THE clock is really ticking now. The transfer window is done for in four weeks’ time. The league campaign starts in less than 10 days and potentially the new season’s most important game — the first leg of a Champions League playoff — is scheduled within the next fortnight.
Liverpool can ease themselves in at Watford on August 12, there will be a guaranteed 38 of these Premier league fixtures to fulfil and time for mistakes to be corrected. But on August 15 or 16 (the exact date will be known this Friday) anything less than comprehensive readiness could see Liverpool taken to the brink of elimination from the competition they toiled for the whole of last season to qualify for.
Back in May, Liverpool would add four or five first-team level players. Back in May forecasts were that over £200million might be spent with signs that the owners were suddenly alive to the need to give Jürgen Klopp the correct tools for his work. Now in August, Liverpool have signed one first-team player, Mohamed Salah, and two squad players, Andrew Robertson and Dominic Solanke, for approximately £50m. This wasn’t the way it was meant to be.
Liverpool have very publicly pursued two stellar targets. They looked ready and able to spend circa £70m apiece on Virgil van Dijk and Naby Keita, while firm links to Arsenal’s contract renegade Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain persist.
Yet here we are, on the cusp of 2017-18, with no further deals looking imminent. Rivals Manchester United have secured Victor Lindelof, Nemanja Matic and Romelu Lukaku for around £170m. Manchester City have brought in five senior-level players for over £200m. Chelsea have signed Antonio Rudiger, Tiemoue Bakayoko and Alvaro Morata for around the £150m mark. Arsenal have secured Alexandre Lacazette for £50m but no-one else of substance and neighbours Tottenham seem intent on proving some abstract point by signing absolutely no footballers.
Liverpool are leaving it late. Much later than last summer when Klopp had virtually his full contingent of new signings in for the entire pre season. The Liverpool manager knew it would be tougher this time around as he targeted footballers of stature that clubs had no intention of selling. To compound the sense of mounting pressure, Liverpool now face the threat of having to go backwards before moving forwards again. Barcelona want Phil Coutinho and will not simply be rebuffed by Liverpool’s “not for sale” declarations.
The entire summer’s worth of preparation for a very important season feels like it is on a knife edge. Many varied scenarios could yet be played out. Liverpool could suddenly seal deals for Keita and van Dijk, but feel forced to bow to pressure from Coutinho to let him make a “dream move” to Barca. Liverpool may sign just one more player and resist the pressure to sell. The smartest money may even be on nothing happening; the summer of 2017 being a victory over player power. Liverpool, Southampton and RB Leipzig have more in common than separates them just right now. They are each engaged in staring contests with their respective star men.
Klopp will be privately contemplating what nothing looks like. He will know that deals for players who are valued at £70-100m plus don’t just get signed off lightly. He and Liverpool allocated time to allow for foreseeable complexities. The problem is that most of this time has now elapsed.
The Liverpool manager does not have the luxury of just shrugging off relative failure in the transfer market. He has to take Liverpool into the Champions League and establish them there. This dual objective requires personnel in terms of quality and quantity. So what options does he have left?
Option one: Pay up. Sit director of football Michael Edwards down alongside him in a room and make a Trans-Atlantic conference call to John Henry in Boston. Klopp would tell the gathered that he could neither guarantee significant progress in the Champions League, nor requalification for that competition via a top four Premier League finish, without the players he had outlined last May. He might tell his colleagues that the club MUST find the additional cash to secure the deals. He might argue that money can always break a deadlock. He may urge Liverpool’s hierarchy to think outside the bank and bid far higher than initial valuations suggested would be required.
Option two: Switch to lesser targets. Klopp could accept that if he can’t get quality he at least needs quantity. Lucas Leiva and Kevin Stewart have left and Mamadou Sakho will surely go soon. Liverpool are simply short in midfield and central defence. A midfielder like Leicester’s Danny Drinkwater is gettable at half Keita’s price and Chelsea are rumoured to be considering him. He may not be world class but he has a proven pedigree. Young Renato Sanches would be sold by Bayern Munich for a fair fee. Likewise with van Dijk, there are other centre halves in Europe. Stefan de Vrij at Lazio has a reputation for reliability and competence and again would be purchasable for half the cost of Liverpool’s primary target.
Option three: Work imaginatively with existing resources. Never has the “like a new signing” cliche felt so applicable. There’s the reborn incarnation of Daniel Sturridge for starters. Kept fit, he’s a bonus world-class player. Trent Alexander-Arnold doesn’t look like he’s just stepping up nicely as a squad option he’s bashing on the first-team door and keeping Nathaniel Clyne up nights. Alberto Moreno did an impression of the best left back in Europe for an hour in the friendly against Bayern. Marko Grujic looks less raw and more ready, and Klopp may now have found the position in midfield for 17-year-old Ben Woodburn that will facilitate all his gifts.
