Liverpool Banter 4

12 Aug 2026 20:52:05
On another note, got to admire Aston Villa’s new away kit. Teams playing ok as well!

Still can’t get my head around our home shirt and shorts colour difference. In fact, not a fan of the shirt anyway but how hard is it to match?

Rant over.

12 Aug 2026 21:09:15
It's not meant to match, that is the colour what it's meant to be, it's the same as our kit in 1989, the dye which is used comes out different shades because the shirt is different material to the shorts.

12 Aug 2026 21:38:41
I think it'd be a bit much having that pattern on the shorts as well as the shirt.

12 Aug 2026 21:56:44
Didn't expect the pattern, just a better tonal match. It looks cheap to me.

12 Aug 2026 22:14:23
It looked daft in 89 too. I can understand paying homage to the shirt, but to purposely miscolour the shorts is laughable.

12 Aug 2026 22:32:17
This time of year, everyone turns into Ralph Lauren!! It's just a t-shirt worn by footballers and children (and BarryinLouth). Who cares?

13 Aug 2026 01:33:00
No, sorry stoneage, your absolutely correct, It's terrible everyone (well 4 people ) entering a comment on the subject that has no bearing on the club either aesthetically or financially should have an opinion on. I think even the Ralph Lauren empire would be impressed though that it retails for about three times the amount their t shirts do. Still never mind.

Ok let's keep it real and on point, what's this I hear about the Barcola bloke in France?

12 Aug 2026 20:13:12.
Done a bit of digging and no one has really reported these as Liverpool targets, but following the same logic as Munoz and Araujo this is who I think could suddenly come into play.

Liverpool seem happy to sit in the background, let other clubs do the negotiating and establish the price, then jump in late if the deal makes sense.

So I’d keep an eye on Said El Mala, Matias Fernandez-Pardo, Frattesi, Lewis-Skelly, Bergvall and Camavinga.

El Mala and Fernandez-Pardo are already being pushed by other clubs, Frattesi could move if Inter want Curtis Jones, Bergvall wants more game time at Spurs and Camavinga is the big one if Madrid ever decide to sell.



Lewis-Skelly is interesting too, although I can’t really see the Gooners selling to us unless they’re very confident in the decision.

Not saying we’re in for any of them, just following the same logic that produced two deals almost nobody saw coming.

Loved this site for ages and thought I’d chip in. Peace out. This is not ITK, it’s just logic. I think we are adding just late on.

12 Aug 2026 20:38:30
Frattesi has an agreement with Napoli according to reports.

12 Aug 2026 21:54:03
Any midfielder will like Mac Allister. Think Gravenberch, Szobs and Wirtz are set in stone as the preferred triangle in midfield, barring injuries etc. Shame really, think Mac Allister would shine facing the opponents' goal rather than his own goal as DM. In his very first season under Jurgen he scored 10 PL goals and 2 PL assists in circa 37 PL apps. Out of the three triangle players above, Gravenberch would be the one under the most pressure from Alexis, provided he relishes the challenge of course or fancies pastures new?

Mac Allister's first season PL figures should be the bare minimum from Szobs and Florian as AM's for the new season.

The highest Dominic has posted for PL goals is 6 and 7 PL assists in his last two out of three seasons at the club (forced as a RB never helped his cause last year, though his "Doma-hawk" missiles were lethal).

12 Aug 2026 23:23:58
Bergvall to us doesn't make sense if he wants more game time.

I could see El Mala or Fernandez-Pardo come into play if we miss out on Barcola and Mbaye.

12 Aug 2026 20:10:44
I was born in 1975, so 80s child grew up loving A Question of Sport till Ally McCoist totally destroyed it and every time I watch a match and he does commentary destroys it no matter how good the game is.

12 Aug 2026 20:30:11
I really liked Ally McCoist in Question of Sport tbh but I was born 12 years later.

I actually don't think he's the worst commentator either. Beats Neville or Carragher anyway.

12 Aug 2026 20:42:40
I don't mind Coisty, Grino.
There's no stand out co comms anymore but he's not the worst! Lee Dixon gets that prize!
Best one atm is Keown imo for decent input.

