I woke up this morning to the news Connor Wickham had signed a 4 year deal at Sunderland and had rejected the advances of Liverpool for the first team opportunities on offer at the Stadium of Light. Liverpool’s interest in the 18 year old, known to be a boyhood red, was strong and they seemed keen to purchase the Ipswich Town wonderkid. Losing out on the player made me reflect on the business or lack of, that has taken place this month.
I have never seen the month of June so full of rumours and speculation not just regarding Liverpool, but nearly every other team, and considering the transfer window officially opens on the 1st July the rumours are only going to increase.
The month started off with the Reds making a statement of intent with the pursuit of Jordan Henderson from Sunderland. Negotiations took place, with Sunderland setting an emphatic asking price of £20 million for the young man who turned 21 in the middle of June. Liverpool finally got their man for a reported £16 million with a potential £4 million in add ons. Immediately from his first interview with LFCTV you could see that he had all the positive attributes to become a role model to the players around him and one day, a potential captain. It was surprising to see Liverpool act so fast in the transfer market, considering that major deals are hardly ever done in June, but this summer is an exception.
Liverpool fans had a feeling that following on from the first big money signing of the summer, there would be more to follow soon after but this failed to materialise. Obviously the only people who know who our targets are this summer are Dalglish and Comolli, but from what I can see we’ve missed out on 4 transfers. Those are Phil Jones, Ashley Young, Sylvain Marveaux and Connor Wickham. I am fairly sure that Liverpool were interested in these players and with two of them a lack of Champions League football this season really hindered our pursuit of them (Jones and Young), with both of these players going to arch-rivals Man Utd which certainly didn’t help Liverpool’s fans feelings. I feel if we had been able to capture Jones, that would have sent out a huge signal of intent to our rivals and reiterated that cash is not an issue this summer, and for the first time in years we do not have to sell to buy. The mutual feeling was that Young was always going to end up at Man Utd so there was not a huge disappointment in missing out on him.
Continue Reading on Page 2 . . .
We missed out cos we we’re too frickin slow and waste too much time haggling over Adam’s fee. Just pay up FFS and get a move on.
Feel free to hand over some of your own cash if you think they should spend theirs so freely!
I’d rather negotiate a good deal for players that aren’t world beaters, maybe worth paying over the odds for one big signing but that’s about it. negotiating for £1mil+ less on all our signings could add up to an extra £8mil towards a top signing.
well said
Probably because in they weren’t priorities.
Wickham may be a good player, but he isn’t going to lead the team any time soon, and even if he does fulfil his potential, does anybody really want to watch a team featuring big number 9 type players?? Another striker isn’t that important for us right now anyway – having Kuyt as 3rd choice centre forward, with Ngoo and the kids backing them up, is perfectly adequate.
As I keep saying over and over again, I’m not sure that any of these young English defenders (Jones, Cahill, Dann etc) are even equal to, much less any better than our own Martin Kelly. The only difference is that they got to showcase their ability in teams with no real ambition or pressure to deliver results.
Marveaux would’ve been ‘nice to have’ as an option on the bench, and to be fair you don’t know that the promise of being a key player in the team wasn’t as much of a factor in his decision as the contract. Eitherways, there are plenty of young, pacey wingers that the club can take a punt on. Unfortunately most others won’t be free though 🙁
Ashley Young was the only one that could’ve been expected to come in and be a massive upgrade on our team, but we never really had a shot at him with Man U also being interested.
All in all, I’m prepared to wait and see what happens before declaring any disappointment in our transfer dealings
I think we need to spend wisely. There’s a long time to conclude dealings yet.
I disagree that Ashley Yooung would be a ‘massive upgrade’ to the squad – he aint that great! Whilst he is a player with ability I am yet to be convinced he’s as good as the headlines- can he perform every week at a high level?
…and buying players with a track record of injuries is a risky strategy…as much as I like Aurellio the guy is barely getting into his stride and hitting some form before he hobbles off the pitch…it’s a shame, but doesn’t really help the cause does it?
