ROB Gutmann hosts Gareth Roberts, Mo Stewart and Paul Senior as the panel try to make sense of the latest transfer rumours around Liverpool.
Could the Reds really, somehow, actually be in for Kylian Mbappé? Could the much-wanted teenage Monaco star end up at Anfield or is it yet more eye-rolling clickbait?
And what of Virgil van Dijk? Is that dead in the water now or is there some way Liverpool could kiss and make up with Southampton and get the defender kitted out in red?
All the other talk, too – Salah, Oxlade-Chamberlain and more. Who will end up where and for how much?
The Anfield Wrap – with you all summer, tattling on transfers, loving the Reds.
Direct: The Anfield Wrap – Wrapping Up The Rumours
You guys may want to take a little time and research the Boston Red Sox. A Major League Baseball team that is also owned by FSG. They play in a park called Fenway (hence FSG). The Red Sox is FSG’s first love and their largest property (the money available in American baseball is absolutely unbelievable).
I’ll give you a few basics from Forbes: The wage bill for the Red Sox and LFC are both about 150 million. But the estimated value of the Red Sox is about 900 million higher than LFC. Also, transfer fees (rarely paid) and massive agent fees (paid by the players) don’t really affect their bottom line. So the much larger property is actually a lot cheaper to run. This begs the question.. why would they spend 250 million on LFC in a summer?
The only possibility is if they see this as a long term investment and a chance to reshape LFC into their biggest property. Is this the case? Might be worth a look-see or a piece.
Thanks for the great podcast.
I don’t think the Red Sox are worth $1 billion more than LFC, but generally you’re right, a football club is a much more expensive business. Still wish FSG would be willing to pay the salaries they’re paying their baseball players.
I don’t think we need to look at the Red Sox for comparison to judge what FSG might spend.
FSG have been pretty clear all along that LFC will run as a sustainable, self sufficient business. FFP, which is still a thing, despite some comments on the pod, enforces this to a large extent.
So, any discussion about what FSG will spend this window, frames the question incorrectly. The question is what will LFC spend on transfer business this season. FSG will be involved in approving that transfer budget, but it is LFC spending it, from LFC funds or lines of credit.
On the pod the team debate how much should be spent this year to keep pace with the competition. Figures of 200m or 250m being thrown around. I don’t know what LFC’s accounts will allow to be spent this year, but I very much doubt it makes Van Dijk at 70+mill a sensible buy.
My problem with a lot of the transfer podcasts and other contributions, is that they fail to acknowledge the financial realities that underpin the transfer business; that salaries, transfers. agent fees, signing on fees, bonus etc., all need to come out of a finite pot of revenue. A pot of revenue which will remain lower that ManU and City this year, regardless of whether we get through the Champions League qualifier.
On the Van Dijk fiasco: Another important element to consider in Liverpool’s failure – and Southampton’s annoyance – is Sadie Mane.
Every season since we started pilfering their players, Southampton have played a PR game which allows them to write a narrative that the player in question is a mercenary and Liverpool are gullible idiots. Clyne had a steady if unremarkable debut, while Lallana and Lovren both struggled to define their roles in their maiden seasons. It feeds the narrative that Saints have pulled one over on us time after time, summer after summer. They’ve sold us bronze for the price of gold. This summer is the first where that narrative falls apart. Clyne, Lovren and Lallana have all settled and proven themselves in a top four side with a world class manager at the helm. Saints fans, if they are honest, must look at that team and wonder ‘Why not us?’. To top it all off, last year’s acquisition Mane is a resounding, undeniable success; pushing on the door of genuinely world class.
Southampton’s hierarchy will know that if they had held on to him and Mane had performed as well this season in red and white stripes As he has in all-red, they might have a few more points on the table, and the asking price this summer would have been double what we paid last.
With all this in mind, added to the naive and arrogant way Liverpool bungled the release of the Van Dijk information, Southampton’s reaction is perfectly understandable; perhaps we should even have expected it. I just hope the deal isn’t yet dead because he looks a real player.
a poor podcast I’m afraid to say, I think your work, while free, is kind of diving in quality though I hate to say it given the effort you guys make.
Why bash the club except that it’s a liverpool fan’s favourite pastime? Is any other interpretation really beyond you?
The only reason we got shopped to the FA was because unlike any other year, they decided that £45-£50m wasn’t enough to satisfy them. Otherwise they would have done the deal, any other year they would have. So this time they figured they could charge more – given we make more of their players than they do – £75m more, and when we didn’t play ball they shopped us to get back control [over a potentially unhappy player] which they had lost in the media and give them some local kudos (maybe it helped their club sale too).
We went into the media to fight off citeh & chavs, that was the first battle we HAD to win to stop a bidding war that we coudn’t possibly win. But make no mistake, Soton are jerks for what they did given they tapped up VVD when he was at Celtic who threatened to take them to court. Presumably the fee soothed the scots’ anger in the end.
And even then what made it possible to shop us in was not very discreet meetings with klopp (like wtf Jurgen?) and then the text messaging (like wtf Jurgen?), the paper talk means nothing to the FA.
Now, no one cares, YOU might be embarrassed by the apology but it’s insignificant. If it suits the clubs they’ll be negotiating tomorrow. it’s only fans who get worked up about this stuff and they’re not exactly a sane rational bunch anyhow.
It’s just a shame that you lot can’t see any other perspective other than bash the club. Perhaps you need to talk to other people instead of just talking to each other and fuming fans all the time.
Possible future discussion. Alex Manninger, now retired. Do you think he played a part in Simon Mignolets turn of form?
I agree entirely, it makes perfect sense. I’ve been hoping to see a ‘Manniger offered the GK coach role’ article since the season finished!