02 Sep 2026 09:07:08
Insane stance from the club.
They believe for now Chiesa, Endo and McConnell will be sufficient as depth.
Marma deal neve progressed, valuations were too far apart.
Minteh's agent told to come back in January.
Feel Iraola has been mis-sold a used car.
All in all, a Richard Hughes disasterclass. Good riddance.
To end the window on a positive
Fantastic work done by Pedro Marques and Bafode Diakhaby with youth recruitment.
Ta.
02 Sep 2026 10:10:29
Thanks Carra.
This entire window was absolutely maddening. I really hope the club is heading in a more positive direction.
02 Sep 2026 10:16:48
Unbelievable. As a club, we do a great job of holding onto players that provide minimal value.
I have to say, Klopp has bought the owners a lot of time and luck because without him I think we would have hounded the owners out a while ago.
Post Klopp, the decision making has been dreadful. What is simply unacceptable is that we are normalising losing at our club. The decision to stick with Slot in December tells everyone that we are a team where it is fine to be crap because stability is more important.
Now starting the season with a thin squad with a manager who likes to squeeze everything out of the players, we are now again accepting we can’t compete for major honours this season.
This mentality is a cancer in the club, I don’t use that word lightly.
02 Sep 2026 10:20:13
Any word on new sporting director Carra?
02 Sep 2026 10:27:06
Andoni will get the best out of what’s there, and by next year we’ll
know who can be counted on in this set up.
That Chiesa wants to hang about and get paid is on Hughes and his opportunistic signings. He has been a crock for ages.
02 Sep 2026 10:27:46
Cheers Carra, sounds an absolute shambles.
02 Sep 2026 10:21:09
I said all window about midfielders. It's disgraceful the pressure now put on andoni and available midfielders.
Hughes was Edwards buddy appointment let's not forget. Both should have never returned. Hughes on his own too has shown to he a complete incompetent journey man.
Now he leaves us bare heading off for Saudi money.
Edwards got his way with alonso. Edwards wanted yes men and for him to have the power he projected about klopp. He then left, leaving Hughes to be completely exposed.
An
02 Sep 2026 10:32:59
The last sentence gives me hope, Carra, and also that Richard is gone.
Thank you for all summer, your posts are massively appreciated by myself and others on here. You are a gem, good sir!
02 Sep 2026 10:36:35
Iraola will have fed into the discussions on depth. If he’s comfortable with it, then I am.
Not impressed with the transfer window. Change needs to happen quickly, but it’s not about the window, it’s about the performance on the pitch.
02 Sep 2026 10:48:11
Cheers, Carra.
A shambles. We had an imbalanced squad last season. We have a similarly imbalanced squad this.
Iraola will need a lot of luck to keep us in CL qualification.
02 Sep 2026 10:52:06
More importantly now is getting the right balance in midfield. Signing Wirtz has messed up a title winning midfield (not his fault). We're basically playing 2 in midfield and don't have the warrior midfielders to play like that. Slot couldn't sort it. Can Iraola?
02 Sep 2026 10:39:07
Cheers Carra.
Not surprised tbh, we knew Hughes was inept for a long time. Hopefully the next person in charge will do better and it's a big win the donkeys have finally left the stable.
02 Sep 2026 10:55:28
Not a great transfer window by any means of the imagination. It's going to be a stressful few months now as we watch a thin squad try and cope with new methods and two to three games a week.
One thing I'm hoping that we will look back on is the fact that we at least didn't panic buy average or mediocre players to fill gaps. As we know, it's a lot harder to get rid of players, it seems, than potentially buy new ones.
At least the way it's gone, we'll have time to evaluate the squad properly and really accentuate where the gaps are to hopefully then identify better impactful players in the January or summer transfer window.
Again, not ideal, but I was a bit concerned with the panic scene that was going on that we might end up bloating the squad with players that wouldn't really help us in the long term, so at least we haven't done that.
02 Sep 2026 10:56:10
We're a shambles. I expect nothing more than a mid table finish this season.
02 Sep 2026 10:55:03
Thanks Carra and all the ITKs for this summer.
Hopefully AI can get best out of squad.
Any news on when Hughes is officially gone?
02 Sep 2026 11:40:54
I feel as if it’s going to be a long wait until the January window.
We still have plenty to fix.
Let’s hope we get some luck with injuries and form. A few injuries to this squad are going to be devastating.
I think the club has decided we aren’t going to win the league and it’s going to be a transition season anyway, so it doesn’t see the need to try and fill in all the gaps this season with whoever is available now and is willing to wait until January or next summer to get the targets they really want so we can give it a good go next season.
That’s just me trying to be positive though and trying to put some logic behind a terrible window.
Some more positives though, I do think we have bought well, the new signings are all very good and promising, we just didn’t buy or sell enough.
02 Sep 2026 11:42:30
We have the players to try to qualify for UCL next season. That's the sum of our club's ambition, obviously. Perhaps that's good enough for them, but it certainly isn't for me and a lot of other people here and beyond. Maybe the change in ownership that's upcoming will actually be for the best after all.
M Gordon should have played a bigger part in the transfer dealings imo. He knew the s***show that was happening all around him and let it happen when he could have taken the lead. Iraola deserved better, as did we.
02 Sep 2026 12:02:20
...And seriously unsettled Sarr for the bantz. See you next Tuesday STC.
02 Sep 2026 12:03:13
Cheers Carra and all the other folks submitting their rumours over this period. When everyone is available I'm sure we can achieve CL qualifications. However, it doesn't mask over the transfer capabilities of our team, where other clubs effortlessly shift and buy 100s of millions worth of players and we seem to leave ourselves so thin and have players nobody wants.
