The summer transfer conundrum

I have to say that I genuinely struggle to see the joined up thinking and which way we approached the summer in terms of the transfer strategy, who was driving it, are there too many people with input?
Now we can all look at it from different angles, we tend to, that's fine because when there isn't an actual answer in front of you then you tend to look for an answer yourself and usually you have a start point where you are having a pre conceived idea that you are simply looking to back up with evidence that is not evidence but a way to find something to support your own idea. We are all guilty of it, I am, you are..

However this summer the longer I think about it it's confusing me more, so we knew we were losing Luis, at some point we knew, I personally believe we knew longer than is common knowledge, but even if we didn't them we should have been aware that it could happen and should have planned for that possibility.

So at some point last season we would have had the thought that Luis may leave, we also for a fairly long period knew we were finishing in the top 4 at least, so our planning should have been for additional depth for the CL and then working on the need to replace Luis as an add on to that initial work.

So they looked at the way we played, fast high press, fluid, counter.. With that in mind you need players to suit that style.. no?

Did we try to do too much? Did we fill the wrong holes? With the wrong types? Did we ignore more pressing areas?

So who we brought

Lallana makes sense to that, can play in two or three positions in any formation that we go with and can play in our approach..

Lovren, I could see the thought process but I wasn't but surely there were other options out there? As soon as you pay what we paid it puts such a massive pressure on the lad.. But I did see the thought process to bringing him in

Moreno, definitely a good signing in terms of the way of we play, fits, we needed him.

Can, not one probably any of us knew, I like the bits I've seen of him however we could possibly have done with a more established player in the middle of the park.. But in terms of a profile? No issue, but maybe one 'project' that we didn't need on top of the amount of players we brought in.

Markovic, profile fits, but I can't help we had enough in his position, we have what, Coutinho, Lallana, Sterling, Studge if needed, young Ibe, I just don't see where he gets his minutes and with the price tag people expect something massive straight away, an impact every time.

Manquillo, I just don't get the signing at all, Johnson, love him or hate him is going to play a lot of this games at full back, Flanno, you can't guess the injury when planning for the future, but I don't get the long term plan to bring a lad over who had played about 6 first team games prior and invest in developing him over your own? You can see live at games simply how raw he is, at the ground literally the other lads talk him through the games.. Just a bit of an odd signing.

Lambert and Balotelli, I'm going to link them together simply in terms of the types of player are they are, neither are bad players, both are technically good players, but neither suit how we play, they don't fit the fluidity, high press, counter.. They are more static, target men, bring players in around them, can get goals but in a system that suits them, they look like fish out of water in our system, they look poor, we look a worse side and blame is being thrown around, but I simply can't get my head around why we signed this profile striker? Not one but two of them? When we signed Lambert we thought, well ok, a different option, late in games, in certain games, but then we lost Luis, didn't really replace him in the type he was and signed Balotelli to boot, so we then had one top striker who suited us but will always miss games, and two strikers that simply don't fit us.. No wonder we are struggling for fluidity.

So who planned this, because it, definitely in the most important area of the field, both in terms of it's where you win games and the fact we were losing a Worldy in that area, because who ever planned it has fu**ed up, and hindered our season big time.

We needed depth yes, but we have failed to bring in players in the right area and of the right profile, the forward line now in terms of suitability to our managers style looking for championship rather than champions league.. So who has done that? I genuinely don't believe that the manager would bring in so many players that didn't suit his approach, why? Why would he? I think there is too many cooks throwing ideas at the transfer approach, it's hurt us this year looking at it. But the whole club has got to take the blame for what's happened up front, we knew Suarez was off, why the F**k have we ended up with two target men to replace him? It's nothing short of irresponsible, we should have looked at profile and importance, had three or four options of Suarez types and no matter what he cost get one to soften what we lost... Even if it meant missing one of these potentials like Markovic who just can't get the minutes right now to develop, that 20 million should have been added to the 20 on the two target men Nd found someone who suits

Biggest F**k up of recent times

If I were Brendan now I'd " shrink " the squad again, use the players who suit to get us going again, we need Studge back ASAP obviously but I genuinely can't get my head around what we do transfer wise anymore.. Too much thinking about how to get the best down the line rather than what gets the best on a Saturday afternoon.

