HERE is our second Transfer Committee game of the summer. Remember it is only a game! Just interesting to see where people go. For part two, Neil is joined by Sean Rogers, Ian Salmon, Stuart Wright and Dan Vincent.
Credit as ever to John Furlong and Stephen Davies.
Rules are as follows:
33m to spend plus anything you get in (this allows for seepage in terms of agent fees and so on). However you also need to balance the wage bill.
You can make a case for one player beyond that if you see fit to do so. It has to be a very strong case.
It needs to be a plausible amount of work we can achieve in a summer. It has to feel like we can achieve all of this with our resource of time. Added to this, the manager wants to have his player in for pre-season. Unless it is an extreme circumstance, we are not at home to signing a player after the 20th July. Therefore we have to be able to get these deals done. Bear that in mind. How much effort would, for instance, Gotze, now be?
You may also have noticed this manager does not like loans, gents. If you want to loan a player out and get his wages off the wage bill, he will want a very good reason as to why.
The wage a player receives has been broken into five categories with the current breakdown of where Liverpool’s resources are placed on there.
*If you cannot see that tables embedded below, please click on the hyperlinks to display the image.
https://www.theanfieldwrap.com/uploads/2016/05/Table-1.png
To this you can add the equivalent of one super high, one more high and one more medium.
You may feel that one or two of Liverpool’s current crop are being under-paid and you might want to tie them down with boosts using this money this summer.
Any players sold their wage comes into the shake-up for new players coming with the exception of those who have been on loan. Any of those you keep, you actually have to add their wages to your budget. Any you decide to loan and risk the manager’s wrath, you get their wages.
The conversation rate is as follows:
2 Highs = 1 Super High
2 Mediums = 1 High
2 Lows = 1 Medium
2 Junior = 1 Low
That clear? Probably not but let’s go…
The Current Squad
Defence
https://www.theanfieldwrap.com/uploads/2016/05/LFC-Table-1-233×300.png
Midfield
https://www.theanfieldwrap.com/uploads/2016/05/LFC-Table-2-274×300.png
Attack
https://www.theanfieldwrap.com/uploads/2016/05/LFC-Table-3-311×300.png
The Possible Signings (All players Liverpool have been linked with)
Defence
https://www.theanfieldwrap.com/uploads/2016/05/Transfer-Table-1-368×300.png
Midfield
https://www.theanfieldwrap.com/uploads/2016/05/Transfer-Table-2-400×236.png
Attack
https://www.theanfieldwrap.com/uploads/2016/05/Transfer-Table-3-320×300.png
Walcott? Theo? Seriously? 10 years, 80 goals, injury history? You would make all my Arsenal friends very, very happy. I watched him near season end in a chance on goal where he actually chickened out on a header b/c the defender was closing him down. If he did that in front of the Kop, never hear the end of it.
Waste of money.
Couldn’t get my head round the Walcott thing either what with his injury history.
Bizzarre!
You guys are freaking crazy lol henderson! bah
make as few changes as you physically can with Matip & Karrius all I want now is a LB and someone with a bit of pace out wide thats it. Lots of signing always fails
guerreiro for moreno in defence.
would sell texeira ,canos, lucas and sign dahoud, camacho also sane
sell benteke and balotelli too.. get shane long
cheers ;)
Now I know it’s just a bit of fun, but I can’t help being disappointed that people can be so enthusiastic about the prospect of getting in someone like Dahoud, and be ready to offload Henderson to make room.
Ian made a remark along the lines of Henderson not having the quality to take us to the next step. What’s to say Dahoud does. If Klopp want’s a new midfielder and feels Dahoud is the man for the job, great, but let’s have a little respect for Henderson.
After we narrowly missed out on being champions, and we looked back on the season, we weren’t saying “if only we had an upgrade on Henderson we might have made it”. No. We were saying “if only Henderson hadn’t been suspended we might have made it”. He was one of our best players that season and there were certainly 6 players in the first 11 that you would have looked to upgrade before you got round to Henderson.
If Dahoud comes in and displaces Henderson because he proves to be a significant upgrade, all good. I’d rather see us get him in; see Can, Henderson and Dahoud compete for a start, and then offload one if necessary. The following season we all hope to have Champions League football again. We will need at least three top level CMs for the two CM positions, if we are to sustain a challenge on two fronts.
Just wanted to throw my own tuppence worth in on this.
I had a play around with the names and numbers above and by offloading a bunch of the consensus names: Bogdan, Illori, Skrtel, Smith, Randall, Maguire, Brannagan, Ibe, Stewart, Kent, Teixeira, Canos, Chirivella, Benteke, Luis Alberto, Williams, Wisdom, Balotelli and Yesil you get 56m which on top of the initial 33 leaves 89 in the bank.
That’s enough to cover off bringing in Sane (37), Mane (25) and Gotze (25) as the main attacking options and still leave a positive balance of 2m.
I then took a look at strengthening at left back and central midfield and came up with a wishlist of Guerreiro (10) and Goretzka (25).
To balance against this I’d let go Lallana (16), Markovic (11) and Allen (6) to perfectly balance the books and leave a neutral net spend.
Thoughts?
Are Sane and Mané not both right wingers?
Is there need for both?
Is either gonna be happy on the bench?
I’d keep Lallana and Markovic.
Buy Hector
So 3 players to play behind the striker when that’s arguably our strongest position with Coutinho, Firmino and Lallana at the club already… I’d get one to play on the right, ideally left footed, with pace. Leroy Sane or Andre Ayew would be the two I’d look at. Mane scored nearly one third of his goals in all competitions last season against us. Walcott is horrible these days, Arsenal fans can’t stand him.
I’m not impressed with the way the youngsters have been sacrificed to date in the transfer dealings.
I have a theory about why we’re being liked with so many young players in the 20 year old age bracket.
I think its Klopps strategy to bring in the most talented youngsters he can get, and then then bring them through all together at the same time… as a sort of golden generation.
I think he sees that as a viable strategy to combating the mega-bucks teams.
Might mean we’re not be as competitive over the next couple of years while these kids develop and mature, but once these kids hit 23/24 years of age it could get interesting.
They would have played together for several years by that time and would be well adapted to English football… could be a masterstroke.
Sadly, the last two transfer episodes would wreak havoc with that plan… Klopp would not approve.