David Hodgson

No one new signing can considerably increase our chances of exceeding what we did last season . I accept that we need someone to cover the front 3. But that player needs to be world class to provide affective cover , because our front 3 are. And that’s the problem . The pool of options is considerably narrowed and the cost is high. And the player targeted will correctly note that they’ll start off as second in a pecking order. So what to do ? Gamble £80m on a player like Pépé ? He looks great. No one had heard of him a year ago. He hasn’t had a break through season aged 25 only to now sit on our bench. Unless we want to pay him £180-200k a week to do so. We could buy a Coutinho . More chances to play . This player needs to be as good as Coutinho mind. Not cheap . Not readily available. Correctly , I think, Klopp has noticed he has some solutions from within his existing squad. He may be saying to himself ‘what’s Pépé got that Divock hasn’t got ?’ We’d all have been delighted with the signing of (a not injured) Hudson Odoi. Klopp maybe says ‘we’ve got a better kid than him, called Rhian Brewster’. I hope all if the above isn’t going to get filed under ‘making the club’s excuses for them’. I want us to sign someone . Someone exciting. I agree it could only help. It also feels like a good time to be buying from strength. But I can state all that whilst at the same time knowing there are probably (say) 20 key things that need to happen for us to have a really good season again and that a good signing is just one of those things.

97 points and the European Cup is the best season in our history in all but name. We are equipped to win the league, make no mistake about it . We have an incredible team. I want us to sign someone else too, I’m fiend for signing big names, but more important than one new squad player will be the level of performance we can extricate from those that we already have. By some considerable distance . I’m not saying we shouldn’t ask why we haven’t added a body , but accepting that isn’t the same thing as saying our season hinges on that one potential act. I sometimes think that as supporters we enjoy our Groundhog Days and don’t quite want to accept things have changed. Last season wasn’t a dream. It wasn’t like 2005, 2009 or 2014 either . We’re much much better now. We’re better than the last Liverpool team to win the league . We are replete with incredible footballers. Loads of them. And none are going anywhere .

The idea that we absolutely don’t have money to make a significant signing doesn’t add up when you remember the number of sale-able and disposable assets we have. The following are worth around £80-100m and will barely (if at all) feature in the league this season: Grujic Lallana Wilson Camacho Lovren Kent Anwyio (?) Woodburn Chirivella And if we wanted someone badly enough , add : Origi Shaqiri And if we’re genuinely strapped for cash why adopt a policy of apparently trying to retain as many of these scarcely playing assets as possible ? I’m not saying we’re awash with dough - I think the wage increases are our major investment in recent times - but if we don’t spend it’s likely to be a strategic decision . i.e because we can get a better player next year. Something like that .

Cheerleading ? Really ? Where ?

If we’d kept Coutinho i still think we’d have got Van Dijk but likely couldn’t have afforded Fabinho , Alisson and Shaqiri , not bid for Fekir. Maybe we’d just have bought Alisson . Our net spend might’ve ended up a bit more than it has but the squad not developed as well. What did actually happen is that the club net spent about £100m between 2017 and 2018. That’s the only certainty . I declare myself satisfied with that net spend . You ? Either the way, the money the club has is the money the club has. We’ve done this so often . The main gripe ends up being ‘why can’t FSG just be richer’. They said they’d spend what they made with the club. Seems they’ve done that . They aren’t taking dividends . They aren’t leveraging external loans against us. What do you want to happen Sammy ? You want a richer owner ? Is this what it comes down to ? Which club has the owners we should wish we had ? I’m not clapping these owners but in the pantheon of the suits they seem tamer and a touch more responsible owners than any of the alternatives I can see on the horizon . There was a time when I did want them to sell up and hand us over to someone with a bit more financial clout. Now I’m in no rush for that to happen.