Well said Jay, I also feel some people are just panicking and already declaring this window as a failure for whatever reason but they forget the International window opens today, they’s a Copa America still to be played, an u20 World Cup etc so really there could be signings coming in about 2weeks time only KK and DC know. Another thing, I’m glad we missed out on Phil Jones because we have players like Kelly, Wilson, Ayala, Wisdom and Coady coming through that spending £16-18m on another CB would’ve been ridiculous.
As for Marveaux i’m glad we didn’t get him because I’ve just about had enough of these free transfers simply because they never work, look at last year’s free recruits J Cole and Jovanovic who both get more than £100k/week and they’ve been absolutely rubbish to put it in kind terms then check our track record for the past 10yrs and tell me which free transfer made an impact an Anfield.
Ashley Young I really wanted too but the scum got in there way before us because we were concentrating on Henderson (I still don’t know why) but never mind I feel we’ll get Mata or Downing who I personally don’t like but you have to remember he won Villa’s player of the season last year so really he can’t be that bad. I just pray and hope we get players soon. YNWA!
he’s not bad…… just stereotype and predictable. A good ‘old skul’ winger without flair. He’s good but not class.
not worth anything above 12m(oh I forgot to add 3m for being English.)
Big number 9 type?!?!?!
What like Andy ‘the gypsy’ Carroll
That was meant to say ‘who wants to watch a team featuring 2 big number 9 type players’…
Looking to have our team built around one is enough already, but the thought of shoehorning two of them into the same team, or both Option A AND Option B being ‘get it to the big guy’ would be unbearable, irrespective of how good they may be
in dat case, u should be very glad Hodgson is gone.
Imagine a Carlton Cole & Zamora startin up front for us…. with N’gog and Elmanda as Backup. lol
i for one don’t think we missed out on these players, Marveaux is injury prone and after we got Jovanovic on a free and pay him something silly like £100k a week we couldn’t take another risk on a free transfer who was injured most of last season. Wickham is only 18 and wasn’t even scoring much in the championship, I think he just got a bit lucky that people were linking him with us to be honest. Only time will tell if we missed out on him, but we have Carroll who is a similar player any way. Young has a certain way of playing and it isn’t the Liverpool way, he wouldn’t of fitted into the team. Jones would of been a good buy and its obvious that he would choose Man Utd over us as they just won the prem.
As far as I’m aware you’re making massive, tabloid driven, assumptions regarding why we didn’t sign these players! Of course Sunderland and Newcastle are going to put out stories saying that their new signing picked them over us as they don’t want to look second best. The same goes for the player who wants to impress his new fans. I wouldn’t read anything into it at all! We’ll probably never know the truth, and to be honest I don’t care. None of the players mentioned are that great (yet) and our money is better spent elsewhere (which is what I think KK et al thought!). If we don’t go for Adam as he’s overpriced I won’t be bothered either. Its a good approach by our owners. I do though think that they will pay over the odds if the right player comes along so we shouldn’t worry! Lets revisit this in September and see how things went and what shape we’re in!
You missed out because you are no longer seen in the light you once were.
Other clubs are going to ask for more money if Liverpool are interested because of you paying 35m for a player who had 6 months EPL experience and 20m for another young player with potential.
Get used to it, how much have you offered to Villa for Downing? 12m well I have read they want double, can you blame them?
As for our Charlie, well we will happily bleed you dry for him but although we the supporters want him to stay we realise he wants to play in the premiership but we will make pay, pay and pay again. BTW he is the slowest player we have now send us your money!!!
Enjoy the Championship.
Sieve out the good players who really and truly want to put on our Red shirt, then we should really go out to get them. If all the players we are going to get, have the same attitude as Suarez, there will be fear in the hearts of every team playing against Liverpool.
Sean – you are a knob job aint ya!!! “pay pay & Pay again” – If we want Adams we’ll get him. Whether we pay over his actual worth or not, we’ll leave that to the club. Why comment on how much we spend on our players? over priced or not…… We’re in a position where we CAN do this. B’Pool will be forever pleading poverty….