I literally don't trust our scouting system and transfer policy anymore

I know some don't like talking about the past glory days but its still relevant today as far as I am concerned.
We used to buy 1 or 2 to go straight into the first team and another couple for the reserves to learn the Liverpool Way.this way you do no tdilute the first team squad too much and you are preparing for the future at the same time .
What the F**k is wrong with adopting this today.

Great posts here, exactly what i thought ... Sanchez was a perfect replacement for Suarez, and fitted our style better, if we would have went for him all in, i think he would have joined us instead of Arsenal, their style doesnt fit him so much. I'm bitter that we missed on him, also Di Maria would have been perfect on our style of play ... it seems that we can't attract world class players to join us, thought that with Champions League football this is solved ...

Bottom line we fu**ed up as usual........

Isn't it odd that Bendan didn't want a DOF which I assume because he wanted control over player movements and instead he's obviously ended up with the same type of transfer bureaucracy just without the DOF title.

Think your post is spot on and like you say, it's very vexing as to how we could have everything in front of us and we still cock it up.

It wasn't just who we signed that's peculiar, it's the way conducted our business. As you say, we knew, or at least had to consider the possibility of Suarez leaving yet we spent more time chasing Lallana and Lovren than we did on the goal scoring solution. For all the world it looks like we bet everything on Sanchez agreeing to sign for us in a player-plus-cash deal for Suarez and when we lost that particular gamble, we found ourselves without a coherent Plan B, stumbling between established names such as Benzema and Falcao then lurching towards lesser names of Remy and Bony. The entire process made no sense. If there was a plan involved I'll be damned if I can see the logic in it.

Then consider the proclaimed targets for this season. Specifically progress from the group in the Champions League. Yet neither our manager nor all but one of the players we signed have any prior Champions League experience.  As far as I'm aware, BR only has a single season of any European football under his belt so surely it would have made more sense to bring in players who where used to playing in that competition?

Now here's the thing. We have an unhealthy obsession at the club with singing 'ones for the future' and it's been mooted that BR is working with his hands tied. I don't believe he is. I believe the reason he got the job in the first place is because he buys in to this philosophy wholesale. Signing Origi or Markovic for the future is all well and good but they're the sprinkles on top of the icing on the cake. Had we replaced Suarez, signed a quality goal keeper, got our 3rd striker in, our defensive saviour and his main target in Lallana, then and only then do you go shopping for 'ones for the future'.

There is no doubt that we made a monumental mess of the transfer window and we're paying for those mistakes now. But BR is now exacerbating those mistakes. Why buy Balotelli and Lambert, knowing full well that they don't fit the profile in terms of the way we play, then play them in the way we play knowing full well they don't fit. Is it any wonder we're not scoring goals? We didn't just buy square pegs for round holes, we're now trying to play Square pegs in round holes. Nothing we've done since the Summer has made even the remotest sense.

Finally, here's a question for you all. Given all the problems we have now with scoring goals, and considering others turned us down, would we have been better biting the bullet and paying Falco's exorbitant wages to bring him to Anfield for one season?

Many of us were worried about this strategy.

Our summer strategy wasn't about on field success it was about off field profit. You know it and I know it.

I don't blame the manager because he is a pawn in the operation. Replacing Luis Suárez was number one priority for the football side - in terms of business it was last.

Good to see that people are starting to come to the realisation that we did F**k up during the summer, and that not everything will look flowery.

We need to spend any resources we have in a smarter manner. The prices paid for Lovren, Markovic and Lallana are pretty criminal.

Brendan said he chose these players, not the committee.

I have to say that I genuinely struggle to see the joined up thinking and which way we approached the summer in terms of the transfer strategy, who was driving it, are there too many people with input?

... So who planned this, because it, definitely in the most important area of the field, both in terms of it's where you win games and the fact we were losing a Worldy in that area, because who ever planned it has fu**ed up, and hindered our season big time.