12 Aug 2026 20:55:22
Best years were Emlyn with Bill and then Botham with Bill!

I did enjoy John Parrot and McCoist though, and also Matt and Tuffers!

12 Aug 2026 21:08:10
McCoist is my favourite commentator.

12 Aug 2026 21:29:47
Zedd, also loved the Bill/Emlyn years, Bill being the dour counterpart to giggly Emlyn.

12 Aug 2026 21:41:05
I'm old enough to remember Cliff Morgan & our Enry !!
David Vine in the chair !

12 Aug 2026 21:42:45
Who remembers Emlyn thinking Princess Margaret was a fella on the picture board. 😂

12 Aug 2026 21:43:35
Princess Anne... I've had a few. 🤣

12 Aug 2026 22:10:14
Emelyn thinking Princess Margaret was a bloke. 🤣🤣🤣🤣 And then the fit of the giggles after.

12 Aug 2026 22:30:08
The best bit was when Princess Anne was a guest later in the series!!

"I'm going to the Tower," squeaked Emlyn.

😂😂😂

13 Aug 2026 07:45:21
I must have read that wrong lol, I took it to mean he slays it every time - I like McCoist, think he is great on commentary.

13 Aug 2026 07:54:48
McCoist is a likeable guy, but thinks likes to be liked too much and that's his downfall for me.
Becomes too biased when the underdog is playing in favour of the underdog and his views on big decisions therefore sometimes border on the ridiculous.


His vocabulary is also severely limited, and you almost know which of his stock phrases he's going to use before he uses them.
Surely due a divorce as he must never see his wife as he's seemingly at every game and then on Talk Sport when not commentating.

12 Aug 2026 19:37:45
It’s £110m with add-ons as reported last week.
Liverpool are not prepared to go above that I read too.

12 Aug 2026 19:25:15.
It’ll be interesting to see if Barcola & Mbaye make an appearance from the PSG bench tonight.

Despite all the “it’s done” and “it’s not done” talk, clearly we can all see that it’s not done yet. But that’s why we love the rumours — they keep us all excited! 😂

And to the ITKs who share what they know, us fans are genuinely grateful for the input.

It’s essentially why we’re all here on the rumours page in the first place — to get the snippets, speculation and hopefully a bit of inside info along the way.

That said, I’d still prefer all our business done in the first week so I don’t have to check this page 380 times an hour! 😂

12 Aug 2026 17:47:23
Evening all. 👋 Hope everyone is keeping well. YNWA

12 Aug 2026 18:12:50
Yup, the Barry fella!

12 Aug 2026 18:30:20
Evening, Barry. Sat in garden waiting for the eclipse. Killing time by ordering stuff off Amazon. Doing what I can to help buy our next super star.

12 Aug 2026 18:32:02
All good, Barry lad! You? YNWA.

12 Aug 2026 18:32:25
How's Chewy?

12 Aug 2026 18:41:22
Good evening LazyoverweightbaldcloggerinLouth.

Sorry I mean LazycuddlybaldcloggerinLouth

:-)

12 Aug 2026 18:49:45
You and Jeff in cahoots to take over the club, is it, Rome? 🤨 All good here, Let'stalk. 👍 Seriously, can't wait to see the lads in action under AI. It's going to be a breath of fresh air watching them. Their fitness is chronic. It'll probably take them a season to get going, but I'll take that once The Goonie isn't in charge.

12 Aug 2026 18:55:23
What's up, Barry. I'm on vaycay and off to the Motherland tmrw with the fam.

What you up ton, brotha?

12 Aug 2026 19:09:38
It's all about the cuddly Zed. Waiting for this totally eclipse in the dark, my friend (RIP Bonnie).

12 Aug 2026 19:22:26
Great to read your positivity, Barry. I'm looking forward to season start, but, as things stand, I honestly don't know what to expect.

12 Aug 2026 19:30:23
I think at the very least we can expect better footy to watch this season, Rome.

12 Aug 2026 19:30:51
I don't know what to expect either, Rome, but it has to be a vast improvement on last season. 👍😁

12 Aug 2026 19:39:27
I hope you're right, Taurus and Barry, and are confident you will be. However, like I've said on here, that won't be enough if we're mid table in October.

