texy skrev:Fekir, Pulisic, etc. Jeg tror, at man gør sig selv en tjeneste, hvis man lader være med at forelske sig i en bestemt transfer alt for meget. Den lektion har vi vel lært af sidste sommer, hvor VVD var min helt store drømme-transfer, som desværre fusede ud. Andre oplevede måske samme skuffelse med Keita eller Lemar.
Jeg vil begynde at tale de nye spillere rigtigt op, når jeg er tilstrækkeligt sikker på en transfer. Indtil da vil jeg glæde mig over, at vi allerede har et hold, der er så stærkt, at det skal spille CL-finalen. Vi bør ikke have travlt med at få smidt de spillere ud af døren, som har bragt os i denne fantastiske situation.
Man skal sgu have et gigantisk talent for at få lov at blive en del af det hold. Og man må være vanvittig, hvis man som en ekstremt dygtig fodboldspiller ikke på et eller andet niveau er tiltrukket af tanken om at få lov at være med.
The timescale varies but, rather curiously, the figure remains the same. “There cannot be any messing about,” implored John Aldridge earlier this week. “We need four quality players, players worth £50million each. That’s £200m on new talent. We need the best we can get.”
In February 2016 it was Alan Hansen dreaming of a summer budget “more like £200m”, this time to be used on “five major signings”. Four months earlier, a single week after Jurgen Klopp had been appointed Liverpool manager, Robbie Savage noted that “the money spent is ridiculous”, the only remedy to which was apparently “to spend £200-300m”.
As Ian Doyle of the Liverpool Echo would attest, there is a unique allure on Merseyside surrounding such an arbitrarily large figure. The reporter sated the appetite of supporters as early as April last year, promising a summer investment ‘nearer £200m’. With Champions League qualification not even in their own hands at the time, it was a bold statement.
Yet it was followed by a comparative whisper. That the outlay reached just under £80m by the window’s close was treated as a personal affront by certain fans demanding a certain level of financial sacrifice. To watch Everton spend almost twice as much on exactly twice as many first-team players was seen a sign of standing still, not moving forward. It was no way to prepare for only a second season in the Champions League since 2010.
A year later, everything has changed for the better on the field, while little has altered off it. Liverpool stand on the precipice, their hard work over the last nine months to be viewed only through the prism of the next few days: in three, a home game with Brighton; in 16, a Champions League final with Real Madrid; in seven, the transfer window re-opens. Aldridge is just one of many already focusing on the latter.
As Klopp prepares for a season-defining final, discussion already surrounds what Liverpool “need” in the summer, how “there cannot be any messing about” when they look to improve a squad that could yet be crowned European champions. Both manager and players are justifiably refusing to look beyond the end of this month and their noses, but there is a growing number of fans and pundits looking to cut theirs off, impatient at the mere idea of Liverpool failing to build on such solid foundations.
The desperation to capitalise on an unexpected peak to avoid a depressing trough is nothing new, yet it is still disheartening. Antonio Conte spent his Premier League title-winning celebrations informing the Chelsea board of the need to keep funnelling money back into the squad, despite his coaching and tactics having been arguably the most important factor in their initial success.
In the eagerness to stay at the front of the race, it is easy to forget what got you there in the first place. Choosing to save your lottery winnings instead of spending it all in one go is undeniably the least sexy option, but it is often the necessary one. The renewal of Roberto Firmino’s contract suggests Liverpool will sensibly look after their family and friends first before looking to reinvest elsewhere.
It is a refreshing change of pace. The summer after they agonisingly finished second in 2014/15, Liverpool signed nine players for £117m: a level of upheaval Klopp would never consider. “If you always change four or five positions, it’s wrong,” he said in March. “You don’t make the team better.”
This is only the second campaign in which Liverpool have spent more than £100m, and the first culminated in a sixth-place finish, an ignominious Champions League group-stage exit, and Brendan Rodgers losing his job five months later. For a man who once rather shrewdly compared assembling a squad to “trying to build an aircraft while it is flying”, it was a risk to try and stay airborne while replacing the fuel tank, propeller and cabin crew at the same time.
Klopp will ignore the noise and avoid that mistake. This is his 16th full campaign as a manager, and only the sixth time he has spent more than £10m. He is European management’s most consistent overachiever for a reason. Believe him when he says he will only sign “a couple more players” to improve squad depth, and also when he insists that is enough to assure continued progress.
If those players arrive for £5m instead of £50m, there should be no uproar or surprise. Liverpool’s likely starting line-up for the Champions League final will feature as many cheap parts – Loris Karius (£4.7m), Andrew Robertson (£8m), Trent Alexander-Arnold (free), James Milner (free) – as it will expensive components in Virgil van Dijk, Mohamed Salah, Sadio Mane and Firmino. Klopp has proven himself adept at spotting both a summer bargain and a designer label in the same market.
Three Premier League clubs spent more than Liverpool this season, but no club has managed to strike a better balance between domestic and European progress. To demand a greater investment is to ask Klopp to rip up a successful blueprint before renovations are even complete. Every club needs to invest and improve year on year, but the last thing Liverpool “need” is £200m to do so.