08 Jan 2025 23:49:34
Not picking on the man personally as he was a superstar before his injuries but why did we buy Chiesa for £10 mil and then pay him £150,000 a week for him to do an Arthur on it and play 3 games in 6 months. Who made the decision to buy him in the 1st place and is this the kind of business we can expect again in the Jan transfer window when we need to add some real quality to get us over the line, its bewildering at times they way we always seem to waste money hoping to be some sort of miracle worker and resurrect injury prone faded stars careers in the hope of saving a few Bob instead of adding what's needed to an aging and exhausted 1st 11 and I don't mean another winger.
09 Jan 2025 00:34:28
I didn't expect Chiesa to be a miracle worker. I didn't expect much for £10m but I thought we'd have seen more of him. If we had we might not have won as many games so I'm not too bothered, really.
Is the first eleven aging and exhausted? Salah and van Dijk are getting on but they have been two of our best, if not best, players this season. I'm not sure about being exhausted. We're playing games because we are still in every competition and would that be true if we were exhausted? Most can have a rest this weekend, too.
I'd sooner have the points in the bank and hopefully manage tiredness and refresh the players.
09 Jan 2025 02:15:45
Yeah it was Hughes who was behind the transfer. Some I've seen saying he only cost £10m so even if he fails we haven't lost much - what a load of nonsense that is. 10 mil is 10 mil we got Robbo for less.
Panic buy comes to mind, a player we all wish would be back to his best but we're never going to see it. All summer we were dragging our heels and he went and got him in. I'd of preferred us to sign nobody because now we have a player who's on 150k per week doing nothing.
09 Jan 2025 04:43:23
Its a long season. Players tire, players get injured. Up until now we have had 4 injury-free forwards and Jota vying for 3 spots. Chiesa needed a proper pre-season then he had a niggle. he's been available on the bench past few games. I would expect him to get a fair number of games in the second half of the season starting with Accrington.
09 Jan 2025 06:08:53
Is there any accountability in the transfer committee? Who holds them to account for mistakes?
09 Jan 2025 07:01:08
Panic buy, because these guys we’ve got in charge of transfers can’t get players through the door.
09 Jan 2025 07:40:18
Yes, we can blame Hughes for Chiesa and we can write them both off after six months. That's fair enough, as is expecting another Andy Robbo.
It's also ok to blame his predecessors for our transfer policies in general.
A well run club being top of the league but we can't get players through the door (even the wrong ones) so we must do better.
Shiny new toys, please!
09 Jan 2025 08:09:52
As others have said these are calculated data driven risks, but unfortunately it takes the common sense out of it. I can’t think of any low cost injury prone purchases that have worked for us, the physical demands of the league are too high. We’re trying to unearth diamonds that have already been mined.
09 Jan 2025 08:19:19
I feel for Chiesa and whilst I agree that the price paid for him in this day and age isn’t significant for a club like Liverpool but I can’t get my head around how he is our joint 5th best paid player.
All whilst the club seem unwilling to increase the pay of 3 of our best players.
Whilst it might feel like a 12 million gamble by the end of the season it will be 19.8 million including the wages.
Also throw in the decision to pay Nat Phillips 3.4 million a year for the last 4 seasons so he can do a tour of Britain testing out substitute benches for other clubs.
Just for context I’ve got all these figures from a website that the great Ed002 recommended a year or so ago when discussing wages and player stats on a discussion thread so I’m not just making numbers up to make an argument.
09 Jan 2025 08:20:56
I''m guessing we didn't win again last night?
09 Jan 2025 08:53:00
Chiesa is on more than Diaz and other top performers in the squad, which may run some up the wrong way, however, writing him off before he's had a chance is not the LFC way.
He does look a bit portly to my eyes, but he has magic in those feet.
Slot seems to be stubborn in a different way to Jurgen-He will not pick certain players who prove themselves and could releive the burden from others, such as Endo.
We will run out of steam as we did under Jurgen if he continues to rinse our finest for meaningless competitions.
09 Jan 2025 08:53:26
JK, Chiesa might not be at the club for the duration of the three players' contracts though. If we continue to pay him for not playing and don't recoup a lot of the money back, it is bad business.
If it is about money, is it sensible to be increasing the wages of Salah and van Dijk? Obviously, I don't know TAA's situation.
Salah and VVD are getting on but they will be almost impossible to replace so I think they should stay. But on more money? I'm not sure but I think a compromise will be reached anyway.
Maybe the Chiesa transfer was funded by the sales of van den Berg, Carvalho and Clark. There's over £50m there and I don't think we'd have seen that much of any of them this season, even allowing for their fresh legs.
09 Jan 2025 10:01:37
Rigsby i get that mate and its not even a dig aimed at Chiesa.
Its more isn't it a waste of money.
