January Transfer Window 2017/18
- Thread starter Robbo
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Shame really that players are more powerful that managers now.Wow crazy amount for a defender but the. 50mill on Stones was ridiculous lol.
What a price tag to live up to though, Liverpool better hope he doesn’t flop.
In today’s football it’s not really all that.
Caporegime
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City have money that Liverpool can't dream of, 50mil for Walker to City doesn't make 75mil for a CB not look too bad. City spending 50mil on Walker doesn't prevent them buying other players they desperately needed while for Liverpool it does.
There is no way he's 2-3 times as good as some 20-30mil CB they could buy. Lovren was either a bad move or one of the reasons he sucks is defensive coaching and keepers being crap. part of the difference for City is having a goalkeeper in form who isn't completely crazy. The same CBs are utterly different class this year compared to last.
The only way I can see 75mil not being 'mental', is if Liverpool are trying to make a statement either to Coutinho/Salah, as in please stay because look we can afford players (even if they can't), or this is a buy 2-3 expensive players then break the news Coutinho is off for 120mil so this is a statement for the fans to soften the blow.
Caporegime
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75mil is 20mil higher than any fee City have paid even in the last two seasons and look at the squad City have put together. Just because there are huge transfers most windows doesn't mean every club, even the ones with silly money, have to buy the in demand overpriced player. Outside of the huge huge money clubs no one is paying those kinds of fees. If City with all the money they want in the world to spend are refusing to be taken to the cleaners over for me much better players than VVD, then Liverpool are absolutely barking mad to spend that. Let someone else buy him for silly money and then go and find the good value deal.
Even if they were selling Coutinho and wanted to soften the blow, I'd do it with 5 great players that could really improve the team not just one band aid while leaving other huge gaps ignored.
Look at the squad City had BEFORE the last two seasons. Its not like they were Everton standard.
Depends who these £20-30m CB's you're talking about are. There's plenty of garbage players going for that sort of money these days. But even if we go along with this statement, the problem is these £20-30m CB's you talk about aren't good enough for what we want and it's not as if there's a long list of CB's of VVD's quality available for reasonable fees.
You mention City in your post but City were interested in VVD both now and in the summer. They didn't end up signing him last summer, whether that be because they weren't willing to pay the fee or because VVD chose Liverpool - who did City buy instead? Nobody. They were heavily linked with Evans but a deal never materialised, probably because of the £30m+ fee being demanded.
Look through all the CB's signed by any of the top PL sides over the last 4-5 years for huge fees. How many of them could you class as being good buys? A hell of a lot less than the amount you'd call flops. It's a huge fee but £75m on a CB that turns out to be useful is a lot cheaper than £30m on another terrible one.
Dijk has no bearing on countinho, totally different players and positions for one. Dijk choose us over city if reports are true.
I doubt us spending 75 means that when countinho leaves us we will just not fill the position anyway
Yes. Conceding fewer shots = conceding fewer goals.
And while Mignolet certainly needs replacing, lets not go ott. He made a terrible mistake at a terrible time in a big game recently but hasn't done a whole lot wrong over the last 12 months.
Soldato
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You can only put 11 players on the pitch.
Soldato
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I'm absolutely amazed we are prepared to pay 75m for van dijk.
He's a decent defender but surely there has to be plenty of other options at half that price?
And anyone thinking him on his own is going to fix Liverpool's awful defending is living in cloud cuckoo land.
He's a decent defender but surely there has to be plenty of other options at half that price?
And anyone thinking him on his own is going to fix Liverpool's awful defending is living in cloud cuckoo land.
He alone isnt the complete answer but its a big step in the right direction.
Caporegime
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Which is why you need to put the best 11 out you can, spending 75mil on one player when you need to replace the keeper, maybe both CBs, maybe both full backs, at least two central midfielders is nothing short of absurd. City have monumentally more money to spend than Liverpool and they deemed him a waste of money. If they wanted to outbid Liverpool and offer higher wages they would, absolutely. City have spent big but haven't thrown around 75mil on a single player for a reason. They are buying smart and getting vastly better value for money than Man Utd, now Liverpool, Arsenal and Chelsea. Though Chelsea have made some pretty damn good deals themselves in recent years with Hazard, Fabregas, Cahill and a lot of other players also not being massively overpriced either, where Chelsea lose value is in wasted buys who barely play, don't get used in rotation and leave for pretty cheap.