We needed depth yes, but we have failed to bring in players in the right area and of the right profile, the forward line now in terms of suitability to our managers style looking for championship rather than champions league.. So who has done that? I genuinely don't believe that the manager would bring in so many players that didn't suit his approach, why? Why would he?

I wrote this reply to you in another thread mate - I think it 'works' for this one too...

Jon you know me long enough to know that I've had serious concerns about our transfer policy for some while now. Certainly long enough to know that I want to apportion most of the blame, for "failed" transfers, on FSG and their policies.

The thing is: the ability to do that [apportion most blame] was taken away from me, you and even Brendan when Brendan declared that he had first call, that he had last call and that the club would never sign a player he didn't want.

Now we can argue (and make no mistake, I will) that FSG's policies mean that Brendan was, in fact, just bullshitting 'cause he's towing the company line but...

Similarly FSG could easily point out that, at the very least, Brendan has been compliant.

It leaves us between a rock and a hard place - Brendan was either bullshitting and we acknowledge that or Brendan has been a (willing) 'victim'. Either way it doesn't make for comfortable reading. I so want to pin this on FSG and their policies but sadly Brendan can't escape unscathed.

I know some don't like talking about the past glory days but its still relevant today as far as I am concerned.
We used to buy 1 or 2 to go straight into the first team and another couple for the reserves to learn the Liverpool Way.this way you do no tdilute the first team squad too much and you are preparing for the future at the same time .
What the f**k is wrong with adopting this today.

Great Post Walton.
Better not mention the old days or us old timers or we will get vitriolic abuse mate.

Its true.
Even Mourinho knew how many to introduce .........


...  although there is the Southampton numbers argument and they are second , whilst we are certainly not.

Picking the right players in the transfer market is as important a skill for a manager as tactical acumen. Perhaps more so. Great players can hide a manager's tactical deficiencies. Adams, Campbell, Viera, Henry did it for Wenger for long enough.

Houllier destroyed his reputation with the fans by buying utter dross like Diouf, Diao and Cheyrou and seeing the team go down the toilet as a result. Benitez lost a lot of fans by signing too many duds in the market and seeing the team decline.

What reds fans hate most of all is to see tens of millions wasted on below par players when the team looked good and was ready to progress. Rodgers has undoubtedly damaged himself with his summer spending. To be able to identify where the team is weak and go out and find the right players to improve the team is a great skill winning managers have. Mourinho did it last summer and we see the improvement. He also did it after his first year at Inter Milan and won the treble the following season.

To go out and blow millions on a group of unproven players who hinder, not help, the team's progression is poor management. That's what AVB did with Bale's money and what Rodgers looks to have done with the Suarez money. His saving grace is how well he did last season. That has earned him the right to turn it around. Though if we didn't have Sturridge coming back, we'd have no chance of top 4 with Balotelli, Lambert and Borini as striking options. 

That's how badly we spent £110m in the summer.

what really pisses me off is I have been saying we needed a major injection of cash to catch up with City and Chelsea etc and we have blown it on players at home in a mid table team.
I doubt we will see that level of investment ever again and its been used poorly. We never here from FSG these days and that's a good thing provided they have learned enough to know our transfer policy is in tatters.

Many of us were worried about this strategy.

Our summer strategy wasn't about on field success it was about off field profit. You know it and I know it.

I don't blame the manager because he is a pawn in the operation. Replacing Luis Suárez was number one priority for the football side - in terms of business it was last.

I'm sorry but that's just an easy excuse. The owners approach with the whole money ball strategy might be partly to blame but you don't become a millionaire businessman without understanding how business works. You don't sell your most valuable asset before a sale of the business neither do you sell the asset that contributes towards return on investment without replacing it with something that does the same thing. Brendan Rodgers has to take at least part blame. I don't believe we would have given Suarez such a lucrative new contract last season if he wasn't part of our business plan for the coming one. A new clause didn't matter since they'd already set a precedent in ignoring the existing one and the FA arbitrators declaring that there was no clause (still confuses me to this day, that one).