12 Aug 2026 19:51:19
If that first half against Monaco is anything to go by, it'll be an exciting season.

12 Aug 2026 20:43:38
I am very optimistic but we must be ready for the downs as well. Keep the faith, lads. YNWA.

12 Aug 2026 22:26:25
Very much looking forward to Iraola ball. Fitness still being an issue, I think we'll start games strong, look fantastic for the first 20 odd minutes and then fade a bit, maybe slip back into a little slot ball when things get tough. We'll come out the second half and repeat the pattern. I think Iraola will regularly look to inject some energy with plenty of second-half subs as an effort to keep the tempo up late on and manage the lack of endurance, even if the lads are doing well.

We've shown flashes of pressing effectively as a team, which gets me very excited, though I'm wary not to expect miracles.

It's going to be a huge adjustment for the lads given the fitness issues. So long as I see a marked improvement on endurance, aggression, defending set pieces, pressing as a unit, winning the ball back in the final third and a dash of heavy metal football, I'll be a very happy man.

If I see all that, I almost won't care where we finish, as I know we'll be headed in the right direction.

12 Aug 2026 17:25:50
Being reported on BBC that Crystal Palace have had a verbal bid of around £35m for Monaco's Lamine Camara rejected.
Could be a great option to replace Jones and may not be much more expensive than what we get for Jones.

12 Aug 2026 18:15:22
Looks like Trey gets the shirt of either Endo or Jones. Not sure whether Koumas will get a squad place as well, or whether we'll go into the market, but Camara has been linked. McConnell going out on loan according to most reports.

12 Aug 2026 19:09:25
Don't know if I've ever seen Camara play but I'll make an assumption that he's good. It's one of those names where there is about 1000 of them and one just randomly spawns every transfer window. See also Traore, a Traore will pop up at Lens in January and half the Premier League will be linked with him.

12 Aug 2026 19:29:18
I'm still waiting for Titi to come good.

12 Aug 2026 19:41:04
Sailing close to the wind there, Rome!

12 Aug 2026 20:10:38
No, I'm not subscribing to your OnlyFans, Rome.

{Ed001's Note - yeah don't do that. All the pics are heavily airbrushed, it is such a let down. So Bazza tells me anyway.....}

12 Aug 2026 20:49:10
Thanks for the tip Ed. I'll look elsewhere, can't be wasting money in this economy

12 Aug 2026 17:03:51
So, going on the assumption that it does happen, who do you guys think is doing the better business, PSG getting Godts and Torres or us getting Barcola? It looks like Barcola will be quite a bot more expensive than both Godts and Torres combined.

12 Aug 2026 17:14:10
Depends! I haven't seen Godts play and I like Torres but for me he would be a squad depth player. Based on that I would say Barcola, though we are overpaying but it is not our money and I try not to worry too much about that.

12 Aug 2026 17:22:41
Combined £96m for both, going by the fees quoted online. Godts is a real talent but remains to be seen whether he does well outside of the Eredivisie. Barcola, I don't think will cost the quoted price. Even Romano said it's not going to be the £145m. I suspect £100m plus add ons.

12 Aug 2026 17:37:02
Agree, Mot. Barcola would be coming in as a starter. The 2 for PSG look like squad players.

Very good squad players never the less.

12 Aug 2026 17:46:26
Time will tell, I suppose.
Barcola, I do believe is probably the best available option for us though for that position so I'm not too concerned about the money. Even if he is quite a bit overpriced.

12 Aug 2026 17:55:09
It's just slapped home to me how many levels above anyone else they are. None of them start in PSG best 11.

They're playing Monopoly money with squad players. If their subs are worth 100 million odd, how much are their actual players. 😂

12 Aug 2026 18:15:09
PSG, for the simple fact that if Godts and Torres were starting for us they'd get more G/A combined than Barcola would on his own, and for less money too, imo.

12 Aug 2026 18:36:10
I see where you're coming from, Chewy, but that takes up 2 places in the team. If Barcola and Isak get more goals and assists in our team, then surely that's better than playing Torres and Godts. The money's sort of irrelevant.

We want the best team, not the cheapest, don't we?

All 'ifs and buts' anyway really. Hopefully whoever we end up with is who the club and Iraola want, they've got to work with them.

