J7

It would be pretty strange of Villa to sell Watkins to either of us tbh. They’ll likely be in direct competition with both of us.

It’s difficult to just his tenure as a whole tbh when we probably can’t see a lot of what he has done and some might not have come to fruition yet. We also don’t know how handicapped he was, or not, from above either. The Mitchell appointment has been a disaster though, not much doubt about it. That said, I do wonder what kind of DoF would come in playing second fiddle to the team manager. It’s generally supposed to be the other way round.

I would too. It’ll likely cost us more than £5m if we cannot get a half decent first choice striker in. Is it not about £10m for every league position.

I agree, it’s farcical. But it wasn’t breaking news to us. Totally unprepared and the fault comes from the top.

We can’t just be blaming PSR. We’ve been an absolute shambles since the end of the season. We got it wrong from the off and it’s snowballed from there. We still can’t seem to pivot away from the most obvious targets. Id love to see who’s next after Sesko goes to Man Utd, Jackson goes to Saudi and Watkins stays at Villa. A total embarrassment. Not sure what the fuck is happening with a new centre back or midfield cover.

What, you weren’t joking?

You’re probably right, but if he joined I assume he’d want to be. Isak staying would just be a nuisance at this point.

Which is worse since he doesn’t want to be here.

Our transfer targets have been abysmal this summer. Whether he’s to blame, or the manager has too much power over targets, it’s hard to tell.

Is it that long? And I’d assume most players would look to go to the best possible club that’s interested in them. We can’t expect every player we go for to see us as their dream club.

I mean Man Utd are about as bad as us now in farting about with low ball bids, but they’ve been slightly more successful in eventually getting the deal done. I’d expect him to go there.

I mean I watch Jackson and I cannot see the fuss, but given he ended up at Chelsea and other clubs seem to rate him, he must have something about him. If he was to sign I’d be happy to judge after he’s worked with Howe for a bit.

If we sign Sesko and a couple of others of a good standard, I’m not sure the atmosphere around the club is going to be that negative. There’s goals throughout our team regardless.

It’s the way agents and selling clubs want it to be fair. If we’re selling Isak we could do with as many clubs in as possible to drive the price up.

Sesko is over rated now. 😂

There were reports he helped get the Elanga deal done, but I’ve no idea if he’s the one actually making the decisions in light of the executive level vacuum. Someone must be making decisions, however bad they are.

If you’re still hanging on to Isak staying, just give up and take the pain now rather than delay it. ‘Isak wants Liverpool’. Accept it.

If Eales has already left, who’s making the fuckin decisions? Absolute shambles. I know we’re in a far better position now and are actually bidding for players, but this feels like a summer years ago where nobody had a clue who was in charge or what was going on. It was around the time Bobby died and we had Dundee United away on a Sunday.

Agree with most of this. He’s a brilliant football manager for us, but he’s clearly not an expert at everything. I think it’s pretty clear the focus on PL experience is one of his preferences. It’s crazy how many people on here and other places were suspicious of any DoF and wanted Eddie in control of everything.

I was absolutely distraught when Cole left as a 12 year old, but we ended up better off not long after when Ferdinand and then Shearer came in. Players will come and go. Some will stay and be legends, but many are passing through. I’m not really getting the profound sense of shock tbh. Liverpool have had their own players wanting to leave through the years. Rice left West Ham, Grealish left Villa. It’s nothing to do with being allowed to be ‘elite’. Eales always said we needed to start trading. People are obsessed with ‘sell on value’ whenever we sign anyone. Basically, the most important thing is the overall direction we are heading in. If we only ever sell players of a low value, the overall progression will be slower.

He’s probably jet lagged. Players come and go all the time.

Point being, I don’t think we need to keep an Isak agreement secret to be able to do a deal for someone else.

We bid £70m for a striker 10 days ago.

I’m not saying we’ll do it, but signing the likes of Sesko is exactly what we need to do. Who’s the alternative that wouldn’t be desperate? Now more than ever we should be showing that we still mean business. We can’t stand still.

Come on! Accept it and start thinking about what we do next.