If you look at the signings they make sense if you're going to change formation to a more possession-based 4-3-3. You can have any combination of Allen, Gerrard, Can, Lucas and Henderson as your deep lying three and any combination of Coutinho, Sterling, Lallana and Makovic either side of your lone Striker. Then you look at the strikers of Lambert and Balotelli - target men. They're more suited to formations that have two up front. So this gives you tactical flexibility in your formation options. You can change it in games or from game to game.

The problem I feel comes from the failure to take in to account Danny's injury prone nature. What do we do if he becomes injured? Buying two target men was the mistake. Buying one target man and one out and out goal scorer would have made sense because you have the options to play two out and out goal scorers together in a 4-2-2 or a target man playing behind the main scorer in a 4-4-1-1. But by buying two target men we lack that first option and the second option breaks down because who is going to score the goals?

I'm beginning to suspect the idea was two out-and-out goal scorers and two target men at the club. If Plan A had come off, we'd have had Sanchez and Sturridge as our two main goal scorers with Balotelli and Lambert as our two target men. As forward lines go, that's not bad and provides a lot of tactical possibilities for us. The problem is Plan A didn't come off and neither did Plan B so instead of settling for the best we could get, we settled for nothing at all. Rather than buying someone like Remy because you can't get Cavani, and trying to sign someone like Cavani a couple of years down the line when Lambert is put out to pasture, we either ran out of time or settled on hoping we could get through to Jan to pick up some bargain then.

The blame for the Summer has to fall squarely on Rodgers shoulders, however what happened in the Summer was just symptomatic of a wider problem with our club's transfer policy were we appear to be 'quality-averse' in our approach, at least in terms of established talent. The whole 'ones for the future' needs to be brought to an end (that's what the Academy is for) and going forward we need to add to the squad slowly with more established, more experienced players otherwise we'll just end up as a well run, also-ran in the Premier League.

Before I start, lets set price tags aside for a moment. A lot of them are adding another, albeit valid, factor into an already convoluted F**k up.

I personally think if Lovren would have hit the ground running and Sturridge wouldn't have got injured I don't think we'd be all that concerned.

Lambert would have been on the outskirts of the side, as was the plan, and Balotelli would have had an actual strike partner and would probably be looking much more effective. Lallana would be doing what he is doing, which is fine so far. Markovic would be a prospect who needed a year to settle into a new league. Moreno and Manquillo would be doing what they are doing so far, with a stronger centre half pairing to fall back on.

Yes, I do think that us signing a replacement for Suarez who actually engages in a bit of running and making a back line work would have been the better option, but for all we know Rodgers' answer to Chelsea letting everyone know how to disrupt our play last year was to change to the system he put out at Tottenham early this season (with Sturridge and Balotelli up front) which actually worked pretty well. We haven't had that opportunity since. So attacking wise, I'm still on the fence until we can assess what our best line up is because Balotelli up front on his bill clearly isn't.

With reference to our defence, I'm at a loose end. I thought Lovren could have been effective but it seems last year may have been quite an expensive one off. Moreno is a fantastic signing, and I like Manquillo but do wonder if we're looking at him long term with this two year loan thing to consider? I think the defence is our biggest issue at the minute, perhaps that's clouding my judgement. 

So while it's all ifs and buts from me, in short, it looks like I'm blaming everything on Lovren!

Its funny how things come to you as you read through other posts.
I have just posted about Mario being slaughtered for not being Luis and to some extent that is true.
However his record is 1 goal in 3 appearances with no assists to speak off and that is as far away from Luis as you can get. the interesting thing is Lambert has a similar record scoring 12 league goals last season but double figures for assists. So why isn't Lambert playing and why buy Mario when we have a striker with a better overall record who doesn't play.
Did Brendan think he "made" Luis Suarez the player he is today and that he could turn Mario the same way?.If so he has to play him so is Brendan actually at the core of the transfer problem believing he has some magical way of creating world beaters from very average players.

Thank goodness people didn't turn on Henderson as quick as they did Balotelli........oh wait....

Brendan has been living on the credit of the Coutinho and Sturridge window forever. In truth, even though I loved both signings, even they were a gamble on potential thankfully they're both showing signs of coming good.

