No Liverpool fan would have failed to notice the fact that the age of the players the Reds are targeting in this summer’s transfer market are pretty young. If you go through all of them, the oldest player we are said to be interested in is 26 years of age. Jordan Henderson (20), Charlie Adam (25), Stewart Downing (26), Gael Clichy (25), Connor Wickham (18), Scott Dann (24) and Alex Oxlade Chamberlain (18) are all yet to get to the peak of their careers.
The reasoning given for us pursuing such relatively young talent has been that owners Fenway Sports Group strategy are following the principles of Moneyball and Sabermetrics. Basically, it means the Reds will always pursue players who can either be bought below market value compared to their statistical performance, or rather in the negative sense, that you never buy player at the peak of their market value. The belief is that all the players above will go up in value after Liverpool have bought them rather than go down, primarily due a statistical assessment of the player’s characteristics and abilities which sees greater potential in the player.
This Sabermetrical approach maybe in play, and with one of its biggest exponents in Damien Comolli currently our Director of Football, there is certainly merit to the argument that selecting targets maybe influenced by such methods. However, such an explanation leaves out the biggest factor in our pursuit of transfer targets: Kenny Dalglish.
King Kenny knows more than anyone else what it is to be a great Liverpool player. Even Damien Comolli who has a big say in player recruitment has stated that he talked to Kenny, even before he became manager, as to what defines a Liverpool player. FSG and Comolli could use as many statistical methods as they like, but it seems apparent to me that the great driving force in the pursuit of all our transfer targets has been Dalglish.
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i still want mata
I would take Mata and Aguero any day. Or is article aimed at giving excuses? Abeloa, Alonso, Reina, Riise were good players too. Even Torres and Owen when they played for Liverpool.
On the other hand are only the British players hungry?
Arda Turan and Scott Dan are both Liverpool supporters, but who will they pick?
In my opinion, “for the long haul” is just a myth.
Beniitez was Spanish buying Spanish players; Houllier French buying French; Kenny is British and no surprise is buying…wow, British!!
I’m completely baffled by our transfer strategy.
First it seems we’re after some good players who made me highly excited about this summer’s dealings (i.e. M’Vila, Young, Matuidi, Mata etc). In the case of Young it seems like we simply gave up and let United have a free run at him.
Then we were reported to be after average young British recruits, which, in some respects, may be good for the future but not next season (i.e. Wickham, Chamberlain, Henderson, McCarthy).
In addition to the above, we are then linked to youngish players with Prem experience who, whilst proven in the Prem, are average at best (Adam, Downing, Enrique, Dann etc)
Now I’m hearing that we’re after older foreign players, some of whom are past their prime, which goes against everything our youthful strategy (Cassano, Gago, Cazorla).
What the hell is going on? Can’t we just get some British youth, some quality players like Mata and some with proven prem experience that are better and less expensive than the likes of Dann, Downing and Enrique FFS?
I’d much rather we didn’t spend at all than waste good money on overhyped, average footballers.
I seriously hope that Kenny surprises us and that all the paper rumours are a smokescreen.
Agreed Lee! eventhough we’ve had our differences in the past! Adam, Downing Gago Enrique are not the players we need…I know you don’t think the scouse thing is the best way to go, but when you hear players leaving because they don’t like england or they’re homesick is defo what we don’t need!!! ie. Gago, Navas, Tevez, Mascherano etc…We’re talking about spending 15m on Enrique..REALLY! :S
For 20m you can get Leighton Baines and Georgino Wijnaldum and that would be FANTASTIC business. We don’t need Adam or Gago…players that lie in the midfield..You’ve got Gerrard, Lucas, Meireles (keep him unless you get a great offer!), Spearo, Henderson, Suso…What we need is wingers and Wijnaldum should be the top of the list (13 goals/11 assists), then Mata (has a big name, but really not as talented as GWij), Turan, Carzola, Guardado, Honda, N’Zogbia, Jeffren, Affelay..you take your pick, but any of these would be fantastic…Finally a striker in the mold of Bojan or Sturridge…
Who actually knows what players we are after? KK sure as hell is saying nothing till it’s confirmed a player has been signed likewise for the rest of the management. We have in the words of KK reverted to the Liverpool way, so people I say in a scouse accent calm down. Be patient and ignore the lazy Cut’N’Paste hacks who try to convince everyone we are buying every player on the planet.
And BTW I hate the new blue kit.
“but it seems apparent to me that the great driving force in the pursuit of all our transfer targets has been Dalglish”
In other words, you’re guessing and speculating like everyone else. Nobody is sure who has the final say on transfer targets and what the exact arrangement is between FSG, Comolli and Kenny.
Add to this the fact that Kenny is determined to do things in the traditional Liverpool way and we’ll all be told WHEN we’ve signed players and not before.
Everything else, including this article is just ephemeral fluff. Role on the start of the season so we can put and end to the constant speculation, gossip and second-guessing that makes the summer months painful.
correction: Roll on the start of the season…
While I agree with most on here about our “reported” transfer targets I would also like to point out that I think for memory last summer we were ‘linked’ with about 60 players! And we were not interested in 90% of them!
If I have learnt anything about FSG they do there business quietly. I think like Henderson we will know about real transfer target 1 week out from signing them! Have faith lads the king is no puppet!
It’s all well and good buying youth but at the money we’re spending we could buy real quality 55 million for Carol and Henderson . Really
Dear REDS fan…………..take my word.
TRUST THE KING KENNY…He no the best with the team.
be realistic guys.without champs & euro league, do u think these “big name” would come to us?i doubt it.me my self wud luv to c hazard,mata,aguero,sanchez,coentrao,bojan etc, but again, without euro competition, theres no chance we can attract them.IN KK WE TRUST!
if we bought mata, he would leave back to spain in his prime so it would signify a massive loss when he does. look at how the fabregas situation disrupts arsenal. this will be the same for other stars from other countries, the pull of barca and real will overide anything so forget some of these players. i personally think that mentality is a massive factor in how you perform consistently. I have seen man city stars heads go down when they need to grind out a result, however i have seen the young inexperienced flanagan and spearing fight for every ball close down the opposition and ensure they can look back on the match and say i gave it everything. Ok these players compared to some are not going to come out with magic runs and 30 yard goals, but what they will provide is consistency and 100% effort and determination. From kennys appointment, these types of players had to be used as there was no other option. what we did see was a higher tempo a never say die attitude and us fighting for everything. Some times it is this mentality that is the winning factor. As liverpool fans we always see man utd scoring in the last 10 mins and we look on and ‘say lucky B*******’. What we forget is it is their mentality that says they still have a chance, it is something that was missing in the first part of the season and with a change of mentality we went from having the 16th best form in the league to the 2nd.
It’s clear that Kenny is only interested in bringing in young British players. He wants to be build a team around British players for the future. I would have no complaints if these British guys he’s looking at are top quality players but sadly they are not. The likes of Downing and Adam are proven in the Premier League but they are not the sort of quality that will help Liverpool push on. Kenny will not win the Premier League with average British players. He needs to wait until international transfer market is open and then bring in top foreign talent. Overrated and overpriced British players will not get us anywhere.
To all the Charlie Adam bashers, this is a player who stood out in what was (in my opinion) a pretty limited side. Add the fact he racked up 12 goals and 8 assists and the prospect of what he could do in a team of better quality is staggering. I’d take him just to prevent Gerrard taking corners anymore!