Daniel Levy - Chairman

[Jordinho]

Fenerbahce, where he went on loan the previous season.

Turkish clubs offer decent wages (that they often have problems paying), but spend almost nothing on transfer fees. It's loans or free/very cheap deals on players that are out of favour or in the twilight of their career.

 

[DeanoAustin]

This is the Liverpool that very clearly waited for precisely the players they wanted, rather than second rate alternatives, correct? Also the Liverpool that had the Coutinho money burning a hole?

Again, not suggesting we shouldn’t make signings, I’m just saying appreciate the context of the time.

We had targets. Players we wanted. We just didn’t get the deals done. And centre mid has been a worry for a few seasons so there was no excuse not to have players in the pipeline.

 

[BrainOfLevy]

We had targets. Players we wanted. We just didn’t get the deals done. And centre mid has been a worry for a few seasons so there was no excuse not to have players in the pipeline.

Or we didn’t get them done because we didn’t think they were worth signing at the price offered when if we waited we could get much better if we pay a bit more?

As I said in another thread, the idea that this season or our progress in general depended on making signings last summer is a Red Herring. With or without a Grealish, we will still have had roughly the same season if injuries affected us in the same way. This was not seen to be the season where we made a title challenge push, it was about getting by. We were absolutely coming to the end of a cycle with players like Rose, Toby, Trippier, Wanyama but short of buyers, we had to make do.

Liverpool finished below us, what? 7 of the last 9 seasons? But they are on an upswing with a squad they have patiently built. We are on the end of a downward curve of ours. But I fully believe that this summer, with the stadium built, with certain contract situations forcing the hand of certain players and clubs, and more room to manoeuvre in our own wage budget, we are going to make some moves. We will regenerate and be on more of an upward swing.

I think Sessegnon will come in for starters quite quickly. We may go back for Grealish. The Toby situation will resolve itself one way or the other, he either stays or we move on and replace. Llorente goes and we sign another attacker capable of playing wide forward. We sign a central midfielder. Trippier goes.

I think it will be 3 or 4 first team players out and 3 or 4 genuinely quality additions to come in, plus certain youth like KWP and Skipp potentially trusted a little more.

 

[DeanoAustin]

Or we didn’t get them done because we didn’t think they were worth signing at the price offered when if we waited we could get much better if we pay a bit more?

As I said in another thread, the idea that this season or our progress in general depended on making signings last summer is a Red Herring. With or without a Grealish, we will still have had roughly the same season if injuries affected us in the same way. This was not seen to be the season where we made a title challenge push, it was about getting by. We were absolutely coming to the end of a cycle with players like Rose, Toby, Trippier, Wanyama but short of buyers, we had to make do.

Liverpool finished below us, what? 7 of the last 9 seasons? But they are on an upswing with a squad they have patiently built. We are on the end of a downward curve of ours. But I fully believe that this summer, with the stadium built, with certain contract situations forcing the hand of certain players and clubs, and more room to manoeuvre in our own wage budget, we are going to make some moves. We will regenerate and be on more of an upward swing.

I think Sessegnon will come in for starters quite quickly. We may go back for Grealish. The Toby situation will resolve itself one way or the other, he either stays or we move on and replace. Llorente goes and we sign another attacker capable of playing wide forward. We sign a central midfielder. Trippier goes.

I think it will be 3 or 4 first team players out and 3 or 4 genuinely quality additions to come in, plus certain youth like KWP and Skipp potentially trusted a little more.

Ah come on. On one hand people defending our policy are saying “well we don’t go for squad players anymore. We only go for players we think can make it.”

Then when it’s clear as day that we went for at least 4 players but didn’t get the deals done, it’s “maybe they weren’t really what we wanted.”

The signings is not a red herring. Yes we’ve been unlucky with injuries but centre mid was a clear problem area. And one we tried to address. We’ve had to play Danny Rose there against West Ham and a clearly not match sharp Eric Dier there against Bournemouth. A proper centre mid in those games and there’s a decent chance we’d be in the CL already.

 

[nayimfromthehalfwayline]

We have the issues around offloading players, there has to be room for them to come into doesnt there?

And we also have the issue of getting caught fishing for top level players in the same pond as clubs that can blow us out of the water.

Its life.

 

[Hotshot-Tottenham]

But we would not need to spend £200m if we had spent some money over the last 12 months. But because we failed to we are now behind the curve and now we need to spend money to be competitive to compete for a CL next season

Stadiums don’t come cheap.

Delays = extra work and cost, extra rent on Wembley, lost revenue from not being in WHL.

We can’t do it all. Not at the same time at least.