Option four: Pay (relatively) silly money for Oxlade-Chamberlain. He’s had his injury issues but less so last season and, given his age, potential ceiling and positional versatility, he could solve all sorts of problems. Arsenal don’t want to sell the player to a rival, but would sooner sell Chamberlain than Alexis Sanchez or Mesut Ozil. They may need to sell one to fund an increased wage package for the other two. Chamberlain is not as valuable to Arsenal as van Dijk is to Southampton or Keita is to Leipzig. Arsenal will not want to give Liverpool a cheap deal for their man, but overpaying by £10-15m for Chamberlain would be less costly overall than it might prove to break the deadlock in other bigger deals.
Getting just one more big deal over the line would calm nerves at the club. Time is running out to complete that kind of deal but there is definitely still enough of it left for Liverpool’s summer work to suddenly take on a very different complexion.
Seeing off Barcelona’s threat to take Coutinho would not just be a neutral development, it would lift spirits and enable Liverpool to build on a successful season rather than have to take the kind of hit suffered after near title-winning seasons in 2009 and 2014. Barca’s interest raises Coutinho’s stock and lifts the player’s confidence. For this season, at least, Liverpool will be the beneficiaries.
Prediction: Liverpool sign van Dijk and Chamberlain and keep Coutinho.
See you on September 1.
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I actually like current LFC contingency policy very much! Two and a half of three major contingency needs are already covered: Salah is perfect substitute for Couthino(if he leaves),chronic left back issue has newly signed Robertson along with Gomez and Flanagan, never mind improving Moreno who could very well stay and last ditch cover from last year in Milner; center defender issue is half covered by Gomez and, yet again we might even retain one of the best-Sakho (be it not as likely as Moreno), there is the true remaining need for the team-VVD or like… If Coutinho indeed leaves, talks appear to go in right direction for Pulisic as Salah/Mane backup. Every other position is deeply covered, team can sustain even long term half dozen injuries or like. Keita?-Yes, better Klopp-fit than Can but not great need never mind an emergency (and Can Will likely leave if Keita comes, simply too many good players in competition).
Prediction: Only 2/3rds or your prediction will come true.
Van Dyke will do it for me. My assumption is that Milner will not be playing left back, hence he can do a job on midfield. If no Van Dyke then use Gomez/Klavan. But here is the thing we are all speculating and a lot of fans a voicing their concerns – which I think is backwards. And here is why: you all claim wevhavw a world class manager and so do I – so let Klopp do his job and trust that everything is being done to support him. YNWA we gonna win the league
Milner is awful in midfield, hence he’s been playing at left back
your prediction is what i accurately want to happen…….chamberlaine and van dijk are also premier league proven quality………#geniusGerrard
I really missed September 1
“A midfielder like Leicester’s Danny Drinkwater is gettable at half Keita’s price”
And so it begins.
Incidentally, why do you lot keep wittering on about Chamberlain when he’s the one player the manager has explicitly denied any interest in?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1UZ_qN03vm0
Like when Brendan denied any interest in Balotelli… deadline day approaching changes things.
Lfc have left it late and Michael Edwards has proven to be the failure we all thought he would be. FSG are NOT interested in trophies but money. They will sell coutinho and keep the cash.
“Alberto Moreno did an impression of the best left back in Europe for an hour…”
A Friendly! Against reserves! Moreno! Abs ridiculous statement.
and BTW – two points while I am on. We need a Forward urgently, to even put Fitness and Sturridge in the same sentence is taking a chance. And as for a very very good midfielder would love to see Zaha bought from hiding in plain sight at Palace, he is a dynamic attacking MF and very very good.
think its a bit narrative confirming to say that was a Bayern reserve side.
Another unforeseen option might have opened up with Neymar’s transfer to PSG. They’ve recently been investigated under FFP regulations & it seems impossible the Brazilian’s fee/wages can be accounted for fairly. Have a look around their squad; see if they’d budge on a CM or CB. The catch is this probably has to be done very quickly & there’s not the slightest murmur of new targets emerging. Couldn’t be happier with Salah, but it will be familiar, all too familiar if LFC fail to land Van Dijk & Keita, regardless of the reasons.
without making this about Neymar – its extremely easy to see how this can be accounted for.
PSG rent Neymar’s image to the Qatar 2022 World Cup committee to boost interest and exposure – shall we say for 30m a year for 5 years?
Nike up their kit deal with PSG due to increased exposure – shall we say 20m a year for 5 years?
