We'll never again waste resources on inflated transfer fees

A major problem we seem to have is buying players with no real plan with what to do with then when we get them in the squad.

Every club has successes and failures in the market but we seem to allow players to 'fail' more quickly. By that I mean we don't seem to try and integrate the players we have and then just bin them off after a season.

Borini
Balotelli
Lambert
Markovic
Aspas

There's 5 attackers in Brendan's time here and have they even played 50 games between them before we gave up on them?

So we recouped around £60M and spent around £75M this transfer window.

Imagine only investing £15M in new players when you have an annual turnover of £300M.

''Investment'' in the true sense of the word is manicured by JWH & Co to mask economies.
 £300m generated by LFC should be used to improve and bolster the team, more so in light of the fact our custodian has stated he will not dip into his own stash to promote the club in any way.
In that respect only using a mere fraction of that turnover to improve LFC equates as faulted business practice - light years from the ''investment'' JWH & Co would convince they are ploughing into the club. 

So we recouped around £60M and spent around £75M this transfer window.

Imagine only investing £15M in new players when you have an annual turnover of £300M.

That stand needs financing from somewhere.

Im seeing folk slagging club for not spending enough, but on the other hand they are also saying we have spend a fortune and not won anything.

Im seeing folk slagging club for not spending enough, but on the other hand they are also saying we have spend a fortune and not won anything.

Personally I'm fine with the spending, more or less, and I'm fine with the majority of the players we have bought.

The problem I see is there seems to be a disconnect between the players we think we need, the players we then buy and how we get the best of them on the football pitch.

Im seeing folk slagging club for not spending enough, but on the other hand they are also saying we have spend a fortune and not won anything.

It is quite the conundrum isn't it. I've often wondered how someone could stand on both sides of that fence myself. I think the middle ground statement is that we aren't spending the money "well" or "smartly".

This is painful.

Makes you want to cry. Absolute joke.

A major problem we seem to have is buying players with no real plan with what to do with then when we get them in the squad.

Every club has successes and failures in the market but we seem to allow players to 'fail' more quickly. By that I mean we don't seem to try and integrate the players we have and then just bin them off after a season.

Borini
Balotelli
Lambert
Markovic
Aspas

There's 5 attackers in Brendan's time here and have they even played 50 games between them before we gave up on them?

Every one of those players was unsuited to playing for Liverpool for a variety of reasons. The issue was not giving up on them so early but rather that they should never have been bought in the first place. I mean, we had £75 million at our disposal and we decided to buy half a dozen players with it, none of whom were experienced, or talented enough to walk straight in to our first team and improve us to the level were we can compete with the best in Europe. It's been a common theme throughout FSG's ownership. Torres out, Carroll in. Suarez out, Balotelli in. Sterling out, Benteke in. We consistently sell our best players and then bring in the wrong players to replace them. Since they took over, look at the talent drain we've suffered:

Torres
Suarez
Sterling
Carragher
Gerrard
Kuyt

All experienced, talented players who have never been replaced. No team anywhere in the world can expect to loose its most talented, most experienced players, fail to replace them and then compete successfully. This is precisely what I mean by an overhaul of the club being needed rather than focusing solely on a change of manager. Changing the manager will accomplish nothing while we continue to allow our best players to leave the club and replace them with cheap, substandard replacements. Until this stops, it doesn't make a difference who the manager is, we will never be a successful club.

Every one of those players was unsuited to playing for Liverpool for a variety of reasons. The issue was not giving up on them so early but rather that they should never have been bought in the first place. I mean, we had £75 million at our disposal and we decided to buy half a dozen players with it, none of whom were experienced, or talented enough to walk straight in to our first team and improve us to the level were we can compete with the best in Europe. It's been a common theme throughout FSG's ownership. Torres out, Carroll in. Suarez out, Balotelli in. Sterling out, Benteke in. We consistently sell our best players and then bring in the wrong players to replace them. Since they took over, look at the talent drain we've suffered:

Torres
Suarez
Sterling
Carragher
Gerrard
Kuyt

All experienced, talented players who have never been replaced. No team anywhere in the world can expect to loose its most talented, most experienced players, fail to replace them and then compete successfully. This is precisely what I mean by an overhaul of the club being needed rather than focusing solely on a change of manager. Changing the manager will accomplish nothing while we continue to allow our best players to leave the club and replace them with cheap, substandard replacements. Until this stops, it doesn't make a difference who the manager is, we will never be a successful club.

