£120m - what would you have done?

120 million. I'd have invested it in the new stadium and facilities. We are long term I'm afraid.

The ignorance of people think they'd have been able to lure fabregas and Sanchez to the club instead of a move to London that they and their families made clear they wanted is astounding. I know it's for fun but it's like people don't know we tried to sign a lot of these players

People are using named players as examples of established stars we should be trying to sign. This bullshit defeatist attitude is part of what's wrong at LFC. We always signed big name players in our successful period, the nature of the 'name' has simply changed with 24/7 media exposure. We are Liverpool Football Club. We where, at the start of the Premiership era, the biggest club in England and one of the biggest clubs in the world. We had sustained success and it dried up because of a successive spate of bad transfers. That lead to a decline in the success and somewhere along the line fans started accepting alchemistic promises of being able to turn mediocrity into world class players. It didn't work and we sank further. Our success became more historic and other teams passed us by and here we are more than twenty years later scratching our heads and wondering where it all went wrong whilst we continue to make the same mistakes. It's time to wake up.

The ignorance of people think they'd have been able to lure fabregas and Sanchez to the club instead of a move to London that they and their families made clear they wanted is astounding. I know it's for fun but it's like people don't know we tried to sign a lot of these players

Who says and extra 5-10 million quid above what those Clubs payed for them, wouldn't have made a difference?

It's not ignorance at all. The question is did we do everything in our power to get thse lads here or was it all just bullshit hype and rumours that we wre actually in for them at all.

Who says and extra 5-10 million quid above what those Clubs payed for them, wouldn't have made a difference?

It's not ignorance at all. The question is did we do everything in our power to get thse lads here or was it all just bullshit hype and rumours that we wre actually in for them at all.

I think your last paragraph is probably close to the mark.

People are missing the point.

I agree an extra couple if million eould have worked. You think Brendan didn't know that? My guess is he wasn't able to get that little extra he needed, and people seem to think they'd be able to milk the cash cow better than him. That is ignorance beyond a shadow of a doubt.

I wonder if we had Mourinho or Wenger as our manager and Arsenal/Chelsea had Rodgers, would Sanchez & Fabregas still have joined those clubs?

Mourinho and Wenger are both established names in the game. Two managers who players want to play for.

We have an unproven, young, relatively unknown northern Irishman as our manager and this may have been a factor.

If Rafa was our boss I'm pretty certain we would have made 1 or 2 big name signings following last seasons performances.

I wonder if we had Mourinho or Wenger as our manager and Arsenal/Chelsea had Rodgers, would Sanchez & Fabregas still have joined those clubs?

Think it has more to do with the owners and their idea on paying wages.  They would rather get in 10 players on £50k than 4 on £125k.

£120M? You could have put £150 under every seat at Anfield for every home game.  Crowd would have been more excited - would probably have more points by now.

It's not ignorance at all. The question is did we do everything in our power to get thse lads here or was it all just bullshit hype and rumours that we wre actually in for them at all.

They'll be some, even with proof or conjecture, for example we supposedly offered £3m more for Sanchez and as good as or a slightly better wage than Arsenal that will always belief the latter, just as their are some that will chose to firmly to belief the latter in the absence of proof or conjecture as well.

Been examples the other way as well, the Dempsey one for example, but that one annoys me.  A £4m bid was accepted by Fulham for him, from Villa, we come in and are told £8m.  It's only right we walk away, for once we weren't taken as mugs in the market for a bang average player.

I do believe we have a wage structure and incentive based pay, but I don't think that's a bad thing, it's just living within our means.  Incentive base pay is becoming more common, both Manchester clubs have supposedly used it more of let and a fabulous rumour last season was Rooney earned less under his new improved contract because of Man United's failures last season.

I also believe, and I include myself in this, we're an extremely fickle fan base.  A lot of talk at the end of the window that we needed one or two more, now it's seems that the cry is we should have signed less.  According to a few reports that came out at the end of the window, we sailed close to the edge of FFP and the signing of U-21 players helped us not cross it.

We also read too much in to statements and comments, I've lost count the number of times I've seen the 'compete with anyone' trotted out.  Eddie 'The Eagle' Edwards competed and whilst I don't think we're competing at the legendary ski jumpers level, I do think we're solidly hitting the medal places, even if it's mostly the bronze place being oligarch and sheikh's playthings.   

I do believe we have a wage structure and incentive based pay, but I don't think that's a bad thing, it's just living within our means.  Incentive base pay is becoming more common, both Manchester clubs have supposedly used it more of let and a fabulous rumour last season was Rooney earned less under his new improved contract because of Man United's failures last season.

I don't think that incentivized pay is a bad thing, but there should be (and maybe there are?) exceptions depending on how much the manager needs/wants a particular player. e.g. if we desperately needed a top quality striker because we had just sold ours, I would expect a little leeway on how much we could offer in wages. Of course I don't expect to see us offering wages similar to Falcao's at the mancs, but Suarez was supposedly going to get £200k per week this season, so it wouldn't be unreasonable to expect somewhere approaching that figure for the "right" player?

I don't believe it is a case of pay peanuts get monkeys, but maybe you only get what you pay for.       

I don't think that incentivized pay is a bad thing, but there should be (and maybe there are?) exceptions depending on how much the manager needs/wants a particular player. e.g. if we desperately needed a top quality striker because we had just sold ours, I would expect a little leeway on how much we could offer in wages. Of course I don't expect to see us offering wages similar to Falcao's at the mancs, but Suarez was supposedly going to get £200k per week this season, so it wouldn't be unreasonable to expect somewhere approaching that figure for the "right" player?