Success brings more money to the club so surely VVD, Mo and Trent as well as our other better players will help us finish higher up the league and more chance of winning things thus generating more money.
Having to purchase players to replace and disastrously failing to qualify for the CL would be a far bigger financial hit than thise contracts.
I genuinely aren't bothered by what we pay the players because it has zero effect on me as a fan.
This season compared to last we have saved 7.5 million on Klopps wages, 11 million on Thiago's wages and 5 million on Matips wages etc.
We have also qualified for the CL and got all the money from that.
Also all home games now generate a further revenue of 7 thousand more people coming through the door.
With all that extra money the impact it had on fans was that match day tickets went up.
So i ain't going to start worrying myself to sleep how a billionaire businessman and his execs will manage to pay our best players the money other rival clubs seem happy to pay.
If the 3 sign or they don't sign then i'll still love and support the club but i think we are definitely at a crossroads at the moment and i'm a little worried on which direction we will choose.
09 Jan 2025 10:17:26
Morning Rigbsy mate
I wasn't implying that Cheisa was going to be a miracle worker more that our coaching staff we're expected to be, by getting him back to his best!
As for aging team you have a point most of our players are 28 and under but Ally, Robbo, Virg and Mo are all the wrong side of 30 still fantastic players ( although I think Robbos legs starting to go ) but we have done absolutely nothing long term to bring in their eventual successors (Ally apart maybe ?) .
Further again maybe I didn't elaborate enough when I mentioned exhausted team and this could seem a little premature but the drop off in quality of some of our squad players is so immense that Slot is reluctant to change his 1st 11 and with a rate of a game every 3 days we will soon see exhaustion setting in amongst the team unless he either starts rotating or we get a decent body or 2 in this month.
Don't get me wrong I am like everyone else overwhelmed by how well we are doing and possibly a little greedy with my expectations considering this was ment to be a year of transition, but I just don't want to see our season whimper away like it did last season when now we could do plenty to prevent this from happening.
I possibly like yourself and many other posters have been a fan for a very long time and don't want to wait another 30 years for another title. So here's hoping we get things right in the next few weeks whether its quality reinforcements or squad rotation and by May we'll reach the holy grail once again and go level with the Mancs on 20 titles, we live in hope.
All the best mate.
Nosozippy
JFT97 YNWA.
09 Jan 2025 11:59:08
Morning, Zippy and JK, and I wasn't having a go, more looking at it from another angle.
Yeah, we all worry and like with our kids, we'll never stop ?. Two bad results and we worry more. Naturally we all start looking for reasons why we haven't been playing as well.
I know a lot of the first team players have played a lot of minutes and we should always be looking to bring in new talent but I think we will be. I think most of us agree that we are cautious in the transfer market but we haven't done too badly, imo.
I think last season is still fresh in our memories, too. We perhaps exceeded expectations early on and then the bad run and how it happened made it harder to take. We don't want the same thing to happen again but like last season I can't help thinking that we are a bit ahead of ourselves.
Bringing in a couple of quality players in January would certainly help and I'm sure we all agree on that.
09 Jan 2025 12:26:48
Rigsby i certainly didn't take it as you having a go and enjoyed reading your replies.
I'll be honest my concerns haven't developed from the last 2 games. I actually had concerns leading into this period because of we've been here before scenario playing in my head.
Despite us being the self proclaimed best fans in the world we are also a fan base that likes to jump the gun and claim to win stuff well in advance of it actually happening or sadly not happening.
We're the only club that's won the quadruple twice and multiple league titles at Christmas.
09 Jan 2025 12:27:28
No bother mate, I should have maybe elaborated a bit more when making my points no offence taken ?.
09 Jan 2025 13:01:08
So you’re saying Chiesa was a good signing Rigsby?
Cmon mate, it’s a terrible panic buy. Every man and his dog knew the club wanted Gordon (I didn’t) but we couldn’t land him and they got pelters online and panic bought injury prone Chiesa under all the fan pressure.
09 Jan 2025 15:28:41
Nice one, Zippy and JK.
LFC8, I never said Chiesa was a good buy. I wouldn't say anyone was a good buy after six months. Well, almost anyone. I even said the signing could be bad business and I stand by that.
What Chiesa was- and it's becoming a Hughes cliché now- is an opportunistic buy. I think Gordon was the same. Newcastle were looking for funds and were prepared to sell him but we were too opportunistic and not willing to pay enough, is how I saw it. I wouldn't be surprised if we went in for him again especially if Diaz goes. That's why we might be stalling on a new contract and looking at his wages but I'm just speculating.
I reckon that's how Hughes will operate. We will target players and pay what is needed but we'll also sign players if the price and timing is right. I think that keeper we loaned out is an example of that.
Whether it's successful or not is another matter but that's how I see us operating.
Ps. we might even put in a cheeky bid for Mainoo ?.