JOINING Gareth Roberts in The Anfield Wrap studio to rake over the coals of how Liverpool handled the transfer window are Paul Cope, Simon Hughes and Adam Melia.
From the end of Liverpool’s final match in May it was clear what The Reds planned to do in the market so how does the end result compare? What could the club have done differently? Did luck play a part?
How does Jürgen Klopp’s record in the market look now and are the concerns about ambition from some supporters justified?
All this and more in a 75-minute examination of dealings ins and out, what was said, by who, and when.
Whilst I more often than not agree with Paul, I don’t on the segment where Rick Parry and hindsight were mentioned which is the crux of the whole window and whether it was a success.
If I’m taking a school party skiing to the Alps on a minibus and prior to the trip I think – I won’t buy a spare tyre as it’ll cost me £50. If I make it there and back with no puncture then it’s £50 saved. I’ve won. But, say I get a puncture on the mountain pass up to the resort in the middle of the night. The kids are freezing, there’s no one on the road at that time and I didn’t charge my phone to get help because I thought there was a good chance I wouldn’t need to phone for help. Then, with hindsight I’ve completely lost the gamble, no two ways. That’s not the end of the story though i.e. he was unlucky. It’s stupidity to not have a spare tyre on a drive like that. Madness. Just to needlessly reiterate (as it’s one of my favourite stories). I took a bus up to Katmandu. I’d guess the drop into the ravine from the narrow mountain pass was 300 foot and littered with rusted vehicles. Driver was foot full down for the whole 12 hours. It was so terrifying that my mate approached the driver and said ‘you’ve got 50 people’s lives in your hands, sort your head out’. The driver said ‘chill, if today’s the day I’m gonna die then there’s nothing I can do about it, if it’s not then we’ll be fine regardless. It’s out of my hands’. Haha, sorry. Hindsight, destiny. It’s all well and good but sometimes you have to supplement it by taking a bit of responsibility in the first instance. I’m sure I was trying to make a point in there somewhere.
P.s forgot to mention, I really enjoyed that show. Very good indeed and some theories that I’d not contemplated previously. Good stuff
Great one this lads ! Can Simon Hughes be my mate ?????
I’m a lot more upbeat than most about the window and i would give them 7.5 – 8.00 out of 10 based on -3 for VVD (had he gone to another club it would have been -5) that we can still get him in January should not be dismissed.
The club gets bonus points for identifying and getting Salah, Solankie and Robertson and for them making such an instant impact and they should also get bonus points for Albie and Joe Gomez comming back into the squad and looking surprisingly good
With Sturridge and Griuic coming back from injury and Ben Woodburn the star man for Wales plus the addition of Oxbow that’s 9 additions to the first team squad with the Nabster coming next year and the possibility of Lemar and VVD.
Ok at centre back we may ship a couple of goals but last season it was 21 goals conceded before January and 21 after, with all this new attacking force at our fingertips even if we ship the same goals as last year up front we will have teams on toast because everyone is getting better under Klopp
Great show that. Look – if we were a club who were regularly 8th or 12th in the league the net spend thing would matter … but we’re back in the Champions Lge and looking strong for top four again… with a low net spend. Good that
This was really disappointing. I love Gareth and am always excited when Simon Hughes is on, and then… Paul Cope. Normally that makes an episode an auto-delete for me but I tried to soldier through. After a few minutes of fast forwarding and still having to hear him I just gave up and deleted this episode. I’m sure I’m in a tiny minority with this opinion, but it really sucked having to delete this one.
To try and be more constructive, here’s to hoping you can get Simon Hughes back for another episode soon, I’d love to hear it!
Was I imagining it or was pretty much every single quote Gareth read out from the club’s hierarchy a justification for not spending money?
The club’s worth £1bn+. We’re in the Champions League. The TV deal means the club who finish 20th earn more than the Italian, French and German champions.
And the Greenhouse analogy is ridiculous. If you want to have a better greenhouse than your neighbor then, yes, you would also spend £50k (minimum). But if you’re happy to not have anywhere near as good a greenhouse, then you’ll just come out with some irrelevant, faux-intellectual analogous bollox to justify not spending the £50k! Which brings me back to my opening sentence strangely enough…….