We know that we buy far too much potential, it's clearly our policy and it's let us down monumentally this season. £130m spent and would any of them honestly get into our rivals teams?

The biggest failing of course not signing anyone adequate enough to replace Suarez. 31 goals and 12 assists in just 33 games and our great idea to replace this was Balotelli and Lambert, as I've said before it is becoming some kind of sick joke! It's strange that some are only realising now just how far we were carried by the brilliance of both Suarez and Sturridge. They made other players look better, just look how poor Gerrard looks this season, he has nobody to pass to, he has no penalties to score, try being a quarterback when nobody runs for you. Coutinho/Lallana suffer the same problem, you can't unlock a defence without an option no matter how good you are as a passer. We've gone from the most mobile attack in the premier league to watching the most static and that's what I mean by sick joke!

How on earth were these 2 ever meant to step in and do a job, square peg in round hole doesn't do the poor fit justice, it's embarrassing how wrong our scouts/Brendan/committee have got this and someone should be taken to task for it. Whatever is clearly broken with our transfer policy needs fixing because if we don't get a striker in January then our season is going to collapse on this mistake alone and that is a disgrace on those involved.

To be fair it isn't just this summer is it?

We wanna play out from the back yet last year we allowed Reina, a very good footballing goalkeeper, to leave while we brought in Mignolet, a fella who clearly struggles when the ball is at his feet. We brought in Toure, Sakho and Cissokho. None of whom give me great confidence when they're trying to pass it out from the back. I know some rave about Sakho and his wonderful success rate but the fella gives me the shits when he's got it.

We bought Alberto who out of all of the signings is the one who should of suited our play - yet he never got a game. We bought Moses who is sh*t and doesn't suit a free flowing quick moving team. He always had to take an extra touch - then usually lose it.

We bought Aspas who in pre-season looked deadly. He looked a natural finisher but then in the competitive stuff, was never in the box. And his link up play for a team that likes to keep possession is nothing short of woeful.

Then going further back, players like Allen. We wanna be a quick flowing attacking team yet we bring in somebody who doesn't fit that style. Momentum is always halted when he's on the ball. Borini, his movement fits the style, his ability doesn't.

So it's a bigger issue here. Either this "committee" haven't got a clue or Brendan is unable to spot a talent.

But does anyone trust this committee to buy another player.

But does anyone trust this committee to buy another player.

No. It needs changing, thought it needed changing before this Summer and hoped that Brendan's new contract might bring about those changes.

No. It needs changing, thought it needed changing before this Summer and hoped that Brendan's new contract might bring about those changes.

We saw how the Bale money was used and how it didn't work and yet we went for quantity before quality although we paid a high priced for mediocrity. Then the whole fiasco over Remi and the fact Chelsea signed him just gives the impression that we do not know what we are doing.
All we needed to do was spend as much as possible on bringing in a replacement for Luis get shut of deadwood and replace it with better quality was it so hard to achieve?

Ultimately comes down to absolutely no plan whatsoever after Sanchez turned us down. We were totally lost after that point, I mean what the F**k happened with Remy? Then it goes quiet for a few weeks and we randomly go and sign Balotelli who doesn't suit our style one bit. Markovic was a silly purchase, the lad might become good but it was 20m that should have been spent on quality not potential (like Falcao for a year). Defensive signings were underwhelming too. 20m for a centre back who gets bullied, can't pass and looks lost was ridiculous and I don't think Moreno and Manquillo are covering themselves in glory either.

But does anyone trust this committee to buy another player.

That's another thing with our club. We attach silly names to things in order to make out as if we're special, as if we do things better than anyone else, more professionally, more technically. But don't all clubs have a committee? They have scouts to analyse their potential, medical staff to evaluate past injuries, researchers to look at stats with the manager having the final say on who comes in. It seems to me we work no differently to anyone else. The jury is still out on whether Brendan will be a success or not but one thing he has proven is a level of arrogance. Anyone remember the whole "we're not going to do a Spurs because we're working towards a plan" statement? Eggs and faces come to mind about that now.