Unbelievable

Fuck off Salah

Wtf Sandro

This is better

Predictably missing a focal point in the box

Schar not playing well so far. Aimless long balls and sloppy in possession there

That’s a booking

Tripps

Tonali looks up for this

Joelinton right into them

Let’s keep this energy level up

Howay the lads! Get into them!

Unchanged and a strong bench, except for no recognised striker in sight obviously (thanks Alexander :anguish:)

Jesus, maybe this would be a good time to be a little flexible when it comes to PL experience? We’re going to end up completely wasting the Isak fee at this rate.

Wtf VAR

That Sarr cunt needs to be booked for diving

I think he is (rightly) referring to Liberty Media

As you said, he was terrific at Feyenoord and we were interested at the time. I don’t think he got a fair chance at Milan; could be wrong but seems like they wanted rid after only a few months from reports. I think he would be available for under 40m, still only 24 and in our current predicament might be an interesting option as the Wilson replacement, but in his absence a decent first choice.

Santiago Gimenez anyone..?

I know you can mate. The DeBruyne trick. Your little plan here however relies quite heavily on the player’s willingness to extend their stay, which in Isak’s case is highly doubtful imo. In the absence of that you’d just be weakening your PSR and financial position to keep one player “happy” at the expense of the club. For all we know Mitchell may well have asked Isak and his agent if they were willing to commit beyond 2028 and got a negative response before postponing the negotiations due to lack of headroom at that stage (which we know for a fact was an issue at the time).

Yet this happens all the time..? We’re dealing with trading people here, not apples or buildings.

Exactly. We paid 60m for Isak, a club record and an amount many a pundit believed was far too much for the player we were getting, unproven at the highest level and coming off a mediocre season. We also gave that player a wage at or near the top of our wage structure. The player and his agent consciously signed a SIX year deal on those financial terms. Yet after not even two years they apparently started agitating for more, and by the start of year four, halfway in the contract they were initially happen to sign, the player has downed tools in a manner seldom seen in professional football. The backdrop to all this is that the summer where Mitchell told Isak a new contract would have to wait, we had to panic sell Anderson and Minteh not to fall foul to PSR rules. We had very little room to go and offer existing players huge wage bumps, especially one only a third of the way in his contract. From a business perspective it was an understandable decision to postpone discussions. It’s only after Liverpool turned Isak’s head early summer when this was suddenly brought up as justification for Isak’s horrible behaviour. Some coincidence that. The fault for all of this lies with none other than Alexander Isak and his agent. Had Liverpool never come knocking, or had they an ounce of decency and patience, they could have negotiated an improved contract this summer instead of doing what they did. Which lends me to believe that what’s happened this summer would have happened regardless, sooner or later. We’re simply dealing with a pair of cunts, sadly.

I have no idea what you’re on about, but that is sadly not uncommon.

I’d live to see that calculation, because purely doubling one player’s wages without any other significant changes to e.g. contract length would certainly affect our PSR position. You can’t simply increase your yearly outgoings by 4-5m without repercussions to SQR and the bottom line.

I think what Isak and his agent would have demanded would have been closer to 5m on top of his current wage, probably a release clause of some type and certainly no extension. Sorry, but I think the suggestion or even promise by Staveley (supposedly) that a contract improvement was due that summer, not even two years into a six year contract, was a big mistake considering we ended up having to sell Anderson and Minteh that summer to prevent a points deduction. We clearly had very little room to manoeuvre, so if indeed Mitchell postponed those discussions for financial/PSR reasons that seems entirely reasonable to me considering the four additional years Isak already had to go on his current deal. Maybe the delivery/explanation was wrong and set the stage for this whole ordeal, but I’m more skeptical about promising the new deal than on postponing it at that stage.

It would have, but it would also have further restrained our spending under PSR, so quite frankly the club were completely in the right to postpone those talks until closer to the end of his contract.