Transfer Talk Topic

[Max Fowler]

12 minutes ago, ROTG said:

Why would Guehi come back to a club which is at the same level as his current team? 

Come on ROTG. At some point it just feels like you are trolling. Apparently he really wants to join us!

[Dwmh]

7 hours ago, xceleryx said:

He was cheap because he had a release clause in his contract, normal circumstances would've seen him go for a heck of a lot more. 

???   No one is cheap to the buyer because they have a release clause.
They are completely free to take whatever offer they want so the surplus value above the release clause just gets paid direct to the player and his agent.
Macallister simply found the Liverpool offer more attractive than that from any other club.

4 hours ago, xceleryx said:

We also need to consider the Lukaku sized problem we had to contend with. This was only resolved right at the end of the window, which absolutely had an impact on our plans for upfront. 

The Lukaku problem and the Kepa problem - both late decisions to lose our strongest CF and GK. 
Both a bit odd. 
Perhaps they just refused to stay (can't blame Kepa given who came in for him) and Poch didn't want the hassle of an unhappy player (coward and so on).
Perhaps the club is just letting this season slide.
Perhaps TB has already given up in his head - that would explain a lot.

4 hours ago, xceleryx said:

But yeah, we shall see what unfolds moving forward. Nothing I've seen thus far raises enough concerns, or comes as any great surprise,  per what I originally expected. It's more or less what I anticipated from the beginning. 

Really?  I think the Clearcakes and most fans are staggered at how poor we are now.
But you think this is deliberate.

 

Just now, Max Fowler said:

Come on ROTG. At some point it just feels like you are trolling. Apparently he really wants to join us!

Oh - can't you see a troll when it is staring you in the face.

(Chelsea want to buy Guehi and Tomori because Chelsea were stupid to sell them hahaha, Matic, Lukaku, JT in his kit)

[ROTG]

42 minutes ago, Max Fowler said:

Come on ROTG. At some point it just feels like you are trolling. Apparently he really wants to join us!

No trolling Max F -

The only reason I could see him coming back, If he was offered an 8 year pension contract.

Guehi is good, however he would not have been considered 18 months ago. it also interesting that the only other team linked with him is the spuds, which is not the greatest upgrade if you want to have silverware winner on your CV.

Buying another player like Guehi is basically a reality check of where the club is now

[Mark Kelly]

5 minutes ago, ROTG said:

No trolling Max F -

The only reason I could see him coming back, If he was offered an 8 year pension contract.

Guehi is good, however he would not have been considered 18 months ago. it also interesting that the only other team linked with him is the spuds, which is not the greatest upgrade if you want to have silverware winner on your CV.

Buying another player like Guehi is basically a reality check of where the club is now

In fairness , Palace are worse than us , just about but still worse. 

[Max Fowler]

25 minutes ago, ROTG said:

No trolling Max F -

The only reason I could see him coming back, If he was offered an 8 year pension contract.

Guehi is good, however he would not have been considered 18 months ago. it also interesting that the only other team linked with him is the spuds, which is not the greatest upgrade if you want to have silverware winner on your CV.

Buying another player like Guehi is basically a reality check of where the club is now

It's not a sign of where we are. It's a sign the owners are still not learning from their mistakes, investing in the wrong positions, and buying players who are hardly upgrades on what we already have. 

I genuinely still think we could sign most players in the market unless a Real Madrid, PSG etc. comes in. 

Our stock hasn't deteriorated that much. It's more that we are choosing the wrong options.

[Dwmh]

2 hours ago, Max Fowler said:

It's not a sign of where we are. It's a sign the owners are still not learning from their mistakes, investing in the wrong positions, and buying players who are hardly upgrades on what we already have. 

You are not looking at the league table which will tell we are missing a lot more than a big striker.

2 hours ago, Max Fowler said:

I genuinely still think we could sign most players in the market unless a Real Madrid, PSG etc. comes in. 

You are not looking at the league table

2 hours ago, Max Fowler said:

Our stock hasn't deteriorated that much.

You are not looking at ...............................