Pray the good players we have want to sign extensions, because you couldn't blame them for looking elsewhere when their contracts run down at this rate.
02 Sep 2026 12:16:16
Why wouldn't we be able to get at the very least Champions League next season? Slot did it last season and he's pants according to everyone on here. The manager should be well able to do it with this group and the additions we've made.
02 Sep 2026 12:16:16
Cheers Carra. Have you any more info if FSG will sell up before next season or if they have a plan going forward on how to get back on track?
02 Sep 2026 12:24:07
You guys do realise that we won the title at a canter 1 season ago?
A lot of that team are still here. They don’t become bad players overnight.
Last season was a slog but I think that was an anomaly with a few mitigating circumstances. I think we’ll be absolutely fine this season.
02 Sep 2026 12:27:04
Thanks Carra.
So many deeply worrying things in your post...
So who decided that those 3 players, who have not played much in 2 seasons, are adequate cover?
This just brings about a sense that there is no competition for those regular starters, so no need for them to put the required extra effort.
This is why a head coach does not work... You want a manager in place. Someone who gets the players they want, not what some suit thinks is best for the team.
02 Sep 2026 12:32:52
We sign one of the best LW on the planet, a Barca captain, the best young keeper in the world on top of a great bunch of young players plus Munoz and it’s deemed a terrible window?
Honestly - what happened to the power of coaching?
Koumas, Trey, Rio to benefit.
The biggest issue is if Isak gets injured but then we have Munoz who looks a force.
Dom
is going to have to
play RB again.
02 Sep 2026 12:38:05
I'll agree we need a couple more but everyone makes it out to be like we don't have a team to compete. Recruitment is not the problem; it's the mentality and the team balance in the system.
We have world class players that still didn't gel or reach their peak. Isak, Wirtz, Ngumoha, Barcola, Szobo. We have the title winning players Gakpo, Grave, Macca. We have great upgrades in defence with Jacquet and Araujo. We have our veterans in Van Dijk and Alisson.
We have the young threat in Munoz and Nyoni. The only weak links are Frimpong and Kerkez. Ofc we need to upgrade also Macca and Grave as we need more bite but I don't think it's the disaster everyone makes it out to be.
We have a stellar attack that needs to hit the engine and a defence that needs to wake up. For me we have title winning players they just need to become a team in Iraola's system.
02 Sep 2026 12:34:19
Thanks Carra, but do you know if it was, as suggested elsewhere, that it wasn't Hughes that got the Barcola deal over the line, but our new Vice Chairman, Amit?
02 Sep 2026 12:38:47
We have 4 left wingers and not 1 natural right winger, that should tell you all you need to know about the planning of this team. We have 1 fit RB who you can argue isn't even a RB.
Hey, you can be happy with the squad but if this carries on we have a whole team of left wingers. Anyone who thinks this team is balanced and we gonna storm the league is very mistaken.
02 Sep 2026 13:37:25
Signing Wirtz messes up our midfield, someone said.
I tend to agree.
Maybe we shove him to the right since we do not have a natural RW at the moment, and bring Szobo back to 10, Grav and Macca as pivots. Barcola on the left.
Maybe that will balance things up.
Or at least that is an option.
02 Sep 2026 13:56:00
Wirtz up top when Isak gets injured, with a solid MF 3 behind him including Trey and Szob in the 10. Szob should not be playing CM, he is not mature of mind enough - yes he grafts hard but he lacks discipline and loves the Hollywood. RB, RM or ten for him only IMO.
02 Sep 2026 14:36:55
@MrJones: Both Barcola and Munoz can play RW. I guess the point of buying Munoz was for his versatility since we expected Gakpo to be sold.
So you can have Barcola LW, with Ngumoha as his understudy, and Munoz on RW, with many players taking over when needed, including Gakpo.
There is proper depth in the squad apart from RB/LB, and we need desperately an upgrade on a holding midfielder.
In the current setup we can last easily up until January, and in 2027, when Macca leaves, we can upgrade our midfield (and hopefully the RW since Frimpong is not good enough).
We also have a year to assess Nyoni and Ngumoha without hampering their playing minutes.
We are not Chelsea, who buys players for fun. Had we bought Minteh or Mbaye then where does this leave Munoz or Ngumoha?
I prefer we buy Sarr and have these 2 develop with lots of game minutes instead of buying another RW first team young player who won't let them get minutes.
02 Sep 2026 14:14:07
Cbell33 " Slot did it last season and he's pants according to everyone on here"
So from your comment here, you must have thought differently. Was it his mind numbing boring football or was it his record breaking losses in a season that you liked?
02 Sep 2026 16:46:58
To be fair some on here think Endo and McConnell are enough also. ?
02 Sep 2026 17:56:59
Probably too late for him now, but Endo deserved a lot more game time last year. Couldn't have been any worse than Grav and Macca.
02 Sep 2026 19:15:24
We wouldn't be signing a rb as we have Bradley coming back from injury, Gomez, Frimpong, Araujo and Sob can play there until some of these leave.
I agree we need a good rb.
{Ed666's Note - Fcuk me what an appalling array of right backs. Is this is what the world has come to..sigh
02 Sep 2026 21:31:24
Didn't state they were good ed666 just there's a few of them
{Ed666's Note - Did I say that you said they were good?
03 Sep 2026 09:02:57
Swampdonkey Munoz could be a force if he ever stays on his feet.
Goes to ground way too easily.