I don't believe it is a case of pay peanuts get monkeys, but maybe you only get what you pay for.       

Which players, that we've been in for, do you believe should have been an exception?  Only one springs to mind for me and he went to a club that offered less for his services and a similar wage to the one we were offering.

Which players, that we've been in for, do you believe should have been an exception?  Only one springs to mind for me and he went to a club that offered less for his services and a similar wage to the one we were offering.

Costa, Fabregas, and Sanchez.

I have no idea if we could have affected any of those transfers by offering more .... just suggesting that maybe we could have tried?

Maybe sometimes you have to offer not just similar wages but more to get what you want.... if we think it is worth it.

I wonder if we had Mourinho or Wenger as our manager and Arsenal/Chelsea had Rodgers, would Sanchez & Fabregas still have joined those clubs?

I wonder if Luis was still here, would they have wanted to join us!

I wonder if Luis was still here, would they have wanted to join us!

I think they would have,  no doubt!

I think they would have,  no doubt!

Me too mate, don't think London would have been a factor if Luis was around IMHO.

I wonder if Luis was still here, would they have wanted to join us!

Well that is one thing i thought levy did well last year with bale.  Dragged the bale sale for as long as possible.. made sure he got all his key buys then let him go.  Alot of those tottenham players came thinking they might have a chance to play with bale.


I guess what is for sure is... if suarez was still around ... it wouldnt have hurt our chances of landing top talent.

I guess what is for sure is... if suarez was still around ... it wouldnt have hurt our chances of landing top talent.

Guess we will never know, hey?

Back in the early summer, I'd hava put a cheeky bid in for Edin Dzeko.

Costa, Fabregas, and Sanchez.

I have no idea if we could have affected any of those transfers by offering more .... just suggesting that maybe we could have tried?

Maybe sometimes you have to offer not just similar wages but more to get what you want.... if we think it is worth it.

Say we got those three players Saint....do you think they would have dramatically changed our fortunes this season, considering our main problem seems to be not being able to keep a clean sheet?

Say we got those three players Saint....do you think they would have dramatically changed our fortunes this season, considering our main problem seems to be not being able to keep a clean sheet?

I do mate, if we were scoring more I think a few teams would be a little more concerned about stopping our strikers rather than scoring themselves, our confidence as a team would also have been higher having top quality players coming in and maybe we would have also won a few more games simply because we scored more than they did too (similar to last season).

I am not saying we would have thrashed Madrid if they had signed, but maybe we would have beaten the teams we should be expecting to (Newcastle, West Ham, Villa, Everton, Hull). 13 more points there would have given our season a different look?

If you look at last season we were shipping lots of goals (Swansea 2, Newcastle 2, Everton 3, Stoke 3, Villa 2, Fulham 2, Swansea 3, Cardiff 3, Citeh 2, Norwich 2, Palace 3) the difference being we lost NONE of those games. I wouldn't really expect us to get anything from a game in which we conceded 3 this season.... would you?

TBH I wasn't meaning that we could have signed all 3 anyway, just that any one of them would have been nice, although all three would have been nicer!

I do mate, if we were scoring more I think a few teams would be a little more concerned about stopping our strikers rather than scoring themselves, our confidence as a team would also have been higher having top quality players coming in and maybe we would have also won a few more games simply because we scored more than they did too (similar to last season).

I am not saying we would have thrashed Madrid if they had signed, but maybe we would have beaten the teams we should be expecting to (Newcastle, West Ham, Villa, Everton, Hull). 13 more points there would have given our season a different look?

If you look at last season we were shipping lots of goals (Swansea 2, Newcastle 2, Everton 3, Stoke 3, Villa 2, Fulham 2, Swansea 3, Cardiff 3, Citeh 2, Norwich 2, Palace 3) the difference being we lost NONE of those games. I wouldn't really expect us to get anything from a game in which we conceded 3 this season.... would you?

TBH I wasn't meaning that we could have signed all 3 anyway, just that any one of them would have been nice, although all three would have been nicer!

All three is probably where our ambitions should have been truth be told. If not those three specific...players like them at least.

This is difficult. But what is true, is that we were playing wonderful football, people wanted to join us. You couldn't say that since Rafa.
The season before BR couldn't tempt players from Spurs to us, last summer he could and he got Lallana.

But we fu**ed it up. Hindsight is easy, but Mourinio says he bought players to improve the team, we bought players to improve the squad.

Quote from Salavaria on November 09, 2014, 12:31:33 PM
I wouldn't have bought Lovren. He's no £20M defender. And he's no improvement on Agger.

Who would you have bought?

I'd have kept Agger.

People are using named players as examples of established stars we should be trying to sign. This bullshit defeatist attitude is part of what's wrong at LFC. We always signed big name players in our successful period, the nature of the 'name' has simply changed with 24/7 media exposure. We are Liverpool Football Club. We where, at the start of the Premiership era, the biggest club in England and one of the biggest clubs in the world. We had sustained success and it dried up because of a successive spate of bad transfers. That lead to a decline in the success and somewhere along the line fans started accepting alchemistic promises of being able to turn mediocrity into world class players. It didn't work and we sank further. Our success became more historic and other teams passed us by and here we are more than twenty years later scratching our heads and wondering where it all went wrong whilst we continue to make the same mistakes. It's time to wake up.

This is the question I raised in the other thread - how do we improve our scouting so we predict which players will end up being successful?

So far, hindsight seems to play a big part in everyone's decisions.