Michael

The problem with Rodrygo would be wages. Coming from Madrid he would want to match the highest earners already at the club. Add in Isak who has turned down £600,000, per week from Saudi, but would certainly expect remuneration commensurate with his fee and our wage bill could start to become a millstone round our neck.

Even if we stood aside they would still finish second, it’s in their DNA.

You would assume we have agreed a price with Newcastle otherwise we could call their bluff once they have committed to Wissa and Sesko.

Plenty of jogging back to the halfway line though.

Howe keeps banging on about this thigh injury that Isak has and that has kept him out of the Celtic game and now their far east tour. We should mention it when he has his medical with us and ask for a discount.

A Geordie version of Cluedo: Donna Air on the derrière.

In it?

He’s basically told Newcastle that he’s quite happy to stay as long as they sign better players such as Wirtz, Ekitike and himself, knock down the current stadium and rebuild it as Anfield, replace the training ground with a state of the art one full of players in red, cecede from the U.K. and join the Hanseatic League and actually win a trophy that matters. The last demand seems to have stymied their aspirational response, and therefore he will be joining his by next Thursday.

Like anyone’s gonna get into our half!

I was actually talking about Wirtz I have no doubt we’ll get Isak, but Wirtz in the long term is the real game changer.

To be fair, I am still not quite believing it. I need to actually see him in a red shirt in a competitive game before I will allow myself to luxuriate in the fact that the most sort after player in Europe chose us.

Konate must be looking at the signings we are making and thinking this is the place to be.

I am guessing that if we want someone new for the left wing spot, assuming Diaz goes, the most important quality would be pace, so Fofana would be more suitable than Rodrygo. Cheaper as well. It also means we don’t give Madrid a fortune for someone they want to get rid of.

With Chelsea’s accounting practices, that may simply be the same game 42 times.

Nowadays they get 10-15 million pounds each for them.

Wasn’t t he released by PSG?

So Al Hilal didn’t want him for the club World Cup, where pretty much all but the European sides were desperate to raise their profile, but they think he might be worth buying now for a domestic competition that holds no interest for anyone outside of the country?

They actively want to sell him. This was pretty much closed until they made a big thing of it today. They could have just played him, but instead they have told everyone that he’s unsettled and that they “understand” that; short career etc. There’s no way we will pay £150m for him though, so they will just end up with an unhappy player unless they take a player or two from us at artificially inflated prices so that they can save face.

That’s really decent of them. We should bite their hand off, we won’t even need to chip in anything ourselves now anymore and then we can let him go and join them for nothing in two years.

Lamine Yamal’s party still going?

A leak from the Swede would a turnip for the books.

In the small claims court?

We got Wirtz, and that was seemingly impossible. Edwards and Hughes have my complete trust now. Let’s just see what they come up with.

Bayern will offer a derisory amount. We should tell them we need £75m minimum as we had to buy some bloke called Florian.

I assume Newcastle are going to pay Isak wages commensurate with a £200m value. If not, he may well really kick off.