Summer Transfer Window

[Tes]

The Telegraph are reporting we are close to signing Fabio Borini. Dont know anything about this guy either. You would question though why either of the two italian teams who co own the guy would let him go for 7 million if he was any use.

The Telegraph are way behind events on this. Parma and Roma did have joint ownership but they had a blind auction each for the remaining 50% they didn't own. Roma won it bidding €4.9M to Parma's €4.26M. The result was announced on June 23rd.
Roma have no intention of selling whereas Parma would have sold to us after letting Borini go out on loan to Roma last season.

[the dude abides]

been watching that Telegraph article since it was published last night. 

The comments below must have the writer and the Telegraph staff and owners totally embarrassed and soiling their trousers.

The comment writers (i.e. Liverpool fans) clearly know far more than the Telegraph journalist, about the Borini story.  Cringeworthy. 

The type of lazy rubbish *journalism* that newspapers got away with for decades is now gone.    There are too many specific forums out there now, not to mention twitter and facebook, that quickly allow fans to be kept well ahead of the papers on stories.

[Ageing Stick Insect]

The story wasn't written by the usual journo who covers LFC - Chris Bascombe. He's probably on holiday. It's like stories in the Mirror. Unless they're written by David Maddocks I pay no attention.

[the dude abides]

totally agree, Ray.

Bascombe and Maddock are journalists with sources, thus one always takes their stories as near gospel.

[Edward224]

Bascombe and Maddock are the two worst Liverpool news journos in the media. Bascombe is an idiot who sold his soul to News of the World and hated Rafa and Maddock continually gets things wrong and basically has no clue.

Only LFC journos I trust and so should you are Tony Barrett and Rory Smith from the Times and Ben Smith from BBC.

[Ageing Stick Insect]

Interesting to hear opinions from the inside. It was a pity Rory Smith jumped ship from the Telegraph and of course now that The Times is behind a paywall very few get to read their stories.

Of course we have our own source within the club. Got anything to tell us Edward? 

[Ed]

The lad Borini...c'mon 21 hardly someone to wet the knickers over! Granted
he appears in the poacher mould, something it could be argued we need a bit of
but ffs it's not like we're being linked with Fernando Torres here.

Dunno if the brief is, sign cheap (gems depending on your opinion) talent to plug gaps
in the squad. Bit risky imo 'cos it kindof ties these signings to the managers' vision of
things which leaves us a bit high and dry (or on the pig's back) depending. We all
remember Hodgson's gap fillers...

Anyway, s'pose we should give the gaffer his head and wait for him to be proved wise
after the fact. My worry is that if you stock the squad with mediocrity, then you end up
with mediocre results, what i expected was a 2nd wave of investment to complement
last Summers work, somewhere along the line it appears i missed a memo or two...

[Juan]

Anyway, s'pose we should give the gaffer his head and wait for him to be proved wise
after the fact. My worry is that if you stock the squad with mediocrity, then you end up
with mediocre results, what i expected was a 2nd wave of investment to complement
last Summers work, somewhere along the line it appears i missed a memo or two...

Likewise Ed I expected another wave of investment. It still might come this summer but as I said in another post I get a different vibe from the owners this summer. I dont think there will be anymore splash outs. I was never expecting Man City or Chelsea style transfer fees being paid but quality costs. If the club are not willing to follow up signings like Suarez with players of the same type of quality I dont know how we will compete long term. The owners have spent 40 million net over 3 transfer windows and we are now into transfer window 4. The top clubs are paying that for one player in every transfer window.

Dalglish was very unlucky losing Lucas last season. Suarezgate didnt help either but if we lose that bit of top quality we have for any length of time during the year our squad is no better than the also rans.

We are being linked with a 6 million pound move for Clint Dempsey. Im yet to see much evidence of Henrys vision of buying top young talent. I wonder if he realised when buying the club that top young players command heavy transfer fees too.

Chelsea seem to have done some great business already 32 million for hazzard, I accept we could never pay that but they also bought Marin for 7 million from Bremen.

[Ed]

Likewise Ed I expected another wave of investment. It still might come this summer but as I said in another post I get a different vibe from the owners this summer. I dont think there will be anymore splash outs. I was never expecting Man City or Chelsea style transfer fees being paid but quality costs. If the club are not willing to follow up signings like Suarez with players of the same type of quality I dont know how we will compete long term. The owners have spent 40 million net over 3 transfer windows and we are now into transfer window 4. The top clubs are paying that for one player in every transfer window.

Dalglish was very unlucky losing Lucas last season. Suarezgate didnt help either but if we lose that bit of top quality we have for any length of time during the year our squad is no better than the also rans.

We are being linked with a 6 million pound move for Clint Dempsey. Im yet to see much evidence of Henrys vision of buying top young talent. I wonder if he realised when buying the club that top young players command heavy transfer fees too.

Chelsea seem to have done some great business already 32 million for hazzard, I accept we could never pay that but they also bought Marin for 7 million from Bremen.

Agree. There doesn't appear to be a coherent vision (is it any wonder with baseball owners
& Ian Ayre in charge).

Worst case scenario, we bring in (for arguments sake call them) mediocre-ish players on
4 year contracts, fail to qualify for the Champions league and then tbh i'd begin to wonder
about the ambition of our senior/star players if they weren't hightailing it out of the club
next Summer leaving us with the mediocre players...

