You say Kenny nearly signed Diame and he wasn't a "numpty" so it was a good idea. You then spend an entire paragraph detailing how Kenny made the wrong signings and built the team around the wrong player.
This is actually a very interesting discussion and you bring up some good points.
Re: Diame and Kenny. I think it's very clear that Adam/Downing/Henderson etc were all Comolli signings---those all took place in the summer of 2011. Kenny had very little if anything to do with it---in fact Comolli was on Talksport or something a little while back saying Kenny wanted to try for Goetze but they went for Henderson instead. So the team was definitely built around the wrong player, but that had little to do with it.
Comolli was sacked in April of 2012. Diame himself said that he spoke with Kenny in May of 2012 and they had agreed that Diame would be signing on a free. Then FSG sacked Kenny. So in fact there is no conflict at all---the team was built around the wrong player, and was primarily Comolli's fault. Kenny knew those players weren't very good, and so when he finally was free of Comolli, he started to go for his own players, i.e., Diame.
You "never complained about" Can but you DID complain about signing players like Lallana since they wouldn't attract other big names to our team. Why would Can be different in that regard?
The difference is the money. When you spend as little as we did on Can, the expectations are very low. Everyone knows he is "one for the future." But when your most expensive summer signing is Adam Lallana, then that says something about your ambition.
Arsenal only paid a few million more for Alexis Sanchez than we did for Lallana. And yet there is a huge gulf in quality. The point is, if you are a top player looking on the outside in, and you see that Liverpool's top target for the summer is Adam Lallana, a player who has played in the top domestic league in his country for less than 2 years, whereas, say, Arsenal's top target was Sanchez, Chelsea's was Diego Costa, the Mancs wanted Di Maria, etc---it just shows those other top players that not only are we not interested in signing established, top players, but in fact we would rather pay top player fees for mediocre players. See what I mean?
And in the end, Lallana *was* our biggest splash this summer. I asked several times: would any of the players we signed this summer not have come to us without CL? of course not. They all would have come even last year. *Maybe* Balotelli wouldn't have come, but even that's not a guarantee as he was playing for a non-CL team already. We were told that we couldn't sign top players over the last few years because we didn't have CL. And yet when we finally got it, our top priority was.... Adam Lallana. A player who would have seen us as a monumental step up from Saints regardless of whether or not we were in the CL.
So yes, making Lallana your top priority when other clubs are making Sanchez and di Maria their top priorities---yes, that does send a message to top players, whether you like it or not.
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You say that it is essential that we sign players with workrate AND quality then in the next sentence say it ISN'T essential we sign players with workrate because it can be "turned on like a switch with the right incentive". So which one is it?
Fair point, I probably didn't phrase that as well as I could. I suppose I look at it the way Rodgers said it during his interview post-Spurs---a player like Balotelli is going to have to work hard, because there's no other way to play at Liverpool unless you work hard. Hence why they had that 2 hour meeting at Melwood before he signed---Rodgers wanted to know what was in Balotelli's head and whether he was serious about changing his ways and putting in a shift for the team. Apparently he was satisfied. It's early days but Balotelli worked very hard in the hour he was on the pitch against Spurs.
And you didn't answer the main question about where we are going to finish with these substandard players you have been moaning so much about? The chief one being Mignolet!
I said I don't know. If I had to guess I would say we probably won't win the title. I think we'll probably finish 3rd or 4th. I also don't know what you're talking about in terms of all these "substandard players." Sterling is on the cusp of being world-class. Sturridge has proven he can contribute. Coutinho is out of this world. Markovic looks a very tidy player. Even Can has looked pretty good thus far. Moreno and Manquillo have also done well. The only one in the starting lineup that sticks out is Mignolet. Lucas and Borini are also quite awful but they're not in the starting XI so it's not as much of a big deal.
And yes, we finished 2nd last season, and we managed to do so without everyone pulling their weight. and if we had had someone else instead of Johnson, someone else instead of Lucas, someone else instead of etc etc, we might have won the title. Who knows.
Last year, the difference between first and second was 2 points. That could mean, a 1-0 win in the 89th minute that ends up in a 1-1 draw because of a Mignolet mistake. Bam. Two points gone. So yea. I would like us to get a more reliable keeper. Sorry, that's just the way I see it.