Can is heavily rumoured to be off, Wijnaldum is for me, easily improved on, Henderson for me is no where near good enough, Ox.... time will tell. I said at the time that with Wenger it's perfectly possible under a decent coach he'd improve but people are getting hyped up about performances against rubbish teams like Swansea, he's been very poor in multiple games for Pool already and for Arsenal he had the same few really good games while being mostly crap the rest of the time. If he doesn't improve then that is a horrible horrible deal but I honestly can't see him becoming really top class, worth 40mil nor a position that couldn't be easily improved.
Baz said that 75mil on a CB who turns out good is better value than 30mil on a CB who turns out crap.... but it's just as possible for this move to not work, for him to not settle in Liverpool, for him to not gel with his team mates and drop off in quality as much as Lovren did. When I watch him play for Southampton I don't see anything particularly special at all. Ota was 35mil, Stones 50mil being home grown, I don't think he's shown the ability of either yet will cost a huge chunk more for a club with much less money and more positions to fill, it will never not seem crazy to me.
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When can goes we have improved on him all ready with keita, that being said I agree gin and Henderson could and should both be improved upon, just because we have spent big now doesn't mean klopp won't getting more midfielders or even defenders, I do still feel he doesn't look wide enough however I can't arque the point as he only wanted keita and dijk and we have them all be it taking longer than it should considering we needed them for start of this season.
Still iirc our net spend is low all ready with players we did let go. We don't do what city do and spend as much with out letting players go, I think sturridge and ings will be gone come Jan that's probably 30m there
Still iirc our net spend is low all ready with players we did let go. We don't do what city do and spend as much with out letting players go, I think sturridge and ings will be gone come Jan that's probably 30m there
I actually think that the whole reason why Can is wanting to go is because Keita is coming. I suspect that Can figures that once Keita is here he wont get much gametime as Keita will be picked instead of him for a DM role.
I think he is doing it just for the money plus if goes to juventus most likely they will just win league as they do all the time so easy title, he is a very up and down player in regards to form at times I feel he thinks he is better than he is
You missed the point of what I was saying. First of all yes, of course any this and any transfer can not work out. The point I was making though is that there is no value out there for CB's, as you were trying to suggest. Name me these £30m CB's Liverpool could have signed of similar (or even slightly less) quality of VVD that suit our way of playing. I'm sure somebody who's played a bit of football manager will reel off a load of names from Europe but I'm sure had I asked this same question a few seasons ago people would be saying you could sign Sakho, Otamendi, Mangala, Lindeloff etc etc and it turns out they all weren't very good. £30m gets you Jonny Evans or Sakho. £40m+ gets you a gamble on a 21 year old promising CB (Sanchez - Spurs) that's played 1 season in Europe. I'm sure somebody will go out and find a bargain and we'll get all the "x cost 5x less than VVD" comments but that player will only turn out to be a bargain because he was a gamble to begin with. Liverpool can't afford to take a punt though, we need to sign the best possible CB we can for our team and that's exactly what we've done.
I'm not sure how you've decided that City thought VVD was a waste of money - as little as a week ago all the journos following City were reporting that he was their main CB target and some going as far as to reporting that City were confident they'd get him/close to agreeing a £60m+ deal. He's gone from being their number 1 target to a complete waste for the sake of £10m odd? You talk about City being smart - £40-50m on Mangala 4(?) years ago (which probably translates to similar amounts to VVD's fee) wasn't very smart. £35m on Otamendi 2 and a half years ago is probably over £50m today - for 2 seasons he looked bang average, it's only this season now that City aren't doing much defending that he's not been a liability. £50m on Stones 18 months ago isn't going to be far off £60m odd now either.
As for our finances. If Liverpool signing VVD for £75m means we can't afford to sign anybody else then I'd agree with you DM but it doesn't so I don't. For the past 2 seasons, despite the increased TV revenue, increased match day revenue and qualifying for the CL, we've barely spent a penny - maybe £20m net over the 2 seasons. We've had money to spend but Klopp hasn't been willing to just spend for the sake of it - if he can't get the players he wants then he'll wait until he can rather than go out and sign somebody for the sake of it.
Caporegime
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Lindelof has been good for the last month 