[Max Fowler]

26 minutes ago, Dwmh said:

You are not looking at the league table which will tell we are missing a lot more than a big striker.

You are not looking at the league table

You are not looking at ...............................

My point is I still think big players will want to move to us because we’re still a big club. Still the biggest in London 😉 💙

[Max Fowler]

Stupid Poch

 

 

[Dwmh]

12 minutes ago, Max Fowler said:

My point is I still think big players will want to move to us because we’re still a big club. Still the biggest in London 😉 💙

Ooh yeah we're hanging on in there.
1 goal of gd above Brentford and a whole point above Palace and Fulham.
One team in Fulham....

If London doesn't include North or East london (and it doesn't where I live) then we are the biggest in London.
With the best stadium.

 

2 minutes ago, Max Fowler said:

Stupid Poch

it isn't real.  

[Mark Kelly]

Just now, Max Fowler said:

Stupid Poch

 

 

Mate he wasted the Bale money on duds when he was at Spurs whilst ignoring Harry Kane who only got his opportunity in the first team through injuries , Poch is clueless .

 

 

 

 

And  a coward.

[xceleryx]

16 hours ago, ROTG said:

We already have one who's scored 10 in 26 this season, and is tailored made for the Poch style of play.

Who had zero interest in being part of this club ever again, so entirely redundant. You of course know this but can't help yourself as per usual. 

[xceleryx]

16 hours ago, ROTG said:

Evidence that would have been the case?

Common sense tells you Mac Alister was worth more than the initial £35m in the current market. 

16 hours ago, ROTG said:

He is the exactly the type of forward require who is not one dimensional and is better suited to play against low block teams

Yeah, tell me you don't watch Serie A without telling me you don't watch Serie A. As someone that actually does, and even follows the team said striker players for, none of this is remotely true. 

16 hours ago, ROTG said:

Another top draw signing keep it up

Maybe quote the whole sentence rather than snipping a small section and twisting the context in true ROTG fashion. 

16 hours ago, ROTG said:

How many more billions does the recruitment dept have to waste to make a top 4 team. "with the current recruitment team they could spend another zillion and the team would be no better. Mid PL table and championship scouts = Elite team fall from grace

Maybe allow this team some actual time to develop first. Maybe we've gotta spend millions more, maybe we don't. That's sort of why patience is required because we could very well have a strong foundation of players in the next couple years that'll only need a few key additions in certain spots. Maybe it doesn't work at all. No one knows, this includes you. 

16 hours ago, ROTG said:

Upstairs is where the problem lies, with poor Management a decision makers

You really need to take those rose tinted glasses off, so you can see the train wreck at Chelsea

 

JY Says - BFN

No rose tinted glasses here, just not frothing at the bit to dismiss everything that's take place when it's quite clearly going to take a bit of time. 

You're always fucking complaining, and have done the moment since ownership changed. 

[xceleryx]

15 hours ago, Max Fowler said:

I agree with you on most things Celery but I just think you could be more critical of the board. Our plans were not to spend 115 million on Caicedo having spent the whole summer refusing to pay 100.

I don't deny we've undergone a massive positive overhaul but again it comes back to your and the club's expectations. You don't mind finishing eighth (neither do I now) yet all we hear from the club is this squad is clearly good enough for top four.

This may have met your expectations, but the club is scratching their heads. 

Injuries have always been a poor excuse. Caicedo and James were back at the weekend and did nothing to help. By the way - Brighton have a ton of injuries of their own - will we pick up the win at the weekend?

I don't think we didn't get more forwards because they weren't available - it's because we thought that the options we had would be good enough and yet they have proved to be well short. Let's see if Nkunku can save us.

I've been critical when it's required, and I've certainly not agreed with every decision or move they've made, but I'm also entirely aware that this is a project and it is going to take a bit of time before we get a proper reading of things. The Caicedo situation was a complex on in fairness. His extension made things worse, then it wasn't helped by Arsenal paying what they did for Rice. Brighton played the situation well and held own until that hotly tipped Rice deal happened, that allowed them to set the benchmark and we were forced into paying what we did if we wanted our main target. Let's not forget, Caicedo may not have even happened had PSG not come in and offered Ugarte the ridiculous money they did at the start of the window. 

