I must be missing something with Coutinho, don't get it at all. Would cash in all day if I were making decisions at Liverpool Football Club.
I must be missing something with Coutinho, don't get it at all. Would cash in all day if I were making decisions at Liverpool Football Club.
He's a prime example that spectacular goals can cover up a multitude of ills.
They can buy 96 statues with the money.
Logically, they're past that point already.
However, maybe the bigger issue at play is that Klopp wants him to stay, and the price of letting him go (for the club) may be to lose Klopp when Bayern come knocking, which will probably be sooner rather than later (maybe that's a lost cause as well). It's realistically too late to replace him (it's always too late once you've got them money, £75m for some spastic from West Ham isn't a replacement) so the cost could also be effectively giving up on the season/being in the CL next year. Now, I'm not sure he's that good/influential (certainly not Suarez levels) but he's certainly their best player so it would be a big loss.
Ideally he agrees to stay a year, they do well enough to be able to sign Keita next summer for his release clause (and Ross and The Ox on Bosmans, natch) and then he goes wherever (PSG) for even dafter money after donning the world cup.
It's the mistaken belief that there are only 50 odd decent players in the world that is partly responsible for this ridiculous bubble.
He'll stay until next summer and unless we get close to winning the League or the CL he'll be off.
I reckon above £100m and our owners would see it as too good to turn down.
The troubling thing is who we'd then replace him with. I'd not normally say he's irreplaceable but in the current market he kind of is, simply for clubs essentially demanding what they want for their players now.
We don't need the money, but we do need our better players. I still don't think we'll sell him this summer. Unless the bid reaches mental levels, even for this window.
Big Jerry Corbyn's incoming government will sort all this out.
Ninety million is still a massive amount of money, and whilst Liverpool appear to be in reasonable financial health at this moment in time, they might need it down the line. Using the Lewis Rule (yes), this would be like United turning down £150 million for somebody they consider indispensable (Dave Gayer), so I think he will go if they get closer to a hundred.
Coutinho isn't Messi, but he's Liverpool's best player and has consistently been the most effective attacking player for about two seasons now. He wins games that other players in the squad won't.
If he's sold, it would be another example of losing an important player to, ostensibly, a bigger club. It sets a tone which Klopp (and the owners, presumably) are deliberately trying to move away from; that is, that they'll inevitably have to sell the best players to Tier One clubs and then try and find the next player who'll leave in four years' time themselves.
I think they need to hold firm, if they're remotely serious about doing anything. Lallana is injured until January, Sturridge can barely walk, the purchases are distinctly underwhelming. One hundred million plus sounds great, but unless you have a serious programme for investing it and not just throwing it at shite in a panic then you might as well hold onto the player. He can be sold next year for 75% of the fee they'd get this year, and at least everybody can pretend it's part of a plan and not the obvious perpetuation of SECOND TIER STATUS it actually is.
It could be Liverpool's ye...
It very evidently will not be, but you're basically conceding the point on even consolidation of top four if he's sold and replaced by Manuel Lanzini for an almost inevitably ludicrous fee.
Presumably that 'future securing' mega deal Coutinho signed in January is going to cost a fortune to pay-off in 'loyalty bonus' (lol), which makes me think he's going to have to put in a transfer request (thereby forgoing that?). From that perspective wanting things to be amicable between the clubs takes on a different light.
Poor old Danny Rose isn't happy on 65k p/w.
Levy will probably extort £40m + Luke Shaw out of United for Rose.
It's quite lol to call out Levy for being Levy literally two days before the season starts.
EDIT: It says a lot about Twitter that the main problem people have is not that a middling player in a top six side is crying about being on £65,000 a week or only coming 2nd/3rd in the league, but that he's given an interview to The Sun, who seem to be far worse in the Twitter imagination than anything the Third Reich ever came up with. It's a newspaper, lads.
He's an excellent full back. You can always replace a full back. We just won the league with Alonso and Moses, who are both shit.
Your concept of what good and shit are is tied directly to prestige and to wages, so by definition someone on low wages is not a good player. It's like when you said that the Chelsea team is worse than the City team because the wage bill is a bit lower. It's a circular argument and makes no sense.
Theoretically, losing Rose would leave us with Ben Davies and we wouldn't beat a single player on the flanks for the rest of the season.
My Untited supporting mate has been crying for weeks about City spending big on defenders, with Walker being his most upsetting because 'you should just get full backs from your academy' along with how it's silly money.
I really hope United spend big on Rose just to hear him explain how it's ok for united to do it.
Thing is we don't even have someone who could play on the wing if we suddenly decided to play that way. Son, maybe, but you wouldn't really trust him to get past anyone.
Trippier has a good cross yeah but not much else. I really don't have high hopes for him.
Ok, that was mean on Son. He's pretty good.
It's not. It's tied directly (directly!) to their capacity as individuals (Note: this is not the same as how well they do in a team). Rose is a good full back (better than the Chelsea pair mentioned) and beats men on the flanks, but were you to sell him you could recruit a replacement much more easily than you could recruit a similarly effective replacement for Kane, Eriksen, Alli or even arguably Lloris or Alderweireld. Ergo, he is a middling player in Tottenham's XI.
The amount of chin-stroking horseshit you come up with while accusing me of chin-stroking horseshit is remarkable.
Looks like Shane Long is off to Burnley to replace Andre Grey.
Still can't quite believe we spent 15m on him.
Considering you spent similar on Osvaldo, I'd call him a bargain.
Yeah, he's more replaceable than Alderweireld, Alli, Dembele but he is one of the best full-backs in the league and would easily get double the wages elsewhere etc etc.
It's horseshit when you deliberately phrase it like "middling player at top 6 team". Best left-back in the league though mate of course yeah but also middling in a mediocre team. He's within his rights to cry about 65k a year. He's not gonna get that much more at Tottenham ofc
Glad to see Long getting more games at least probably. For a while anyway, until Burnley figure out he's horribly inconsistent too.
Antonio Valencia is the best left-back in the league.
You should probably be thankful to Kirk Broadfoot. If he never broke Valencia's leg he'd still be a skinny crossbot.
We're about to break our transfer record - again - by signing a winger called Jose Izquierdo, for "an initial £13.5m, potentially rising to £16m".
He apparently has 99 pace on Fifa. That's all I know about him other than that he's Columbian and plays for Club Brugge.
There was a Sky Sports Classic on the other day which featured Kirk Broadfoot diving over a Celtic defender to win the penalty that won the derby at Celtic Park. Truly remarkable footballer.
Jose Izquierdo is rapid on fifa. Bring him on with 20 minutes remaining, and just smash balls over the top for him. Brighton should play him the same way i do.
Wouldn't be at all surprised, would seem a Bloom thing to do.
None of the articles/the club/Hughton wanted to tell me, but you can always rely on "Goals, Skills and Assists" videos on Youtube, and it'd seem he's a left winger who cuts in on his right foot.
Izquierdo being Spanish for 'left'. Always seemed a right mouthful for such a common word. I prefer my lefts gauche.