[Tes]

I've said it several times in the past that my worry was that there would be that initial investment that was supposed to see us qualify for the CL, then the extra money from that would see us cement our place there by adding one or two quality signings each year.

But my worry after last Summer was that Dalglish had spent that initial investment, it hadn't worked out and there'd be no more this Summer.

I am starting to be concerned that either that is the case or that Rodgers will have to 'prove himself' in the transfer market this Summer before being 'trusted' with more money next Summer, as the owners have been 'spooked' by Dalglish and Commoli's lavish spending on mediocrity.

The thing the owners really need to understand is that there is no cheap option in football. In American sport things are arranged in such a way as to try and even things out as much as possible and if the owners aren't bothered about winning in a sporting sense, they can at least win in a financial sense.

 

[Ed]

I've said it several times in the past that my worry was that there would be that initial investment that was supposed to see us qualify for the CL, then the extra money from that would see us cement our place there by adding one or two quality signings each year.

But my worry after last Summer was that Dalglish had spent that initial investment, it hadn't worked out and there'd be no more this Summer.

I am starting to be concerned that either that is the case or that Rodgers will have to 'prove himself' in the transfer market this Summer before being 'trusted' with more money next Summer, as the owners have been 'spooked' by Dalglish and Commoli's lavish spending on mediocrity.

The thing the owners really need to understand is that there is no cheap option in football. In American sport things are arranged in such a way as to try and even things out as much as possible and if the owners aren't bothered about winning in a sporting sense, they can at least win in a financial sense.

 

Agree Tes.

Rafa insisted on quality (expensive signings) got some bargains Arbeloa (£2 million) and signed some dross.

I would be wary of moving too far from that formula if the idea is to compete in the upper echelons of the league.

Certainly the policy of signing young (early 20s) talent for relatively inexpensive sums is a sound policy but requires a
seriously kick ass scouting set up. Again the academy should be contributing to this model going back even
further to the development of 14/16 year olds. My point is that it takes years to implement these ideas and
wonder whether they sit comfortably with the short term goal of CL qualification. The likes of Reina, Skrtel, Agger,
Johnson, Lucas and more recently Suarez are perhaps entitled to feel (if we don't get CL) heading into a WC
year that the project at LFC doesn't fit their career ambitions and because Ayre, Werner are such idiots it's
basically down to the cult of personality of the manager to avoid a mass exodus. Basically Rodgers has to hit
the ground running and take a team that finished 8th and break into the top 4 in his first season in charge.
My fear is we could end up like O'Neill (another energetic Northern Irishman) under Lerner at Villa and hit a perennial
glass ceiling of 6th 

[Juan]

I've said it several times in the past that my worry was that there would be that initial investment that was supposed to see us qualify for the CL, then the extra money from that would see us cement our place there by adding one or two quality signings each year.

But my worry after last Summer was that Dalglish had spent that initial investment, it hadn't worked out and there'd be no more this Summer.
 

If the American owners felt a 40 million investment in transfers would guarantee a return to the Champions League then they must have been very badly advised by someone before they bought the club.

The scary thing about it is I dont think theres a figure anymore that can be thrown at a squad that will guarantee anything in this league or Europe for that matter. Look at how long and how much it took Chelsea to win the Champions League. Likewise look how much it cost Man City just to get into the Champions League places.

I suppose we'll just have to wait and see if your concerns over this summers transfer kity will come to fruition Tes or whether the owners will make good on their promise that there is always money available for top young talent. In fairness Spurs looked to be having an awful time last summer and at the very end of the window they signed Parker and Adeybeyor.

[Juan]

My fear is we could end up like O'Neill (another energetic Northern Irishman) under Lerner at Villa and hit a perennial
glass ceiling of 6th 

I think what the likes of O'Neil and even Wenger prove is that a manager can only take a team so far, as you say Ed a glass ceiling of 6th for Villa under O'Neil and at the moment 3rd/4th for Arsenal under Wenger. Its very hard to break that plateau without the addition of some real quality after that. Even a team like Barcelona who have produced so many top talents at their academy have consistently needed to add real quality to the team from outside the club season after season.

[Juan]

The Ramirez deal seems to be very much agent driven. There doesnt seem to be any real interest anymore from our side.

Clint Dempsey is not apparently a target either.

Aquillani could be on his way to Turkey too.

http://www.liverpooldailypost.co.uk/sport/liverpool-fc/liverpool-fc-news/2012/07/09/99623-31353811/

[Juan]

Interesting press conference with Rodgers today. We look to be signing an "exciting" young player in the next few days. Theres even the possibility of a second signing this week. I wonder if it will be Ramirez, Borini, Granero or any of the other players recently linked.

Dont get too carried away with the possibility of any world class talent going through the doors of Melwood in the next few days though because Rodgers also confirmed what we have being suggesting that there is not much money available in this transfer window so it seems the owners are letting Rodgers make do with whats available to him in the squad already.

Rodgers also seems to be coy over Andy Carroll, theres been no bids for him but hes not saying one way or the other whether the player is going to be an integral part of his set up. It sounds a possible case of watch this space.....

http://www.standard.co.uk/sport/football/liverpool-near-to-exciting-new-signing-7924663.html