Thinking we're good enough for a set level and actually being good enough are two entirely different things. On paper I do think we're a better team then we're showing, and in a perfect could see us finishing 4th. But realistically, that was always unlikely to occur due to acknowledging the components of the team and where it's at. 

I think it's harsh to claim injuries are a poor excuse, they've certainly had a telling impact in key areas and have still prevented us from fielding our best eleven. While some have returned, someone like James for example is going to take a bit of time and is quite clearly being eased back having still yet to play a full 90 minutes. What I would say is that we can't use injuries as an excuse for every poor performance. We've still had matches were we've fielded a good side, played relatively well, and walked away with dropped points. 

Agree to disagree then. I feel we would've signed a better striker had their been a viable option, and if we had more time in the transfer window remaining. I think the fact we had so many deals being worked on trying to get players out, then getting certain players in, it was always going to stretch us to a degree. Specifically with respects to Lukaku, Mount, Havertz, Ziyech and Caicedo's transfers.

[xceleryx]

14 hours ago, Dwmh said:

???   No one is cheap to the buyer because they have a release clause.
They are completely free to take whatever offer they want so the surplus value above the release clause just gets paid direct to the player and his agent.

Yeah, no.

He had a £35m release clause, which was absolutely under his market value. That's all Liverpool had to pay to entertain into immediate negotiations, it takes the haggling back and forth and milking for more money completely out of the argument. Sure, there may be add-on's, clauses, bonuses or whatever, but it's not guaranteed money. 

14 hours ago, Dwmh said:

The Lukaku problem and the Kepa problem - both late decisions to lose our strongest CF and GK. 
Both a bit odd. 
Perhaps they just refused to stay (can't blame Kepa given who came in for him) and Poch didn't want the hassle of an unhappy player (coward and so on).
Perhaps the club is just letting this season slide.
Perhaps TB has already given up in his head - that would explain a lot.

Neither were "odd". 

Lukaku had zero desire to play for Chelsea again, not hard to read the room there. 

Kepa's situation was merely born out of Courtios's injury, and he expressed his desire to move once interest was firm. Can't really blame him for taking up the opportunity to play for a far more prestigious club - one he nearly joined before joining us originally, and to return home to Spain. We're also unlikely to extend his contract unless he cuts his massive wages, so the chance to save money on a player many here religiously shat on can't be now looked upon unfavourably.

14 hours ago, Dwmh said:

Really?  I think the Clearcakes and most fans are staggered at how poor we are now.
But you think this is deliberate.

I don't think we've intentionally set out to be bad, but it's not something that would've been unexpected either. There will have no doubt been the understanding that we'd likely go backwards first, with it's going to take some time to see proper progression forward.  We've heard countless players talk about the project, Enzo and Caicedo more recently in an interview they did together, so it's obviously been discussed internally and accepted by the players that this going to just turn around overnight.

There is of course a limit to how long this can go on for without seeing sustained movement forward, but personally I'm ore than willing to give it 2-3 years providing there's signs of development. 

[ROTG]

6 hours ago, xceleryx said:

You're always fucking complaining, and have done the moment since ownership changed. 

 Not complaining just giving an alternate view. 
 

wouldn’t life be boring if we all sang from the same hymn sheet. 
 

Expletives use in sentences is usually a sign of desperation. 

[Dwmh]

8 hours ago, xceleryx said:

Who had zero interest in being part of this club ever again, so entirely redundant. You of course know this but can't help yourself as per usual. 

And is on a 5 year contract and doing pretty much what the wants where he wants.
Pretty worrying when one thinks of all the talent we have on 7 year contracts in a team doing badly.

[Dwmh]

7 hours ago, xceleryx said:

Yeah, no.

He had a £35m release clause, which was absolutely under his market value. That's all Liverpool had to pay to entertain into immediate negotiations, it takes the haggling back and forth and milking for more money completely out of the argument. Sure, there may be add-on's, clauses, bonuses or whatever, but it's not guaranteed money. 