 

[BrainOfLevy]

Ah come on. On one hand people defending our policy are saying “well we don’t go for squad players anymore. We only go for players we think can make it.”

Then when it’s clear as day that we went for at least 4 players but didn’t get the deals done, it’s “maybe they weren’t really what we wanted.”

The signings is not a red herring. Yes we’ve been unlucky with injuries but centre mid was a clear problem area. And one we tried to address. We’ve had to play Danny Rose there against West Ham and a clearly not match sharp Eric Dier there against Bournemouth. A proper centre mid in those games and there’s a decent chance we’d be in the CL already.

We’ve been way beyond unlucky in central midfield.

And what is hard about saying that we bid for Grealish, as an example. Clearly we bid for him but clearly we didn’t think he was worth being held to ransom for? I’m sure we thought he would be a good addition as someone who could potentially cover a number of positions in the squad, but not someone to keep going up and up for.

2 less injuries and we’d have third wrapped up no problem. It’s been absolutely insane - we wouldn’t be having this debate at all had we been ever so slightly luckier.

 

[NoLimits01]

We should have used the money saved on buying players to buy a few refs and pundits and then maybe we would have been given all the penalties and been able to dive with impunity

 

[DeanoAustin]

We’ve been way beyond unlucky in central midfield.

And what is hard about saying that we bid for Grealish, as an example. Clearly we bid for him but clearly we didn’t think he was worth being held to ransom for? I’m sure we thought he would be a good addition as someone who could potentially cover a number of positions in the squad, but not someone to keep going up and up for.

2 less injuries and we’d have third wrapped up no problem. It’s been absolutely insane - we wouldn’t be having this debate at all had we been ever so slightly luckier.

Don’t think we’re gonna agree on this. Our centre mid problems were far more than bad luck and injuries. They were entirely predictable. In fact you could argue that we were lucky that Sissoko emerged from the shadows.

 

[Baleforce]

Sissoko has just continued his form from last season, it’s not luck.

A midfield of fully fit Winks and Dier is going to be more than enough in most games, as it was when we smashed Madrid on their way to another CL.

 

[Legohamster]

Let’s hope we can now put this all behind us and look forward to signings in the summer.

This was much to close for comfort

 

[SylDave]

We definitely tried to sign Frenkie De Jong last summer, and unless we were taping him up at least got as far as being given permission to speak to him, he did a big interview in last months FourFourTwo magazine this is exactly as copied from the mag.

Despite missing the final few months of the 2017-18 campaign, De Jong was still a man in demand among Europe’s biggest clubs last summer. Some even made firm offers for his services, and Tottenham Hotspur’s sales pitch tempted the Dutch midfielder.

“I considered their offer long and hard,” he reveals, “I see Tottenham as a very stable club and they are only getting better. They give young players a chance and I see Mauricio Pochettino as a manager who really improves young players. I like the kind of football they are playing. I think it would have suited my game.”

Though the idea of moving to north London certainly appealed to De Jong, he opted to stay in Amsterdam, principally as he felt it was still too early for that first big transfer abroad.

“The moment wasn’t right,” he insists. “I still wasn’t finished at Ajax, as I hadn’t yet played a full season in my own position. I was also injured in that period, so I was thinking, ‘not yet’. I felt I should stay for another year at Ajax, or perhaps even longer.”

 

[ricky2tricky4city]

Ah come on. On one hand people defending our policy are saying “well we don’t go for squad players anymore. We only go for players we think can make it.”

Then when it’s clear as day that we went for at least 4 players but didn’t get the deals done, it’s “maybe they weren’t really what we wanted.”

The signings is not a red herring. Yes we’ve been unlucky with injuries but centre mid was a clear problem area. And one we tried to address. We’ve had to play Danny Rose there against West Ham and a clearly not match sharp Eric Dier there against Bournemouth. A proper centre mid in those games and there’s a decent chance we’d be in the CL already.

F.ck me. Nearly all money was coming from sales.

No sales. No transfer fund.

 

[SteveAWOL]

I also think people are forgetting that it looked like Lamela started this season with the worst of it behind him. He was playing and we were keeping Eriksen on the bench in more than one game. At what point do we stop saying we need signings and just admit we’ve been really unlucky with a whole bunch of players this year? We don’t want to end up in a situation like with Drinkwater at Chelsea where we have a fit player that never expects to play.

Form is temporary, crocked is permanent?!

 

[ricky2tricky4city]

Some fair points. Just looked through the previous annual reports and the cash position is down to the stadium which, hands up, I didn't realise the extent of that.

