Virgil Van Dijk (Southampton)

Spot on buddy.

You can spend £12m on 'young potential', who turns out to be pish or £12m on a player, who ends up top notch [then sold for profit, of course]...

Point being you do not know in advance which will be "value for money": how could you?

Truth is; no one can - no fan, no matter how smartarse and certainly no f**king computer program.

What you are then left with [or at least should be left with] is the man who's job is on the line [Jürgen] deciding, if the player he wants, is worth "it" on footballing grounds. The player will ONLY be bought if the club can afford him.

Get your napper around that mindset and cost quickly becomes irrelevant. It then, as it should, boils down to this... is the player good enough?

Because you see and each to their own like - I don't want a player, who ain't f**king good enough, JUST because he's cheap. 😁

What if the manager is able to identify numerous targets who are good enough?  Should we try to sign the best player from that group, even if the associated cost means we can only afford 1 player?  Would it be better to try to find the best value among those players so that we can afford to buy more and potentially have a greater impact on the quality and depth of the team?  If Jürgen opts for value, will you still blame the owners?   

Spot on buddy.

You can spend £12m on 'young potential', who turns out to be pish or £12m on a player, who ends up top notch [then sold for profit, of course]...

Point being you do not know in advance which will be "value for money": how could you?

Truth is; no one can - no fan, no matter how smartarse and certainly no f**king computer program.

What you are then left with [or at least should be left with] is the man who's job is on the line [Jürgen] deciding, if the player he wants, is worth "it" on footballing grounds. The player will ONLY be bought if the club can afford him.

Get your napper around that mindset and cost quickly becomes irrelevant. It then, as it should, boils down to this... is the player good enough?

Because you see and each to their own like - I don't want a player, who ain't f**king good enough, JUST because he's cheap. 😁

Exactly, as long as the player improves the squad price shouldn't matter at all.

I mean Matip was a free transfer and look how good he's been.

Then you've got Klavan who was what? Like 4 mil or something and he's been gash.

So yeah price is very subjective. I wouldn't give a sh*t if we got 6 free transfers who all had a similar impact to Matip

I think we need to stop caring about the price tag. If you don't have a car, and someone buys you a car, are you going to tell them they paid too much for it, or just accept it and say thank you and move on?

As long as it doesn't mean we don't reinforce in other areas, who cares what we pay?

Don't think there's a problem with saying in advance of signing a player whether the price seems good value or not. Not because it's "our" money (although it still effectively is in many ways) but because there is a limited budget and any transfer has to be weighed against the overall needs of the squad. These are assumptions built into most opinion-giving on here.

Having said that, I am with you in terms of paying for genuine top quality. It's a mugs game not to pay the extra for top quality and opt for a couple of development players instead. Think of the money we have pissed over the years adopting that strategy and the players we have missed.

It's hard to think of a player who you would say we overpaid for and yet still justified their place in the team, otherwise you probably wouldn't say that we overpaid in the first place.

Say now we don't make top 4 then  going send club back in too mid table club and klopp will be gone when end up 6 or 7 next season

Haha you should have seen us splash the cash in the 70's and 80's when we were at the peak of our dominance.

We still didn't spend the most though. We certainly never paid a million for Trevor Francis! Almost a decade later, we spent 900k on John Barnes.

Bargain of the century!!

Don't think there's a problem with saying in advance of signing a player whether the price seems good value or not. Not because it's "our" money (although it still effectively is in many ways) but because there is a limited budget and any transfer has to be weighed against the overall needs of the squad. These are assumptions built into most opinion-giving on here.

Having said that, I am with you in terms of paying for genuine top quality. It's a mugs game not to pay the extra for top quality and opt for a couple of development players instead. Think of the money we have pissed over the years adopting that strategy and the players we have missed.

It's hard to think of a player who you would say we overpaid for and yet still justified their place in the team, otherwise you probably wouldn't say that we overpaid in the first place.

i agree in paying for genuine top quality

but that's where it ends with this one as he clearly is not in that bracket at present. He is in the same Lovren, Sakho bracket in terms of quality.

i would want who ever we sign we hope they turn out to be better than sliced bread - but reality is that we take big punts with a lot of money that could easily be spent on less of a risk.