No - Liverpool have to match the combined bid of any other club, Chelsea included.

[Ham]

Whatever happened to all of the entertaining footballers of yesteryear?  The third goal 😍

 

 

[Dwmh]

8 hours ago, xceleryx said:

Neither were "odd". 

Lukaku had zero desire to play for Chelsea again, not hard to read the room there. 

Kepa's situation was merely born out of Courtios's injury, and he expressed his desire to move once interest was firm. Can't really blame him for taking up the opportunity to play for a far more prestigious club - one he nearly joined before joining us originally, and to return home to Spain. We're also unlikely to extend his contract unless he cuts his massive wages, so the chance to save money on a player many here religiously shat on can't be now looked upon unfavourably.

Sounds very odd to me.
We let Lukaku go off on loan for two seasons because he doesn't want to, thus proving the difficulty of signing players on 5 years contracts for £100m or so.
Then we sign 3 more players for £100m and put them on 7 year contracts.
Strikes me no one has thought this through.

Kepa - frankly I don't give a damn what chelsea fans (Lampard fans) think of Kepa.  If RM want him he is probably a better keeper than Sanchez.  We the 7 year contract kings let him go becuase (like almost every other adult in the squad) he wanted out. 
I should think half the current squad already want out and the rest soon will, 7 year contracts or not.

8 hours ago, xceleryx said:

don't think we've intentionally set out to be bad, but it's not something that would've been unexpected either. There will have no doubt been the understanding that we'd likely go backwards first, with it's going to take some time to see proper progression forward.  We've heard countless players talk about the project, Enzo and Caicedo more recently in an interview they did together, so it's obviously been discussed internally and accepted by the players that this going to just turn around overnight.

There is of course a limit to how long this can go on for without seeing sustained movement forward, but personally I'm ore than willing to give it 2-3 years providing there's signs of development. 

So again - we knew it would be awful but did it anyway.
At what point does some start to take some responsibility?

[Max Fowler]

9 hours ago, xceleryx said:

I've been critical when it's required, and I've certainly not agreed with every decision or move they've made, but I'm also entirely aware that this is a project and it is going to take a bit of time before we get a proper reading of things. The Caicedo situation was a complex on in fairness. His extension made things worse, then it wasn't helped by Arsenal paying what they did for Rice. Brighton played the situation well and held own until that hotly tipped Rice deal happened, that allowed them to set the benchmark and we were forced into paying what we did if we wanted our main target. Let's not forget, Caicedo may not have even happened had PSG not come in and offered Ugarte the ridiculous money they did at the start of the window. 

Thinking we're good enough for a set level and actually being good enough are two entirely different things. On paper I do think we're a better team then we're showing, and in a perfect could see us finishing 4th. But realistically, that was always unlikely to occur due to acknowledging the components of the team and where it's at. 

I think it's harsh to claim injuries are a poor excuse, they've certainly had a telling impact in key areas and have still prevented us from fielding our best eleven. While some have returned, someone like James for example is going to take a bit of time and is quite clearly being eased back having still yet to play a full 90 minutes. What I would say is that we can't use injuries as an excuse for every poor performance. We've still had matches were we've fielded a good side, played relatively well, and walked away with dropped points. 

Agree to disagree then. I feel we would've signed a better striker had their been a viable option, and if we had more time in the transfer window remaining. I think the fact we had so many deals being worked on trying to get players out, then getting certain players in, it was always going to stretch us to a degree. Specifically with respects to Lukaku, Mount, Havertz, Ziyech and Caicedo's transfers.

Your reality is often not matching up to the reality of our owners. In your head, we didn't move for a bigger name striker because there wasn't one available. In reality, owners really liked Jackson and thought him and Nkunku would easily carry us to top five. In your head, finishing eighth is just part of the process and to be expected. In reality, the owners absolutely expected us to make top five and are again reacting to things not going as planned.