However, it was still possible for us to fund a couple of transfers in the summer. Granted 2019 won't look pretty but we won't look to go and re-finance our loans until 2022 as I understand it by which time we'll be over the 2019 hump (delays and rent) and be realising the increased revenue the stadium is built to deliver without the brick that'll impact our profits this year. Our financials at that time should look pretty good for 2020 and 2021 which will give the banks some comfort that we're not much of a risk. Also, hasn't ENIC given us a £50m loan facility of some sort that we haven't utilised. We also have naming rights that will materialise eventually. We could have spent last summer and didn't.

Let's say 2019 isn't pretty. And then we don't have CL football. Toby and Eriksen want to go and Toby is off for £25m while Eriksen won't command a massive fee as he only has one year on his contract. Jan's getting older. Winks' injury problems continue. Dier's also continue. It doesn't take much for the squad to seriously decay. How long do we hold off spending serious money at that stage because revenue has fallen with no CL?

It feels like I'm picking on you

Two players incoming was definitely doable if we got rid of who we wanted to. And more money/better quality if one sale was Toby or Rose.

You're reasoning is all over the place with the timeline. Summer and Winter transfer windows were backdropped by the stadium uncertainty and delays. Levy takes a position at that moment in time, with full dialogue with Poch, as to the approach. 2019 won't be as fruitful but that doesn't matter as we will know the numbers, plus we will have 6 games of income data from the new ground and I'd expect the naming rights to have progressed (probably agreed). Revenue streams will be switched to on. Now Levy can make decisions with facts and a greater deal of certainty.

You can't toss money up the wall when there are unknowns. The risk at THAT MOMENT IN TIME is too great.(as I laid out before) the other route is to let Poch have full control of playing/squad matters and relying on him to work his magic (and he is magic) again. Risky but certainly less risky.

And so we move on. The picture becomes clearer and funds on top of sales can be added. Don't forget that improved contracts for a number of critical players was stop 1 as keeping what we had was more important than signing new faces.

I agree that a negative is it shifts a lot of squad re-jigging into a short time frame and that is not ideal BUT you make the decisions at the time with the information you have.

No-one has the luxury of running their business in hindsight.

 

[ricky2tricky4city]

At the point where we do what Liverpool, for example, did. Address the shortcomings in your squad.

We were woefully short in midfield. If Dembele and Winks were fit, then fair enough. But we knew neither would be. We were obviously short in that area and did nothing to address it or move on the deadwood.

Trippier proved long before this season that he wasn't a good enough right back in a back 4. We should have signed someone in there too.

Yes we've been unlucky with injuries but we were also obviously short in areas and did nothing to address those weaknesses. That's resulted in having to play Danny Rose in midfield, in rushing Dier back to play there when he's not right and in putting a not-up-to-speed Big Vic in there against Ajax. Trippier's shortcomings have resulted in us playing a young centre back there.

Far too much hindsight in there Deano.

Diers injuries totally unpredictable.

Winks, Dembele, Wanyama surely could give us 30 games each ?

I don't rate Trippier much but he came off the back of a v.good world cup.

Sissoko has helped us massively.

And I would dispute Dembele going off in Jan, when things did look like they may mount up for us. Was that worth £11m?? Not sure.

Thinking about it, and I know Poch doesn't like them, but due to the stopgap season we were having perhaps some season long/6 month loans would have been a sensible idea?

We'll hopefully be acting like Liverpool from now on but remember they coined it in on Coutinho so that did help them.

 

[DeanoAustin]

It feels like I'm picking on you

Two players incoming was definitely doable if we got rid of who we wanted to. And more money/better quality if one sale was Toby or Rose.

You're reasoning is all over the place with the timeline. Summer and Winter transfer windows were backdropped by the stadium uncertainty and delays. Levy takes a position at that moment in time, with full dialogue with Poch, as to the approach. 2019 won't be as fruitful but that doesn't matter as we will know the numbers, plus we will have 6 games of income data from the new ground and I'd expect the naming rights to have progressed (probably agreed). Revenue streams will be switched to on. Now Levy can make decisions with facts and a greater deal of certainty.

You can't toss money up the wall when there are unknowns. The risk at THAT MOMENT IN TIME is too great.(as I laid out before) the other route is to let Poch have full control of playing/squad matters and relying on him to work his magic (and he is magic) again. Risky but certainly less risky.

And so we move on. The picture becomes clearer and funds on top of sales can be added. Don't forget that improved contracts for a number of critical players was stop 1 as keeping what we had was more important than signing new faces.

I agree that a negative is it shifts a lot of squad re-jigging into a short time frame and that is not ideal BUT you make the decisions at the time with the information you have.

