David Hodgson

I'm here now. In Sinsheim. It's s***. Heidelberg however is great. As you were.

Same.

Yeah that's him. He's gorgeous but he knows nothing football.

Guzman' s a nightmare. He's always wrong.

He's agitating like a mofo. They all do. It's about how we react.

High five !

FSG are not in this to earn income . As far as I can tell they've not taken any dividends and they don't pay themselves wages. They are in it to build up a mighty asset. Having a mighty asset doesn't mean it's just about fattening the calf for sale either. It's value sits on their asset register . They are already wealthier without having to cash in. They are worth more. If you're them, you mainly want that asset to keep going up in value. What affects LFC value ? It's turnover, it's profitability and it's potential . Selling an asset of the club (like Coutinho) isn't any kind of coup for them . Selling Coutinho doesn't make LFC more valuable . Today LFC might be worth a billion pounds. That value accounts for the value of its playing 'stock'. Coutinho's current value will be factored into that valuation. Selling him crystallises part of that valuation, to an extent , but in theory it doesn't increase it. It's just swapping asset value for cash. They could trouser the Coutinho cash, but then their asset is worth less.

Totes agree.

My main concern isn't so muchwhat it signals, simply that we need the player for the challenges we'll face this season. It's an important season . We need to cement our status as a CL club. I'd be ok with selling Phil if I thought we had a proper 'succession' strategy in place, but they never really do. If Barca went nuts and offered £150m for him and we took that, the only thing it would indicate would be that Barca had more money than sense. FSG would have to take that kind of bid. Where it gets grey is at £120m. It's a good price, and he's an 'unhappy' player, but equally it's too late in the window so the money has diminished value because it can't be re-used when it's most needed. If Edwards was a real big thinker we'd say to Barca 'you can have Phil but we're having Dembele'. I'd take that. Or he'd use some of the proceeds to hugely overpay on Keita , VVD and chamberlain just to get those deals done. Problem is we sell Phil and never really work out how to spend the cash. The one time they seemed to get the principle was Jan 2011 when we replaced Torres with Suarez and Carroll. Kelly isn't a fraud. He's better than the rest of them by miles . His problem is - and it's a problem for all ITKers - is that he'll only ever get to see one side of a picture. The side his source is privy too. The wider problem isn't the information (in some cases) it's the inferences the ITK draws before sharing that info. It's why good journalists don't rattle out stories the way (good faith) ITKs do. They attempt to get complete pictures or they don't run with it.

There's a food chain though and we aren't at the top of it. We're the 9th richest club in the world. Players see playing for the top 2 or 3 as the pinnacle . That's not unreasonable . We can't beat ourselves up about that. It's not as though we're losing players to Roma or Dortmund or Everton . The teams we lose players to are much richer than us. Keeping phil in the face of pressure from Barca will be a victory .

I had the same itk type info Wayne had. I was told this was done and dusted. Very credibly. I don't know what to believe now . Seems an elaborate dance if this has all done behind the scenes.

Wasn't he struggling to get in the West Ham team towards the end of the season ? I thought that . Although he does talk about multiple enquiries earlier in the statement. F*ck it. He wants us.

Yep. If it's his people briefing he'll only go if we're sound with it then great. We aren't sound with it. Ergo he ain't going. :-)

It is good news.

The only one ofthe kids ready to step up and be a genuine quality option now is Trent AA. There's a possibility that Woodburn could as the season progresses . Grujic, Kent, and Moreno aren't kids with potential stellar ceilings. They're average footballers . They barely get guaranteed starts with all the bottom half premier league sides . Origi shows no signs of kicking on. Sturridge remains massively injury prone , and we don't really know if Solanke or Robertson are anywhere near good enough for the level we need to be at. The squad is way too thin. It's not about money, it's about competence.

Of course I have an idea what he might be worth . I watch the market like most of us do here. By looking at what other players go for and looking at Barca's early bidding an idiot could tell you that Coutinho is worth quite a bit more than £80m. That same idiot, could also guess that £150m would be a hugely unlikely price to be paid for him. Could we rule out say PSG being willing to and having to pay £130m for him given prices being touted in this market and LFC 's resolve ? No we couldn't . Also seems unlikely LFC would be tempted by a fee under £100m. See what I'm doing ? I'm working out a range. I have an idea I'm not far out. Every day they soften their stance or act with increasing resignation. Like they know exactly what's going to happen and when.

I can't get a straight answer on this issue . In theory standing allows a capacity increase but I think there are other factors at play such as fire escape provision and loading capacity .

No it wouldn't be. His range of worth is about £110-130m. The only way it would be interesting to LFC though is if a top drawer replacement (not necessarily like for like) was immediately available/gettable. Who we talking about ? I'd say maybe - alexis Sanchez, Dembele, Aubaumayang, Muller Get anyone of them and make a healthy profit on top to buy another half decent squad player and I'd consider trading Coutinho now. And only because I'd rather not have him staying/leaving being the elephant in the room for another year.

Yep. That would work .

Keita surely won't sign a new contract . He'd be crazy to. LFC either hit RBL up with one more mega bid, or do a buy and loan back deal with them for about £60m. If Leipzig don't do some kind of deal they risk Bayern picking Keita up next summer. Something that doesn't help them at all.

Like the vast majority of footballers he goes where the biggest contract is. It doesn't make him an appalling human being . It's how most people behave with jobs . They tend to like the much better paid ones.

To most observers Torres was still world class when we sold him. In any argument about LFC selling world class players he is surely one of those players. However.... Torres is not on FSG, and it remains for me the best thing they've done in their tenure that they immediately - with very little time to play with - sp*nked the whole incoming fee on two new strikers. And crap as the Carroll transfer turned out, I loved the intent, at the time.

We've sold 2 under FSG. One of them had just become the third best player in the world and we'd resisted offers for him for two previous years. Ronaldo left United too. None of our rivals have had a player as good as Suarez bar United with Ronaldo. Sterling is another story, as I've said. I'm not sure any convincing graph can be drawn here , unless you want to go back to 1977. And as this is about owners , when did we ever have clearly better ones ? And that's not an attempt to praise FSG. Change your bio to 'F*ck off broadly terrible men who own football clubs', and I'm on board. Not that catchy I'll grant you.

Yes you are. It's your age. We could win the CL and Coutinho would still fancy Barca. We nearly won the league but Suarez still wanted to get off. Sterling was a genuine f*ck up. They should've a) secured him with a proper pay rise earlier , and b) not sold to City.

Barca are going for Coutinho because they have big holes in the team , especially if Neymar goes . Coutinho is very very good. That's over looked a bit. Hazard is a front 3 player only and both Real & Barca have not had glaring need for his type . Who else in the PL is Coutinho level ? De Bruyne maybe. Delle Ali and Sterling may get there but aren't there yet. United don't have a player as good as Coutinho. Arsenal have Sanchez but Barca have already rejected him. If we produce a player or two every year that Barca want we should be thrilled. There are 7 teams in Europe who are much richer than us (3 of them in our league). We are always vulnerable to them going for our players . It will be this way until we are much richer. In the mean time I want us to have as many players as possible that the richer 7 covert. Selling a player for a world record fee (if it happens ) doesn't make us small time.