Is Osimhen more gettable now (in January) than he was in the summer? Maybe ever so slightly due to the fall out with Napoli but it's pretty close - hard to do any kind of deal in January and it's costing us a lot of money either way. Is Toney more gettable now he's close to making a return? No chance. 

Again, I like the overall plan of buying young etc. etc. and I am behind the owners now. But we got our pants pulled down with Caicedo; we gambled and it failed, we wasted a lot of time and money and should have proactively paid the £100 million. Not that our leadership team didn't do a lot of other good things at the same time but we aren't at stage clear-out any more; we need vision and strategy behind individual incomings and outgoings and understand exactly what our squad needs.

At this moment it looks like our leadership are simply playing catchup with reality. The whole of world football knows that we need a top centre forward and 6-12 months later, we cough up. We are being reactive, not proactive.

As for those returning from injuries, they haven't seemed to help that much so far. I fully expect James to get re-injured and the club should too. Will Nkunku last more than a few weeks? I am crossing my fingers he can make the difference. When our two captains have legs made of glass it's hard to have sympathy with injuries because we simply should have more experienced players who we can rely on to play every single week.

Edited December 2, 2023 by Max Fowler

[xceleryx]

1 hour ago, Dwmh said:

No - Liverpool have to match the combined bid of any other club, Chelsea included.

Entirely untrue and not how release clause work, but believe what you wish.

[xceleryx]

25 minutes ago, Dwmh said:

Sounds very odd to me.
We let Lukaku go off on loan for two seasons because he doesn't want to, thus proving the difficulty of signing players on 5 years contracts for £100m or so.
Then we sign 3 more players for £100m and put them on 7 year contracts.
Strikes me no one has thought this through.

Kepa - frankly I don't give a damn what chelsea fans (Lampard fans) think of Kepa.  If RM want him he is probably a better keeper than Sanchez.  We the 7 year contract kings let him go becuase (like almost every other adult in the squad) he wanted out. 
I should think half the current squad already want out and the rest soon will, 7 year contracts or not.

We let Lukaku go because he didn't want to be at the club anymore, like it's honestly not that hard to comprehend. If he wanted to be here he'd probably be starting. 

Those we've signed for big fees since and have on long contracts literally earn a fraction of what Lukaku was on. They aren't comparable at all, nor will likely be as difficult to shift because wages won't be such the sort of roadblock that Lukaku's have been. 

Honestly, your contract fetish is weird. There was zero need, or even any relevance in needing to bring up Kepa's contract length and here you are trying to make it a thing once more. Again, his situation is pretty straight forward. A situation arose where Madrid needed a solution for the season, they target Kepa - a player they once tried to sign. Kepa gets presented with the opportunity to return to Spain and play for arguably the most prestigious club in football, and chooses to take it up. 

Put the tin foil back in the kitchen draw. 

[Dwmh]

26 minutes ago, xceleryx said:

Entirely untrue and not how release clause work, but believe what you wish.

Exactly how a release works - where do you get these ideas from?
Sure Liverpool can match the transfer fee from any club, but they also have to match the financial package to the player as well.
Otherwise the player will choose to go elsewhere.
It is the player's release clause, not Liverpool's.

 

15 minutes ago, xceleryx said:

We let Lukaku go because he didn't want to be at the club anymore, like it's honestly not that hard to comprehend. If he wanted to be here he'd probably be starting. 

And then signed a bunch of 7 year contracts  for 100m players as if we thought a Lukaku would never happen again.
It is quite incredible to comprehend.

[xceleryx]

20 minutes ago, Max Fowler said:

Your reality is often not matching up to the reality of our owners. In your head, we didn't move for a bigger name striker because there wasn't one available. In reality, owners really liked Jackson and thought him and Nkunku would easily carry us to top five. In your head, finishing eighth is just part of the process and to be expected. In reality, the owners absolutely expected us to make top five and are again reacting to things not going as planned.

Is Osimhen more gettable now (in January) than he was in the summer? Maybe ever so slightly due to the fall out with Napoli but it's pretty close - hard to do any kind of deal in January and it's costing us a lot of money either way. Is Toney more gettable now he's close to making a return? No chance. 