Yep. If Barca can get a £15m loan fee per season and get his wages paid , then over two seasons they’ve got about £60m sitting in the bank rather than on the bench and still have an asset to sell in 2 years time. If they hang on for a year, barely play him, his value falls fast and they’re £30m worse off. Obviously their best bet is a sale now but Joorabchian limited their options by basically ruling out the entire premier league bar Liverpool . Who in turn are saying they can’t afford to buy.

This I can begin to work with. I think we are happier to ‘overpay ‘ for Van Dijk in the end because all hope of persuading Coutinho to stay had evaporated. I think the plan in May 2017 was to go big, get 2 to 3 years spending done in one go. To front load. The plan was to buy Salah (or Brandt), Keita , Chamberlain and Van Dijk. The cost would be spread in payments over those 3 years. I think they initially thought they’d get Van Dijk and Keita for about £100m. As prices for both rose they were forced to put Keita on a burner and wait it out for Van Dijk . The things that Coutinho’s wanting to leave changed were : - they had the funds to ‘overpay’ on Van Dijk - they then had the funds to again go big with likes of Alisson , Shaqiri, Fabinho and potentially Fekir. If Coutinho had stayed , I have no doubts Van Dijk would still have been bought but they wouldn’t have sanctioned any of the other 2018 deals. Well, maybe one of them. And if Coutinho didn’t want to go but Southampton had said yes to our early offers of around £50-55m for Van Dijk ? I’m sorry but nothing will convince me that we sold Coutinho with the express purpose of buying Van Dijk . We would’ve had to actively wanted Coutinho to leave and all evidence suggests that we did an enormous amount to try and stop that happening. Not sure if you’re messing but here’s a true story : About two weeks ago the missus of Mike (formerly of this forum ) nearly ran a man over over as she was turning onto Sefton Park. She swears blind it was Coutinho . She said she wanted to get out of the car, apologise, and then get her little boy’s photo taken with him, she was that certain it was him. The incident happened by Ibbotson’s Lane which is where there’s a luxury apartment complex where the club tends to house new signings. Also right by the Spire hospital where LFC have many medicals done. Maybe Phil was just back in town visiting a friend . Maybe it wasn’t Phil. I’m giving it credence to a tiny degree because of that Kia Joorabchian round of interviews. He was so keen on telling the world that Phil loved Liverpool and would only play for them in England . I think the speculated on loan deal makes sense for all parties.

We wanted VVD in the previous window. We offered Coutinho big money to stay . Reconcile these facts.

So in May 2017, when we were about to sign van Dijk, we thought the deal was done, we were planning to sell Coutinho simultaneously? In fact by that logic , getting van Dijk and ditching Coutinho was a key part of the club’s and the managers strategy at that point . Seems mad then that the club and manager did everything they could to get Coutinho to stay in January , including offering him a record salary deal , whilst simultaneously closing the Van Dijk deal . I’ll fully accept that subsequently going for Alisson , Fabinho, Shaqiri and Fekir was to be part funded by Coutinho’s sale. It’s clear that potential £180m spend doesn’t get attempted without selling Coutinho . As for FSG : they spent £340m on players between July 2017 and August 2018. That’s not shy spending . It’s up there in the worlds highest spending chart. Even allowing for sales , it’s serious spending . To deny that is just absurd . Have they always been big spenders ? Of course not. They certainly showed signs of a much much more liberal attitude to squad investment though in the 2017 to 2018 phase. Again , to deny that would be absurd.

His *season* was disappointing but that’s mainly because it was hugely disrupted . What we saw from him, especially in the last third of the season was exciting and encouraging. He was man of the match in a couple of games .

As in life, many things can be true at once : - we don’t necessarily have vast cash resources for reasons you’ve outlined . - we could probably raise the money for a big signing if we really wanted to (by selling likes of Origi , lallana, Lovren, wilson, Kent , grujic and others) - the better opportunities in the market may be a year away - the manager genuinely feels he has the numbers in the squad to cope comfortably , given the positional flexibility he’s so keen on imbuing (e.g Wijnaldum in different attacking positions ). - Brewster and Origi between them may be the equivalent of the £70m back up forward we’d all like to buy. It’s essential that no one blocks Brewster’s path. Another £70m front 3 signing definitely would do that . - that the manager genuinely believes Keita and chamberlain will be like ‘new attacking signings’. - plenty of things the club needs to have reserves to pay for - new training ground , Anny road, further contract extensions (if our best players all repeat last season, the pressure on the wage bill via new contracts is going to be ridiculous come next May). Incredible .