Yes. This is one of probably the 2 or 3 fundamental illnesses within the club/company/whatever LFC Ltd is now.
The wrong players and also cheaper places - re fee and wages.

As someone said to me, if you adopt a dog that has been mistreated and needs medical attention, you are duty bound to provide that treatment. Especially if the dog (say a breeeding dog) has a high value. Its the same principle with listed historic buildings.

You can't adopt the dog/building and carry on trashing it. Or refuse to provide the medical treatment. Now imagine  you say to the RSPCA "oh I cant be fu**ed with med bills, it was the last owner made the dog ill, I just want to sell it off for a profit when I can, F**k spending money. Maybe I'll do something if it earns me some fat stud fees in a few yrs time". You can bet you'd have the dog seized from you and you'd be facing prosecution for neglect of an animal.

And its the same with OUR animal, the Liver Bird.

The problem is, there are also players like Studge, Can, Coutinho, Ibe, and Henderson that you also have to bring into the discussion. You can't just talk about the half of the players that failed to justify their transfer fee. You also need to look at the ones who succeeded and analyze them as a whole. No team has a perfect record when it comes to transfers, and most of the big clubs probably regard less than half of their recent transfers as unqualified successes. Just look at Chelsea, for every Costa  a Remy, for Pedro a Moses, and for Fabregas a Cuadrado. The list goes on and on, but suffice it to say, we aren't the only team with this problem.

You can take IBE , CAN and HENDERSON  out of the list . They havn't been a success by any stretch of the imagination. Try and think of the great games any of them have had.

STURRIDGE and COUTINHO  change games, actually have a consistent impact on the team. So up to now , it's only two signings we have that can be considered a success.

Also, whilst CHELSEA  have had a few duds, they have continued to win titles.

 I think that one of the problems is that the players we would all like to come here, don't want to come here.  Therefore we are already buying from outside the very top tier of talent.

Let's take Markovic for example - we could have probably bought a player who would of had as much impact as he had last season for a mere fraction of the cost, but nobody would of been happy with that either.

I think that one of the problems is that the players we would all like to come here, don't want to come here.  Therefore we are already buying from outside the very top tier of talent.

Let's take Markovic for example - we could have probably bought a player who would of had as much impact as he had last season for a mere fraction of the cost, but nobody would of been happy with that either.

what is the decision making process for a young talented player. The Manager's standing, The Club's standing, The squad of players and
 the money (no particular order). Money is one thing but I still think players want to win things and if they are good enough they want to be in a team challenging for their Domestic league and the CL these are the players we need. I think Torres may have been our last signing of that ilk. Luis was still not at the very top of his game that came in 13/14 I can't think at this point of another world class player but I am sure someone will put me right. Is it really 8 years since a player of Torres standing came to us rather than anyone else?  F**k me

I think that one of the problems is that the players we would all like to come here, don't want to come here.  Therefore we are already buying from outside the very top tier of talent.

Let's take Markovic for example - we could have probably bought a player who would of had as much impact as he had last season for a mere fraction of the cost, but nobody would of been happy with that either.

If we were to splash the cash on one, more would follow. Elite players want to be alongside elite players because that gives them a chance for a trophy. That's why Suarez left.

Had we gone out and bought Costa, Fabregas, Kroos, Pedro, Otamendi, Mangala, Coentrao, and Cech*, instead of all the players we bought last summer and the summer prior to that, I guarantee you we'd have all those players in our starting lineup, as well as Suarez and Sterling still in our ranks, we'd be in CL footy, and we'd be making a title challenge at the minimum.

Unfortunately, FSG don't have the ambition to support that and Brendan is happily willing to agree with them on their lack of desire for true success. Therefore, we will continue to push forward with truly overpriced transfer prices for low wage, young, inexperienced players who have some small hope of becoming stars. We're not even getting the top tiers of the young potential stars either, which is pretty pathetic considering the fees.

There is certainly a disconnect between our ambitions as fans and the ambitions of our owners and management.


*The list is not exclusive and I'm not saying it had to be exactly those players, they're just representations of some of the quality that has been transferred over the past 3 years.

The fact our Summer business was infinitely better than last season shows we are learning. We have a good group of players capable of finishing top 4. If Rodgers fails to achieve this he will have to be sacked to give another manager the opportunity to get the most out of the squad.

I agree that overall our signings this window have been better than the last but the ridiculous thing is that pretty much all of us could have predicted that many of the signings over the years wouldn't have worked out.
It's not hindsight, it was blindingly obvious at the time.
This goes back many many many years.