate a pack of instant noodles. It was surely, by far, the hottest football match in which Henderson had ever played, but one recovery sprint, and a not entirely full-throttle one at that, had entirely done him in

Ha, he should have checked the climate before he moved. They did recover to win 2-1 though, a win for Henderson and Gerrard on their debut, Sadio scored for the visitors, after 3 minutes.

Clearly FFP doesn't matter in Saudi. That's insane money.

Exactly , it was brought in to help the ref, and now it has transitioned into not over ruling the ref, as VAR will assume the Ref saw the incident, and what the Ref thought he saw, will be expressed by the Ref to VAR, but what he thought he saw, and what actually happened can be very different, and even though VAR can see that, the Ref will still believe his own eyes and express that adamantly to VAR, IE '' I saw it clearly, no penalty, Keeper came for THE ball, HE only had eyes for THE ball, HE nearly got the ball, genuine goal keeping''

Reality, he was in no mans land, never got near the ball, and flattened two players, but the Ref believes what he saw, and tells VAR, '' I SAW IT, BACK OFF''

It's nuts

It was reported last week that Billy Hogan was responsible for the negotiations and making the offers. Jorg Schmadtke's role has been to identify potential transfer targets and determine if they are available for an acceptable fee.

Micky van de Ven was cited as an example of a player that Schmadtke had identified and who was interested in joining but it was determined that he was too raw to warrant agreeing to Wolfsburg's €50M valuation.

Apparently only about 13,000 in attendance too - you'd get more at a GAA second division game of hurley-whack.

The whole thing is grotesque.

And didn't Jota get booked for that too?