He came back from injury got 3 in 5 and was a first choice pick. Yeah he’s had an injury prone season but that doesn’t mean he hasn’t shown what he can contribute . And tbf he’s not had an injury strewn career.

But we never have perfect information . I’m trusting Klopp is both in control of what he’s doing and powerful enough to get what he wants . I kind of think it’s not about am I happy with the window - of course I’m not , I never am - but is the manager . This manager . I think he seems very relaxed with developments . So if we don’t buy, and it seems surprising that we haven’t , then I’m happy to move onto what the reasons for that might be . The reasons that don’t include ‘cos they all ultimate hate us’.

I think we should add another attacker. I don’t think the reason we aren’t is because we’re skint. It’s not really really disappointing. It’s only that if we haven’t absorbed what’s just happened to us or taken on board the managers belief that there’s much more to come from the existing squad. We were a point off the greatest season in our history . It wasn’t a fluke . We are not one player away from becoming a 98 point team . God help us if one signing was all that it was going to take. Would really need to hope that lad didn’t take the near statutory 6 months to bed in that we’ve seen under this manager. No c*** loves a transfer more than me. No c***. But if we end up this summer empty handed , I’m shrugging . For the first time since 1988.

It does in a certain sense and you can see it with the Neymar deal. Barca sold him for £220m and spent about £230m replacing him. So their net spend in that phase was just £10m ish. Why so low ? Because they were replacing a world class player sold at an astronomical fee and replacing him like for like was impossible. We could sell Salah next summer and bring in Dembele and Sancho and still end up with a negative net spend . The important thing from a supporter point of view when a freak large sale happens is that the funds are reinvested . As fully as possible . That we have a £100m net spend across 2 summers which sandwiched a £142m sale is nothing for us to feel had off about.

Klopp said Coutinho got offered a fortune to stay . At the point that was happening we were busy closing the VVD deal. We’d just signed Salah, Robertson , Chamberlain and done a deal for Keita. So, if Phil had accepted that deal to stay, the squad would have seen committed investment from July 2017 to January 2018 of c.£215m with very little coming back the other way. Of course , none of the Fabinho, Alisson and (potential) Fekir deals may have followed. I think one or two would have , but we’ll never know . If you believe that Liverpool we’re holding off on Virgil’s deal til Coutinho was all but certain to go then I understand the belief in the ‘they always look to sell before buying big’ conspiracy theory. Personally I think that’s nonsense and contradicted by every and any proclamation from the club or connected journalists . Just because the Coutinho money got spent is not proof that he was sold to fund that spending . He was sold because he forced a move. If you really want to sell to buy you don't force a player to stay despite him effectively going on strike and then offer him a club record salary when he kicks off wanting to leave again .

I haven’t said they desperately wanted to do more. I’m looking at actual spending . It’s been great since 2017. I’ve never been thrilled with their spending levels or believed they were being hamstrung by external forces, prior to then. We’ve spent £340m since July 2017 and recouped about £240m in that time . Given we got a near world record fee in that mix I’d say a net spend in 2 summers of £100m was decent . And our wages have increased considerably . Oh and the entire enterprise is in a far better place than it’s been in 30 years. I’m not going to go out of my way to give FSG credit for that but going the other way on it just seems perverse .