“BTW he is the slowest player we have now send us your money!!!” You should endf that with the foloowing – “Because we’re so poor that we can just about afford a can of beans from the Tesco’s Value Range”
Get a life mate 😉
Very well said Sunny…its the only way to talk to those scums that want it!!!I dont really know why scums come to our LFC blogs regularly!!??
“BTW he is the slowest player we have now send us your money!!!” You should end that with the following – “Because we’re so poor that we can just about afford a can of beans from the Tesco’s Value Range”
(Excuse my earlier typos)
But still – Sean – Get a life mate 😉
My biggest worry is not the everyday Joes they have missed out on it is the fact that the club has been unable to remove the deadwood.
If they are not gotten rid of properly the wage bill will restrict the clubs transfer activity.
Pay up Liverpool and get Adam Ffs. I’m sick to me balls of this transfer!
Perhaps thats why the deal for Adam is taking so long. Because we dont value him at £9million. I certainly dont rate him that highly. Yes he is good at freekicks and has an eye for a pass, but so do Aquaman and Meirales!
Im gutted we didnt get the chance to at least talk to Young, he could have become the new John barnes or at least a winger on the left hand side who has a bit more than pace about him.
Im sure KK and DC are working their socks off trying to get deals. Players that WANT to play for LFC will tell their agents – its either LFC or nothing.
Yes Wickham clearly is a boyhood fan but he chose Sunderland. Why? because they probably offered him more money and also he didnt want to wait around for LFC and Ipswich to bargain out a deal.
Remember a few years ago when Owen left us. Then he left Madrid to goto Newcastle. But he was meant to join LFC but didnt want to wait until the last minute to come back so took the NUFC option.
Players that WANT to be at LFC will come to LFC. Jones and Young didnt WANT to be here, they WANT to be sitting on the MUFC bench so let them.
Its more than just the player, its about their personality, their lifestyle (hiccup on Carroll), but the most important thing is their DESIRE to play for LFC.
We didnt win 18 league titles with players who didnt want to play for us.
“Carroll will be on his way back to Newcastle by the end of next season”-rumoured from a club source and to be from the horses mouth-take our loss and send him back- if he doesnt like it here then sod the lanky flop!
LFC looks like loose focus and not seriuosly doing transfer target.1by1 our targets is runaway.Next season if we gets juan mata,cristian zapata,juan vargas,eden hazard,moussa sissokho, mario gomez or kun agguiro…i think it will be enough to fight next season.Lock the door and clear out unwanted players.We don’t need players like flop talent like downing,n’zogbia,james milner,chivu and others expensive player than actual cost.Please spend the budget wisely.
yes….lfc look likes too stingy or maybe don’t have big budget to get big name to coming into clubs.Sadness situation lfc now.now not able to fight incase transfer players.i’m tired and bored about lfc now…..too slowly.
WELL SAID FRIENDS….YES,UNTILL NOW LFC ONLY CAN DISCUSS ABOUT RUBBISH PLAYERS.THEY DONT HAVE BIG BUDGET LIKE CHELSEA,MUFC AND REAL MADRID.JOHN HENRY MAYBE NOT HAVE DESIRE TO GET TROPHY.HURRY UP OUR TARGETS NOW IS RUN AND RUN AWAY.
What happen to NOLAN ROUX.Are we still interest about him??
People who think we are being slow are just the usual muppets who guage transfer dealings by headlines in rags. Doing things the proper Liverpool way as we now are, you might think we are doing nothing but behind the scenes works are going on feverishly. When the club has something to announce, they’ll announce it. In the meantime hacks need column inches of waffle so they scrap around trying to find out how many different names they can link in one article. That’s their way, not ours. I know which I prefer.
If players come to us it will be because they want to and Kenny Dalglish wants them to, not because they are on a list of hundreds invented by no-name journos. This month is when big signings always take place, not June. So sit tight, be patient and give unswerving support to LFC and KK.