12 Aug 2026 19:47:53
All of PSG's other wingers and the 3 they are bringing in all have a superior G/A record, total and per minutes, than Barcola does anyway, so it doesn't even need two of them to do it!

12 Aug 2026 20:02:51
So basically, if we bought Godts or Torres they'd do better than Barcola?

Maybe that's right, not sure though myself. I'm far from an expert though.

12 Aug 2026 21:01:39
I think Barcola will make more of an impact for us than Torres and Godts will for PSG.

So in that respect we are getting the better deal.

It's kind of a nothing question though really as PSG have Kvara and we don't. I'm sure if we had Kvara in our team we wouldn't be spending all that money on Barcola.

12 Aug 2026 13:55:06
It seems all these claims are stemming from an article in published on Yahoo by The Standard yesterday that claimed Liverpool were "prepared" to walk away. Is this even news? Every club is ready to walk away from any deal if agreements can't be made; that's just the nature of business. Are we looking at just another clickbait headline that draws more traffic than "Still no word on Barcola."?

At the very same time, other outlets were claiming Liverpool took a major step towards securing the player due to PSG edging closer to concluding deals for Godts and Torres.

Make of it what you will.

12 Aug 2026 15:19:51
I loved the simpler times when we only had Teletext. BBC page 338 football gossip and ITV 518 Liverpool news. Can't believe I still remember that.

12 Aug 2026 15:22:00
I think a lot of the dross and s***thousery on these boards is due to the rising testosterone levels in prepubescent school kids. Twatter and Faceplant have a lot to answer for behaviour wise.
Roll on September!

12 Aug 2026 15:29:37
Wouldn't read too much into it. We were "preparing" a bid every day for the last month. Richard Hughes just loves preparing as much as Ian Ayre loves monitoring.

12 Aug 2026 15:36:05
Teletext was amazing.

Transfer news.
Footy scores.
I could get cheats for my games there.
It was a simpler and, dare I say, happier time.

12 Aug 2026 15:47:51
@Davey,
Ceefax?
My favourite was jumpers for goalposts in the local park.
And music in the 1960's.
Don't get me started!..........Oh, you have!

12 Aug 2026 15:52:44
Reminds me of my favourite ed2 moment. What do you make of Arda Turan? Radar Tuna.

12 Aug 2026 15:58:24
I can't remember the last time I saw kids playing footie with jumpers for goalposts! That's all we did growing up, all day every day.

12 Aug 2026 16:01:45
Indeed, Chicken. "We are preparing a bid." Mate, what does that nonsense even mean?

Or better yet, "The Player X move might happen." That is literally what anyone can say about any transfer, but that is what is regarded as "news" from "reputable journalists" these days.

No wonder people are losing their minds over stuff they have no control over at all.

12 Aug 2026 16:12:43
There was a French reporter questioned about it on Talksport earlier, and he seems to think it'll get done after PSG finalise their attacking options, and will therefore lower their valuation. We'll see, I guess.

12 Aug 2026 16:14:01
I'll join the middle-aged reminiscing (but maybe not yet the old-aged reminiscing!) - West Yorkshire, wasn't it page 316 on Ceefax?

12 Aug 2026 16:15:03
Ceefax was 316 before 338, that's really going back, checked this every morning religiously.

12 Aug 2026 17:23:46
Showing your age there, aren't you, Zed. Haha.
I had forgotten it was 316 before.

12 Aug 2026 17:30:54
Jumpers for goal posts, rubbing the ball in a dog muck and getting one of your mates to header it. Marvellous.

12 Aug 2026 18:08:00
We used to draw goals with chalk on a neighbours gable wall. They weren't too happy with the ball banging off their wall, but we had the best of times.
We also used a barren field at the end of the estate and called it Wee Wembley. Strictly for the bigger games, jumpers for goal posts definitely required. Simpler times, better times. ❤️

12 Aug 2026 18:16:02
Hilarious, Vik!

12 Aug 2026 18:19:29
Teletext holidays. You could get an all inclusive for 2 weeks for £300pp! Then there was good old Bamboozle.

12 Aug 2026 18:17:45
Christ VV, with friends like you enemies aren't needed.
Dog turd fiend!