General Premier League Thread 2025/2026

Exactly, they chose to sell those players and bought what they thought were upgrades/same level. Has absolutely come to bite them in the arse with that many transfers/poor planning.

Just like when Man Utd chose to sell Ronaldo to Real Madrid and Arsenal chose to sell Ashley Cole to Chelsea yeah?

I dont think you would find an Arsenal fan who wouldnt say that selling Cole was a complete disaster both when the deal was announced and how it ended up being.

Are you saying Pool f*cked up totally too as you are using it as a comparison?

The hardest thing in football is to build a winning team. We have seen it countless times where buying the big shiny new stars hasn’t produced a good team.

PSG are a very recent example of this, got rid of the big stars and built the finest team in Europe last year.

Liverpool last year with not the best players had a great team and I have no doubt if they just kept that squad together with 2 replacements for Trent and Jota plus maybe buy a cheap centre half such as Guehi they would be comfortably be in the top 3.

So both of ye actually avoiding answering the actual question, well done.

Feels better to twist the question to get a dig in tho, doesn't it.

I think that's the main point, they weren't the team with the best players last season, but they were the best team.

The problems this season have been as much about mentality as tactics. You don't concede 10 goals in 90+mins of games in a single season without some sort of collective mentality issues

Same with the flip side, teams with strong mentalities get over the line when maybe they shouldn't, and we've seen that from plenty of teams before, from Arsenal now arguably, and from some previous Liverpool sides.

There's no silver bullet because there's no 1 single cause. It's not like a tactical switch helps, or an extra CB signing, it's multiple things at the same time. I'm not completely Slot In or Slot Out to be honest, because I don't think it's the silver bullet fans are expecting and as I said in the other thread I have reservations over Xabi Alonso as a good fit.

Same way that none of the starting XI choices are the silver bullets people seem to expect either! All season I've seen Liverpool fans cry out for dropping Salah and giving Frimpong a chance at RW, starting Rio Ngumoha on the left, starting Robertson over Kerkez, dropping Konaté and starting Gomez in his best position instead of makeshift RB off the bench…and guess what….all of those changes were made for the Spurs game.

I'm generally calm though because this is the season I expected last season with Klopp gone. We lost to Forest at home at the start of the season, something that was incredibly rare under Klopp, and I said ok - I have to reset expectations a bit now because this season is likely going to be bumpy as we transition to a new coaching staff and way of playing for the first time in a decade.

But given the choice I'd absolutely go back and still take the PL trophy instead and delay the transitional season until this one!

And for the record I still believe in pretty much all the signings made in the summer so it's not like when Houllier or Hodgson bought a load of dross at the same time, I think we've got some seriously good young players in Wirtz, Ekitike, Rio (2024 signing but came through this season), Kerkez and Leoni and I rate Isak, Mamardashvili and Frimpong and glad we have them. Jacquet seems like a smart move too.

This level of squad overhaul had to happen sooner or later. Remember we were a Europa League team in 2023/24 season and 12 months after we spent more than we ever have in a window. The club is very well run and I'm optimistic for next season

I have, you are on about unrelated transfers for some reason neither of which line up with any of Liverpools business.

To be honest and it could easily be my stupidty but it read to me like you were comparing Liverpools transfers to those of Cole and Ronaldo of which I answered that every Arsenal fan knew that the Cole one was a disaster from the start.

ok that makes more sense thanks….. On the Cole front though, he would have stayed for sure if Arsenal didnt f*ck up !

A just punishment from what I've read anyway, would be demotion to a lower league, points deduction and a massive fine. 10m fine and a suspended sentence on a transfer ban is quite a laughable punishment tbh and wont deter them from doing something similar in the future.

Definitely something not right about it. The FA still have a similar case to be ruled on soon though, involving Chelsea.

Long track record of it though. Remember Gaël Kakuta or the Jon Obi Mikel mess? The league have been lenient on Chelsea for decades because it makes the league richer. Whole thing is rotten.

Everton would be docked at least 10 points

I think they'll probably call the fine a 'training ground' and sell it back to themselves. Might even make a profit on it.

They don't even have to bother, it appears that any fine will be paid out of the money held by that trust that kept Abramovichs money after the Russian sanctions. Money that was supposed to be given to Ukraine. That money is not Chelseas to use for general operations, so these fines effectively won't cost Chelsea anything.