25 Jul 2026 09:08:20
Doesn’t seem to be many RW options about available to replace Salah. We’ve known he was leaving for months. Surely there is a plan in place aside from Barcola and Diamonde, who both seem virtually impossible to sign, and with interest growing from elsewhere.
25 Jul 2026 09:24:38
The transfer committee or person responsible is a clown, so many things could have been put in place long before the summer.
It happens every summer. I don't think any club has as many issues when it comes to transfers like LFC.
I think how sad it is that Van Dyk yet again has to play every game.
{Ed025's Note - try being an Evertonian PK.. :)
25 Jul 2026 09:33:39
Rayan. ?
25 Jul 2026 10:19:22
It didn't happen last summer and this one hasn't even finished.
25 Jul 2026 10:20:11
How can Hughes, who is leaving in 6 weeks, have the best interests of Liverpool Football Club at the front of his mind?
He should've been sacked on the final day of last season, along with Slot and Edwards, for their roles in that disgrace.
I suppose the only benefit of all this, when he's at a Saudi club, we'll be his new Bournemouth.
25 Jul 2026 10:46:29
Well, we have to hope he does now, LFC8. I'm sure he'd like to have a good window and be remembered fondly.
25 Jul 2026 10:50:36
Shambolic that we have such a large number of players and a pretty deep squad on paper, but some absolutely glaring holes in key positions.
25 Jul 2026 10:57:30
Maybe we should revert to a 4-4-2 formation? Old School.
25 Jul 2026 11:07:39
Firstly, the club would rather not sack a manager, Sporting Director and CEO all in one go; it makes the club look extremely unstable and could have a massively negative effect on transfers.
Secondly, Hughes might technically be heading up recruitment/negotiations, but I don't believe he has any real power over major decisions; I think that was stripped as soon as Gordon stepped in. From what I've read, it seems Mike Gordon is calling the shots with the assistance of Julian Ward.
Whatever's going on, don't forget we have an entire recruitment team who have been sounding out a shortlist of potential targets all season; we're not just sitting around waiting for Hughes to make half-assed calls. Our top 2 targets have a combined value in the region of £250m.
Those sort of deals are not made overnight, not to mention there's a fairly complex set of dominoes waiting to fall; all we can do is play the game.
25 Jul 2026 11:08:58
It feels like the problem is actually that our primary targets are not impossible to sign. They are just very complicated like Carra et al have been saying, but the fact that they are possible means that we haven't moved on to other 'easier' but less fancied targets.
25 Jul 2026 12:02:55
The sporting director plans a few windows ahead, it's not a job where you come in and improvise in the moment, Hughes leaving after this window surely doesn't negate the work he had put in preparing for this particular window. Firing him would mean putting all that work in the trash and getting somebody to play catch up, which would make the likelihood of us not getting anybody in all the more probable. I don't get why folks think that because Hughes might have one eye on his future job, that he won't want to do his present job properly?
It was fine with Schmadtke coming in May because apparently Jurgen had most of the say with bringing players in by then and Schmadtke simply had to go make the deals happen.
Iraola, on the other hand, has little input in transfers and prefers to focus on coaching. You'd effectively be trying to hand the keys to the kingdom to somebody who hasn't been spending the last two seasons assessing the squad and drafting a long term plan in the middle of the transfer window, while every other team has done all the groundwork the new guy will have to catch up on.
I'm no fan of Hughes, by the way, but this stuff about him not being loyal to Liverpool and not having the team's best interests at heart, which means he will mess up this transfer window, just doesn't make sense to me, and doesn't seem to take into account what a sporting director is actually responsible for doing at our club.
25 Jul 2026 13:47:04
Richard Hughes is accountable for knowing our best two wingers, Lucho and Mo, were leaving well in advance without having a solid plan to replace them.
25 Jul 2026 16:07:08
He did have a plan to be fair, FPF, Diomande was always the plan, the deal just seems a lot more difficult than anticipated.
26 Jul 2026 05:27:12
It's so much easier playing Premier Manager on my laptop. Everyone I know is an expert on their laptop.