PSG up their commercial sponsorship deals with all sorts of firms – shall we say another 15m a year for 5 years?
PSG reach a CL final or semi final in 4 of next 5 years -another increase of about 10-15m a year.
French TV rights go up due to a huge increase in interest from South and Latin America – another 10m maybe?
There’s 425m or so right there. Job done.
You’ve made every one of those up, of course. But otherwise
of course – but no worse than this bollocks assuming PSG are going mad and will fail FFP.
Clearly, just off the top of my head, that’s just one possible route to get round this. The Qatar WC is the key link in this. But PSG will be well in the clear here.
http://www.bbc.com/sport/football/40690701
http://www.goal.com/en-gb/news/how-psg-can-sign-neymar-for-222m-and-not-break-ffp-rules/1st0d39j5vt1n1mboom7amsugr
https://www.theguardian.com/football/2017/aug/02/psg-200m-neymar-barcelona-financial-fair-play
All mention selling players. Not bollocks, but a pretty modest claim that they might sell a player or 2 to get some dough in.
I thought it was a decent article. And mostly valid points.
If we keep Coutinho and don’t sign anybody else it will feel like an opportunity missed. I’m not sure where we’ve got the idea that we have the depth to deal with a Champions League campaign within the squad. We basically crawled over the finishing line for 4th in a Europe-free season. Or did I imagine that?
I’m not despondant, but if we don’t make any more signings my expectations for the season will be modest i.e. another top 4 finish, trophy a bonus. As I say, this summer feels like an opportunity missed.
Van Dijk should be the priority. Just pay whatever it takes to make it happen.
Option 5. Keep Sakho. Tell him he has until January to prove he can adopt to what is expected. He is not a great CB but he is a lot better than Klavan.
Not sure where this ‘we need a CM’ narrative comes from. We have 6 plus Milner, Woodburn and Ojaria. If anything we need a wide forward.
And enough of Coutinho already. There is absolutely no chance he goes before 31 August. If he really wants to go, one more season where he is guaranteed a starting spot pre-WC suits both LFC and him. His mate isn’t even there anymore (and since nobody wants Moreno, his other mate might be sticking around)
The biggest concern with not signing any top talent is it pretty much guarantees that Coutinho will leave next summer if not sooner.
He wants to play for UCL trophies. If LFC don’t make moves that suggest they are trying to compete there, how long do we expect him to wait? Plenty of fans feel like they were sold a bill of goods in May with the – ‘we are going to spend money this summer’ (making a profit is still quite possible) – we are going to have a much bigger squad this fall (the squad is actually going to be smaller if Sakho, Moreno, Markovic leave) – ‘we have done all of the work already’ (really?) Are the players necessarily feeling any differently?
Don’t get me wrong, I really like the improvements of the young players and the possibility that Sturridge is ‘back’ is exciting. But.. Sturridge is injured. Lallana is injured. Clyne is injured. And we are looking at just the first 5 games – before the pace wears their legs off like it will by January – and wondering who he has to fill the slots. The first 5 games!
Once the games start, I’ll be full of hope and cheering my head off. But in this predawn – it looks a little dark. Vent off.. I feel better. But not as good as I feel when our home grown squad smashes the prem this year. U
make sure you keep coutinho and get keita virgil to Liverpool
With Lallana out for two months we certainly need reinforcements. I just wonder if Klopp is breaking our players in pre-season. What’s the point of pushing them so hard in pre-season if they can’t play when it matters most!
Every time i see Klopp being over confident, I just want to run the videos of our games January to February 2017 when we lost to Championship teams. Obviously we will do an Everton 2005 so we wont need any more players. I can see that the In the Know blogs, podcasts dont want to talk about our 7 games winless streak in 2017 and how lost klopp looked cause it will mean all the club access and goodies will dry up. But fine. Don’t…. I think LFC planned to just balance books again. VVD and Keita was never serious. See City and United or Chelsea get deals done. We pretend.. A small dick wonder trying to score with a supermodel. Buy from the bin LFC….Or go and watch all the Liverpool games Jan- Feb 2017 and Klopps grimace.
“Seeing off Barcelona’s threat to take Coutinho would not just be a neutral development, it would lift spirits”
Not Coutinhos spirits. His head has been turned.
The sooner FSG fuck off and sell this club, the better. If the club has to bank roll itself, as it clearly does, FSG have no reason to be here.
Get Van Dijk at any price and keep Phil and I’ll go on the ale for a week. ABSOLUTE TOWN
Anything else, I’m going on the ale for a year in a very different mind frame…..
God, most comments on TAW about the silly transfer biz. Perhaps you have to live you your whole life in Britain to get that. – Question: Does anyone feel the club is generally heading in the wrong or in the right direction?