NEWS late last week seemed to suggest that Liverpool were chasing after Atletico Madrid’s loon-in-chief, Diego Costa and had, in fact, already met the release clause in his contract of something to the tune of £22 million.
I’ll be the first to admit that (and I’m sure I’m not alone in this) the first thing I did was hit Google and Wikipedia to find out just who this crackpot was.
Unlike many I liked what I saw. Sure, he’s a slightly reprehensible character and if he treated you in your everyday life the way he treats his fellow professionals on the pitch then you’d be rather peeved, to say the least.
However, as in wages, contracts, driving offenses, assault – amongst other things – footballers and their action are treated differently and, as somebody said to me a few weeks ago: you sometimes need a horrible so and so to give you that extra edge on the pitch and between him and Suarez (if he stays) we should be able to mix it up with the best of them.
At the same time, I couldn’t help but think that we were again barking up the wrong tree.
After making Toure our first signing with barely a fortnight gone since the season ended, Liverpool have made no further forays into the transfer market for defensive additions and that is a great concern for me.
Toure has looked experienced and cool under pressure so far in pre-season – exactly what we needed once Carragher had retired. But, as with Carragher, he is still the wrong side of 30 and still lacking pace and the ability to play 30+ games a season without it taking its toll on his body.
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The fact that he hasn’t played a great deal for Manchester City in the past couple of seasons may prove to be a good thing once he’s settled in but the simple fact is he was a free-transfer for a reason and given that Skrtel is likely to have left before the season begins means that any move for a genuine first-team, 40+ game a season central-defender to partner Dan Agger has to be stepped up.
During pre-season so far we’ve not conceded a single goal and our back four have been highly impressive but these have only been friendlies, despite the quality of opposition, but that shouldn’t fool anybody into believing that our defence is fine.
All things considered, I’d be happy to just keep Skrtel and save the money but both he and Coates appear to be surplus to requirements and it seems that it’s only a matter of time until either, or both, are moved on.
The two players most linked with the club in this position are Kyrgiakos Papadopoulos and Toby Alderweireld and while I’d be happy with either I think that the young Greek who has recently recovered from injury at Schalke would be the much sounder investment, not to mention that he’s playing at a higher level in the Bundesliga that his Dutch counterpart is in the Dutch Eredivisie.
I’m sure that both Brendan and the club are taken notice of my opinions and hold my opinion in very high regard, but failing that, some kind of action in this area is needed while there is still some time to solidify the beginnings of a partnership with Daniel Agger before the season begins.
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You can’t totally blame BR for our current predicatement. His hands are tied behind his back . 1) FSG is only supporting him with 20 million pounds per transfer window. FSG have learned their mistake of trusting the previous manager too much and hence wasted 100 million pounds some deadwood players. FSG has instructed BR to reduce the wage bill at Anfield. 2) There is a recruitment committee . BR can only give recommendations to the committee . This committee takes time to make those decisions. Carefully evaluating the potential candidates. 3 ) BR can only raise funds to offload high wages players like Caroll , Reina , Skrtel , and now Downing . 4) With both of his hands are tied he can only use his mouth . His PR skills is quite good I must admit . Good thing he doesn’t bite too . Hopefully we can understand his situation. I am sure BR has a lot of frustrations . The targets he wants do not want come to Liverpool FC. For all we know the targets may be thinking . Who the hell is he ? Sure the targets have heard of Liverpool FC but they have not heard about him . Sadly we are no more in the Champions League. With this in mind lets not judge him yet even before the season begin. Give him and the team until December. I seriously doubt that we can qualify for the Champions League next season . At most we may reach 5th spot or even do better than Everton. YNWA.
Suarez wants champions league,so I would swap him for costa and (20 to 30)million,they have plenty of cash after selling falcao for 50 million,and atletico madrid are in champions league, no,no,no suarez to arsenal that would be a massive error,if he went to arsenal his goals would keep us out champions league next season,top 4 next season liverpool,chelsea,man utd,man city but if arsenal get suarez they will be taking liverpools place!!
If I am being honest, I believe Brendan did promise Suarez a transfer if he gave us another season, it sounds like the kind of thing our Brendan would do, and to be fair, Brendan does have a track record of lying to us fans, 1 Can’t sign Swansea players for 12 months (Allen signed days later), 2 “I would be crazy to sell or loan Carroll without any cover (days/weeks later, he was sent out on loan, 3 Mignolet is being signed for competition for Reina (Days later, Reina is loaned out). It just does not fill me with confidence when I have to second guess the gaffer over important decisions/transfers. On the plus side, Aspas looks a very good player, lets hope Brendan can be as canny in the future, as both coutinho and Aspas look like great bargains.
The Main problem is Our Club have too many dead wood average players in the squad and not enough class quality players in squad:
And some huge surgery is needed to playing staff/squad:
The owners need to give B Rodgers £50-£80M to spend on 4 class quality attackers and two defensive players whether we Keep Suarez or sell Suarez. And M Skrtel and D Agger should not be sold or loaned out of club at any cost for next two years at least.
Two Defensive Players: Desperately needed:
1: T Alderwierld(24) Of Ajax for £7-£10M to compete, Learn and Cover Agger and Toure
2: E Capoue(24) Of Toulouse for £7-£10M to compete and Cover Lucas
Four attacking players:
3: AM: I Munian(20) Of A Bilbao for £10-£14M to compete with Alberto and Coutinho
4: RW / RWF: J Montero(23) Of Monarcas Morelia in Mexico for £4-£7M to compete with Sterling
5: LW / LWF: B Arfa(26) Of Newcastle Or D Capel(25) Of Sporting Clube De Portugal / Lisbon for £4-£14M to compete with Aspas and IBE
6: FD: L Muriel(23) Of Udinese for £10-£15M to compete with Sturridge and Suarez
B Rodgers needs to ship out the 8 dead wood average hard working players that offer the club, team and their colleagues very little quality competition for their places:
1: GK: B Jones 2: RB: Flanagan 3: CB: Coates 4:DM: Spearing
5: AM: Pacheco 6: RW / RWF: Assaidi 7: LW /LWF: Downing 8: FD: Borini
If B Rodgers can ship out these 8 dead wood average players he could generate £20-£27M And then that £20-£27m should be spent on these three more defensive players
7: CB: K Papadopolous(21) Of Scahlke for £12-£15M to compete and Cover with Skrtel
8: GK: A Mccarthy(23) Of Reading for £4-£7M to compete with Mignolet for NO 1 position
9: LB: A Cissokho(25) Of Valencia for £3-£5M to compete and Cover Enrique
If Liverpool are serious about bringing players to take us to the Champions League this Suarez saga would have gone away by now ,but its taking an even worse turn each day.
The wage bill is a problem too, we need to be able to offer the top wages for the kind of players that will challenge for the premiership, the trouble is that FSG don’t want to pay the top wage, it looks as simple as that to me, as crazy as it sounds, it can also be simplistic.
fsg is the main reason behind suarez wanting to leave.the guy want to see winners around him.if this broke fsg had bought quality players i dont think the guy will want to leave .the guy is a winner and winners always want to compete with winners.to many dead woods in liverpool.just to many.
Thats true . Liverpool will never be a top club again until FSG are gone