Again, I like the overall plan of buying young etc. etc. and I am behind the owners now. But we got our pants pulled down with Caicedo; we gambled and it failed, we wasted a lot of time and money and should have proactively paid the £100 million. Not that our leadership team didn't do a lot of other good things at the same time but we aren't at stage clear-out any more; we need vision and strategy behind individual incomings and outgoings and understand exactly what our squad needs.

At this moment it looks like our leadership are simply playing catchup with reality. The whole of world football knows that we need a top centre forward and 6-12 months later, we cough up. We are being reactive, not proactive.

As for those returning from injuries, they haven't seemed to help that much so far. I fully expect James to get re-injured and the club should too. Will Nkunku last more than a few weeks? I am crossing my fingers he can make the difference. When our two captains have legs made of glass it's hard to have sympathy with injuries because we simply should have more experienced players who we can rely on to play every single week.

Your opinion is based on just as much assumption as mine and far from a reality. We, by reports, also tried to swap Lukaku with Vlahovic. Ownership liking Jackson and Nkunku doesn't translate to them also not being open to bringing in someone else, providing that someone else was worth it. While I'm sure ownership wanted us to finish as high as possible, just like all of us do, the good thing about expectations is that they're also adjustable based on circumstance. Maybe the initial desire was to finish top 4 or 5, but then with the injuries that hit us, the reality of just how raw some of our players are, and the sheer turnover and change had, was seen as being more impactful then first thought, thus expectations get adjusted accordingly. 

Osimhen is certainly more gettable now than he was in the summer, whether it happens in January or next summer remains to be seen, but his future at Napoli is in a more precarious situation which favours us. 

Again, never said we didn't get trousered on the Caicedo fee, just that I can understand why the price ended up as it did. 

Roman wasn't built in a day. As I've said before, we were never going to get all our needs addressed in the one window, while also shifting he amount of players we needed and wanted to move on from. We've still ended up with a lot of bright talent that could go on to be good players and form a really good nucleus to the side, then it just becomes a matter of adding the couple of key pieces on top. We could've done it the other way around and focused on big pieces first, but we'd have likely wasted all of the window trying to get those sorts of deals done and still been left with a lack depth and holes in the squad remaining. The simple fact is, it's a job that was always going to exceed the summer window alone.

Early days yet on many of those returning. Maybe it doesn't help, maybe it does - to what degree remains to be seen. Injuries have still been impactful either way, and maybe the damage has been done already, but it doesn't mean they haven't had an influence on our season. 

[xceleryx]

25 minutes ago, Dwmh said:

Exactly how a release works - where do you get these ideas from?
Sure Liverpool can match the transfer fee from any club, but they also have to match the financial package to the player as well.
Otherwise the player will choose to go elsewhere.
It is the player's release clause, not Liverpool's.

Mate, honestly you've not got a clue.

A release clause is a set figure within a contract that allows other teams to enter negotiations with said player if activated, generally being required to be paid upfront. If the figure is matched, and therefore the release clause activated, the players current club cannot reject or prevent the potential buying club from offering the player whatever deal they like. It's then up to the player to decide on whether or not they agree to any proposed contract.

There are no financial packages that need to be met, outside of the obvious release clause fee.

A potential buyer can also pay more than the release clause figure set, in the hopes of being able to more favourably structure the transfer fee payment, just as we did with Enzo. This however would require both clubs negotiating and coming to an agreement first, generally the part that activating a release clause bypasses.  

But yeah, you believe what you want. Not going to argue it with you further as there's nothing else to say or add. 

25 minutes ago, Dwmh said:

And then signed a bunch of 7 year contracts  for 100m players as if we thought a Lukaku would never happen again.
It is quite incredible to comprehend.

All on a fraction of the wages Lukaku was signed on and therefore make for a far more manageable prospect if things don't pan out, therefore avoiding the circus we've had with Lukaku and trying to shift his ridiculous £400k pw wages or whatever it is. 

Yet again, not particularly comparable. 

Edited December 2, 2023 by xceleryx