No-one has the luxury of running their business in hindsight.

My point with the revenue streams is that sometimes you have to take a risk in business and spend against them before you have the money in the bank. The stadium was always going to deliver revenue. We're always going to get the money for naming rights and we have an unused £50m facility with ENIC. It may have been delayed a few months but I've no doubt that Levy had a good idea of when the stadium would open and what that meant financially. The margin for unknowns was relatively low I'd imagine.

Your logic earlier, if I understood correctly, was that we shouldn't heap transfer fees on top of poor financial results to ensure we can refinance our debt at the best terms. We made a profit of £113m in 2018. So what happens in the summer 2019?

Does Levy say "Well the financial results are going to be terrible this year so we're not spending. Or at least, we're not spending until after the fiscal year is done and the numbers are in (which will probably be mid July)." Why would we go and spend money this year and not last year? If the answer is, "There was too much uncertainty last year" then I reckon that a) Levy had a pretty good idea in 2018 how the stadium would play out and b) the stadium delay was pretty much as long as it was ever going to be so we're now probably in what was the worst case scenario back in summer 2018 anyway.

In terms of players leaving, I find it hard to believe we couldn't have shifted some of the dead wood. The problem is, and it's well known, Levy hates taking a loss on players and will milk everything he can out of a deal. That's great most of the time but sometimes you just have to suck it up and let the player go for a lower price than you'd like. Other clubs shift the players they don't want and it's not like we pay silly wages that'd entice them to sit on their arses and see out a contract.

We could have bought and we should have bought last summer. Now the squad needs even more surgery so all we're doing is loading the entire spend into one window rather than two. And we did it by increasing the risk of us not having CL revenue. We really got away with one (assuming we don't have the mother of all collapses next week) this season.

 

[DeanoAustin]

Far too much hindsight in there Deano.

Diers injuries totally unpredictable.

Winks, Dembele, Wanyama surely could give us 30 games each ?

I don't rate Trippier much but he came off the back of a v.good world cup.

Sissoko has helped us massively.

And I would dispute Dembele going off in Jan, when things did look like they may mount up for us. Was that worth £11m?? Not sure.

Thinking about it, and I know Poch doesn't like them, but due to the stopgap season we were having perhaps some season long/6 month loans would have been a sensible idea?

We'll hopefully be acting like Liverpool from now on but remember they coined it in on Coutinho so that did help them.

Not that much hindsight.

Dier has not improved in a number of years. He's not a midfielder because he hasn't a creative bone in his body and even the manager feels centre back is his most likely long term position.

Dembele was clearly crocked and we were never getting 30 games from him. Big Vic had a litany of injury problems over the last few years. Winks has been regularly injured since that Burnley game a few years back. To get 30 games from any of them would have been a good effort. To get 30 games from all of them was very wishful thinking.

Sissoko has been a revelation but last summer, who expected that?

In terms of quality from that bunch. Winks and Dembele were the only two I'd trust on the ball. The rest are severely limited as ball playing midfielders. For those reasons, it was blatantly obvious we were short in that position last summer.

 

[ricky2tricky4city]

Not that much hindsight.

Dier has not improved in a number of years. He's not a midfielder because he hasn't a creative bone in his body and even the manager feels centre back is his most likely long term position.

Dembele was clearly crocked and we were never getting 30 games from him. Big Vic had a litany of injury problems over the last few years. Winks has been regularly injured since that Burnley game a few years back. To get 30 games from any of them would have been a good effort. To get 30 games from all of them was very wishful thinking.

Sissoko has been a revelation but last summer, who expected that?

In terms of quality from that bunch. Winks and Dembele were the only two I'd trust on the ball. The rest are severely limited as ball playing midfielders. For those reasons, it was blatantly obvious we were short in that position last summer.

Of course it's hindsight.

Look at the appearance s Dembele, Wanyama, Dier have made over the last 2 seasons. Dembele even gave us 13 this season and Wanyama 17 so far.
30 games is not hard to contribute and the past records show that was likely. If you're not using information it becomes wishful thinking.

CM has been decimated by injury this season and we are lucky Sissoko has stepped up. Poch could play Skipp more in the easier games and I'm sure Onomah could have not gone to Wednesday if we knew the injuries we'd get.

The Grealish interest shows Poch knows there is need for forward planning in the CM area..and I think he'd happily of got rid of Sissoko Dembele and Wanyama but I wouldn't poo poo the bunch too much, theyd achieved the CL qualification we wanted in the previous 2/3 seasons.

 

[metalgear]

Mc tominay shows how a big English lad could look in midfield

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