The only thing we don’t know and may never know is the Fekir money was re-allocated to Alisson . Scenario A : that was the case and Klopp was ready to go into the season with Karius / Ward in goal Scenario B : it was always intended that we buy both Fekir and Alisson I believe it was scenario B, because I don’t believe they intended living with a s*** keeper for another season. Also, I look to the style of the spending - we were breaking world transfer records . That’s not the act of penny pinchers. Btw the VVD deal was originally set for the beginning of the 2017 window when there was no sign of Coutinho wanting to go. Bottom line is we spent £340m between summer 2017 and summer 2018. Yeah we sold Coutinho for loads and a job lot of dead wood, but the rest of the football world has looked on at us and thought ‘big club , big project , spending big’. Only amongst ourselves do we find the paranoid conclusion that it was all chimera , a shat upon club being sold a pup by owners who were selling the family silver first and buying some ‘keep me happy ‘ compensation players after. I think getting him in on loan makes all the sense in the world .

Haha, no I haven’t , it just feels like it.

The scenario we currently live is that LFC are the best team on the planet . Not a time to be pulling an optimist up.

You do know the Mbappe 2020 rumour was/is entirely a joke by Neil and John at the Anfield Wrap that went a bit viral ? I’m not doing ‘it was Fekir or Alisson but not both’ again . There’s huge competency in our transfer planning these days. They weren’t going to into another season with Karius or Danny f***ing Ward in goal. We have a great team because everyone is on the same page . Two years ago we had 6 out of 10 owners . Now they’re better. I don’t know what is going on behind the scenes just right now but as I said, the outcomes seem to be really good. And saying and seeing that isn’t ‘shilling’ for anyone, it’s stating the bleeding obvious. Of course no one should be getting FSG printed on the back of their new away kit but surely we can begin to move away from the paranoia ?

Personally , I think there’s money to spend and now. I think if we’d wanted to buy one £100m player then we could’ve done so. For starters we’d have shifted out the likes of Wilson, Kent, Grujic, lallana and maybe even Origi. My best guess is that the computer threw up a handful of names all/most of which were not gettable til next summer . Let’s guess at the likes of Sancho, Werner, Havertz, maybe even Dembele. So, if you know you can get Sancho next summer for £100m what do you do this summer ? First thing Klopp assesses is would he rather take a Nicolas Pépé now for £70m and forego Sancho, or does he look to hold on to the likes of Lallana and Origi, promote Brewster, and work with the existing squad ? He faced exactly this kind of dilemma with Van Dijk.

A lot to unpack there. You think our owners have put out an Mbappe rumour to keep us quiet ? Really ? We moaned about not getting a centre half and Keita at this point in 2017, but got both in the end. It literally happened . No trick of the light. The Coutinho replacement was Nabil Fekir. That wasn’t a rumour. The collapse of that deal wasn’t a ruse. We weren’t hoodwinked. We then signed Fabinho, Alisson and Shaqiri. Lots of money spent. Big new contracts to star players too. Now, I badly want us to sign at least another top quality attacking player . It feels a bit crazy that we aren’t doing that . But I felt that too about the centre back situation in July 2017. Maybe the manager wants to wait for Sancho. Maybe that’s the best move . I don’t know and can’t know. Like all of us I’ll ultimately judge all on the outcome . What’s ‘the outcome’ been to date ? Looks to me like we’ve built arguably the best 11 in Europe. Looks to me like we’ve come along way. Not really seeing the con that’s been pulled on me here.

The idea that we can’t buy a £100m player does not add up. There’s all manner of average ness we could sell, and wages we have offloaded (Sturridge, Moreno etc). That’s before record turnovers are discussed. There’s this rumour we’re after Jadon Sancho that seems credible to me. If that is a live one and it can’t happen til next summer then I sort of get that . We may also need to spend small fortunes renewing contracts for our best players by then. You could increase the pay of Alisson , Trent , Robertson, VVD, Mane and Salah by a £100k a week each without raising eyebrows . If all the above is planned expenditure then I can see why we may only want to do modest deals for the time being. But we do need to do a deal or two and now.

This is pretty near spot on for me. I'd have Nicol at left back though. Could set it up as a 4231 with Suarez up top, Dalglish behind , Barnes and Salah wide.