We signed Lovren for £20+ mill and Southampton then went and signed Toby Alderweierd on loan (who later moved to spurs for 11million)

there are dozens of other examples of poor decision making and overspending

Yea but "overspending" is such an arbitrary term. I'm sure  that looking back, had we  paid 75m for Mane, no one would have cared the way that he's played for us. So in that sense, we massively underpaid for him as we also did for Coutinho...so who cares if we "overspend" a little on some players.

Just get Jürgen the players he wants, I don't honestly care what it costs.

No footballer is "worth" that much anyway. Hell, they should be getting paid 2000k per week and liking it to play a sport for a living.

Well said young man.

The most important question is, if we sign him, will we call him Dick?

The most important question is, if we sign him, will we call him Dick?

Dick Van Dyke 

The most important question is, if we sign him, will we call him Dick?

Biggus dickus

Dick Van Dyke 

Got it in one MsG

Biggus dickus

The size of him, I wouldn't be surprised if its like babys arm holding an apple.

Got it in one MsG

The size of him, I wouldn't be surprised if its like babys arm holding an apple.

Is right Blood 

Got it in one MsG

The size of him, I wouldn't be surprised if its like babys arm holding an apple.

Still got nothing on Davey Egg-nog's elephant trunk....  He tucks it in his sock!! 

Used to laugh about oleg luzhny at arsenal being nicknamed the horse,  people thought it was the way he ran until lee dixon publically stated it was the old draft excluder

Biggus dickus

Don't forget his wife, Miss Intercontinental Buttocks.

Don't forget his wife, Miss Intercontinental Buttocks.

His wife was Kim K?

(guessing it was auto-correct: incontinentia buttocks) Brilliant movie.

Don't forget his wife, Miss Intercontinental Buttocks.

His wife was Kim K?

(guessing it was auto-correct: incontinentia buttocks) Brilliant movie.

   

Exactly, as long as the player improves the squad price shouldn't matter at all.

I mean Matip was a free transfer and look how good he's been.

Then you've got Klavan who was what? Like 4 mil or something and he's been gash.

So yeah price is very subjective. I wouldn't give a sh*t if we got 6 free transfers who all had a similar impact to Matip

Gary Mac didn't do too bad  for a free.Mind you he had the right attitude and wanted to succeed.

Exactly, as long as the player improves the squad price shouldn't matter at all.

I mean Matip was a free transfer and look how good he's been.

Then you've got Klavan who was what? Like 4 mil or something and he's been gash.

So yeah price is very subjective. I wouldn't give a sh*t if we got 6 free transfers who all had a similar impact to Matip

Matip was free because he was at the end of his contract or else he'd have cost a pretty penny. I'm not overly surprised by Matip's performances and I think the same goes for most people (just assuming) which kind of tells you he's not a free transfer kind of player in regards to his quality.

Still got nothing on Davey Egg-nog's elephant trunk....

Oh dear, just wait until Swab reads this, you'll be told you're a far right, racist, bigoted xenophobe for that comment

The way I see it is "If" you identify a particular player the "You" the manager wants that improves the club then whether he is age 20/30, he cost £10/£50 million you buy him... Trying to haggle over £5m here and there means you stand the chance of failing to sign the player...Unfortunately the price of a player often(Not always), but often reflex how good that player is viewed as being...
 FLRed is right when he says "I think we need to stop caring about the price tag".

Got it in one MsG

The size of him, I wouldn't be surprised if its like babys arm holding an apple.

As the saying goes... 'you wouldn't be hard to shave if you had the full of it in your mouth' 😁

His wife was Kim K?

(guessing it was auto-correct: incontinentia buttocks) Brilliant movie.

Haven't seen it since I was a kid so that one is just down to me remembering it wrong - so joke's on me. Whenever I'm in a discussion about proper language in public settings, I always think of the old man dancing and yelling "Jehovah, Jehovah, Jehovah!"