07 Aug 2017 01:22:17
I still don't believe that coutinho will leave, I've had no fresh info since the last time I posted about him.
What I will say is that if he were to leave it would be a problem in the sense that attracting other talented players when you're a club which sells all its talented players is quite tough unless you're willing to make silly guarantees about playing time or ridiculous wages.
Its nothing new of course as we were doing it way back in the 90s too but it's hard not to draw a correlation between our change to a selling club and our inability to win the league. I think even without coutinho we'll probably do ok in champs league as it tends to be populated by teams which we do well against (expansive and offering space) but I can't see a league title any time soon unless we start building teams instead of farming them.
No team has ever won any major trophy by selling their best players. Even teams which won with youth (united, ajax) did so by retaining quality players and selling AFTER they won some trophies. Id like to see us do this.
How do you tell a prospective player that you're a good opportunity when you don't (not can't - don't ) compete? You tell them if they stay for a couple of years you'll get them a big money move to a big club.
Perhaps it's time for us to accept we aren't a big club anymore and we are simply a feeder club to big clubs. Mcmanaman said this once - does everyone else in Europe think this too?
07 Aug 2017 01:33:12
"Perhaps it's time for us to accept we aren't a big club anymore and we are simply a feeder club to big clubs. "
PERHAPS?
Mate its a fact we are a feeder club, not an opinion. Its been like that for 20 years now. If we win the BPL, people will see it is as LFC doing a Leicester, a one off.
07 Aug 2017 02:07:50
We are a feeder club of course to the best clubs of Europe. If you can pay us we can help you win trophies. Without success and us always spending big that is the only way plausible to sustain ourselves and I think it is the right way.
Every player has a price, it's business. I think after neymar saga it's great bit of business if the club can get 120 million euros of Phil. Yes he is our best player but we would be selling him at 15 times what he bought him for. Makes business sense, not footballing sense. And that's all football is.
Brood some young talent in there and move on.
07 Aug 2017 02:08:23
"No team has ever won any major trophy by selling their best players. "
REALLY?
Sold Keegan - won league and European cup
Sold Souness - won league and FA cup double a couple of years later
Sold Rush - won league
Sold Owen - won champions league.
Must have been my imagination.
07 Aug 2017 02:59:30
Liverpool need to change their policy of accepting big bids for their best players. If you bid big enough, Liverpool will sell. This has been the case for a while.
Alonso, Mascherano, Torres, Suarez, Sterling and now Coutinho.
Obviously in more than one case, the player caused too much distress and we simply had to sell as we didn't want to keep an unhappy player. But just a quick look at our own experiences with VVD and Keita tells you that if you don't want to sell the player, even if the player causes a little grief, you can hold on to the player.
07 Aug 2017 04:52:14
Real AG, all those players forced their way out of the club. better to sell than keep players that don't want to be here. couts will stay unless he wants to force his way out. keita didn't force his way out and VVD is trying to avoid a transfer request to save himself a lot of money.
07 Aug 2017 05:00:15
Remember when Juventus sold Pogba for a world record fee and then won Serie A, the Coppa Italia and reached the Champions League final?
07 Aug 2017 05:22:45
Can't remember that Smeg. Must've been in the 90's 😉.
07 Aug 2017 08:44:59
Sure, Liverpool will sell Coutinho and win the league then MK and Smeg?
How did it work out for Liverpool after selling Suarez?
07 Aug 2017 17:54:08
Pains me to say it but so true. If by some chance we manage to keep hold of him then maybe I'll give that a second opinion but it does seem we are still a selling club. Was hoping that we would stand up to Barcelona on this and we could if we really wanted to. Leipzig can do it, why can't we.