Liverpool FC - Talk /Gossip/Rumours 25/25

I don't think we can really judge Wirtz at all based on this season. We're not even attempting to play to his strengths. I'm utterly confused by what ideal scenario was sold to him for him to pick Bayern over us.

If you watched Wirtz at all play for BL. He was literally the heartbeat of their team. He constantly had the most touches of any player, sometimes the majority of them were in his own half. He literally could take the ball from one end to the other involving all the players around him as he moved the ball.

We don't see any of this at Liverpool and earlier in the season, when he initially was dropping deep to pick up the ball. There's was absolutely zero movement from our lads around him. Constantly forcing him to hold onto it and carry into traffic.

We don't see him dropping deeper at all now (I'd imagine a tactical instruction). Instead now he's a back to goal type No.10 from the centre or the left and rearly looks to get involved elsewhere. His head must be scrambled as to what the f**k his meant to be doing.

We're not a club who can afford to pay 100m for an unfinished article. We haven't done that before under FSG. in fact we've often spent prudently. A few exceptions like Andy Carroll, benteke who were over priced.

With the current football landscape, sure we can. The PL is essentially the Super League, and Liverpool are one of the biggest clubs in it. Even the young winger we’re looking at for this season is mooted to be €100m.

We’re not a club that will pay more than we feel a player is worth, definitely - but we’re not adverse to spending any amount if FSG feel it’s a sound investment. We were prepared to spend over €100m for Caicedo for example.

It doesn't have to be instant success or it's failure, but, it definitely should be more than what Wirtz has shown so far, by any stretch he has been disappointing, now part of that is we aren't playing in a way that suits him, but, this begs the question why buy him if we aren't going to play to get the best out of him. Would we not have been better off getting a proper DM for example

Guess we will find out when we inevitably sell him to Real or Barca. 🤷

Buying an unfinished article is not a new thing. Liverpool have always done it. It's buying a player ready to make the step up to the next level, and Wirtz's base was already high. Bundesliga player of the year driving a team to a league title. It's not like he is/was very raw.

The fee is high, but that's fees nowadays. 50m now is not the same as 50m 5 years ago or 10 years ago, let alone 20 years ago. Fees are not linear. There are actual unknown players going for over 50m nowadays, let alone players that actually have established a strong base of a career. Just look at Lenny Yoro and Jacquet for example. Gittens, Garnacho, Strand Larsen, Ekitike, Reijnders, Wissa, Woltamede, Elanga, Cunha, Kudus, Xavi Simons. How many of those are worth 50m at the time of transfer, let alone the higher fees? That's what the market is now

Yes, but, there are still less than about 20 players to have gone for 100million plus in the history of the game. Wirtz was an established international and already a big name when he signed, it's not like we were signing some raw kid who hadn't much top level experience while obviously he needs time to settle, even allowing for that and how poor the team in general has been, he has still by any stretch been disappointing.

My original point really was that I always felt we could have used the money we spent last summer better to have a more even and balanced squad, it was clear to me that the squad was weaker at the beginning of the season than at the end of last season, I said it at the time, before the season, but, didn't anticipate the fall off to be so steep.

Again, you're being fixated on the fee. Players didn't go for 100m 40 years ago because the money wasn't there in football. It is now. 100m is on the top end of things but it's no different to paying a fee of around 28m for Veron in 2001. Inflation happened.

Robertson spoke about it earlier in the week too, on how difficult the first period was especially.

He had a line about how 'the last time the lads were together was the title celebrations and the next time was their friends funeral.' That one was very striking to me.

He had another about how some players just didn't want to train, so they said they were injured and needed treatment but the physios etc didn't want to be there either and so the treatments weren't really happening.

Another was on how difficult the found the opening game of the season against Bournemouth, with Jota's family there, after going 2-0 up, and the Jota song was sung by fans for the first time and they all just got hit with a wave of emotion and froze.

That also must have been so hard for the 10 or so new players that came in and see the club they just signed for in shock and mourning.

Is that not all the lads left who were there at the same time from the first 11?

Everyone else has already moved on now.