timeEd32

Great movie with a dumb / forced ending (not the movie’s fault; the A’s just didn’t actually win anything).

It’s impossible to even have a discussion with many Liverpool supporters. Every other club is dirty in some way and everything they do is purified by the Mersey.

Vast improvement on last season’s abomination. His form will improve considerably.

Archive link is on the previous page.

Yeah, that’s fair and I’m conscious of us not experiencing the window in the way it actually happens. Maybe Mbuemo didn’t want £200k until Man United made their interest clear and maybe we moved on from some of these players much faster than it seemed in the press. I’m mostly frustrated that we continue to fail at putting the right pieces around Eddie.

Just taking the names Luke went through: - they are almost all in the PL so they are going to cost more, already be on higher wages, and have more competition - I question how we didn’t already know certain things that have come out: Pedro wanting London, Mbuemo wanting over £200k a week (an amount we haven’t yet given our superstar striker), Burnley getting promoted was always going to allow them to ask for more, etc - All that is before considering where we sit in the pecking order and the likelihood of other clubs wants these players I understand why we want proven PL players and I’m not advocating for buying a bunch of £10m prospects and hoping for the best. The prices around Europe seem to also be high but there is likely more negotiating room and wages are far less likely to be a problem. I mostly wish we’d fully lean into our single greatest asset, which is our manager’s ability to get the most out of a player and happens to fit perfectly with our current financial position.

If the parts about tilting back to our former direction (looking for potential) and Isak are from solid sources then both are good news. Hard to describe our initial approach to the window as anything but flawed or naive.

We really messed up by not extending him many months ago but there’d still probably be speculation. Can’t blame him or his agent for wanting £300k+. Hopefully we can figure out a deal that works on both sides - will be never ending until then.

STACK seemed ripe for some accounting tricks that wouldn’t even raise many eyebrows. Even without selling it something like SELA covering all costs via sponsorship and the club taking in all revenue. The Companies House movement is interesting though.

Yeah, it’s a big raise if the public numbers are right but £50m+ player is almost certainly not going to be on less than that.

It's a lot of money but I'm assuming he'll slot right in at that £100-120k per week range. The relatively low wages make the total outlay a little more tolerable. The combo of Eddie + the athleticism he showed in that training video is enough to make this exciting.

6th in penalty area touches 9th in attacking third touches (1-3k behind City, Liverpool, and Arsenal) 9th in possession and total touches

Need to remember that even if someone in the press does have real info it is almost certainly delayed. Also, unless we're as incompetent as some on here want to believe, we are capable of multi-tasking. We aren't working on one thing at a time. Things are happening behind the scenes very differently than what we get to see.

Our biggest issue is we can't compete on wages, which is magnified when dealing with established PL players and players wanted by the big six. It's entirely possible we have all sorts of things going on with European based players and there's plenty of time. If it turns out our shopping list was almost exclusively PL targets I'll be disappointed for the simple fact that it's strategically flawed.

He was 23 the last time we signed a player.

Based on nothing at all I feel like this might work out for us. Plan B or C or whatever we’re on might involve a little more risk but I back us to identify talented players.

I was excited about this and now need to root against him. Thanks Chelsea.

Have we ever been this close to signing a player twice like this?

1M empty seats in the group stage. Glorious. https://www.espn.com/soccer/story/_/id/45603259/club-world-cup-sees-1m-empty-seats-group-stage

I'm very happy about this and also really annoyed that PSR prevented us from buying him for half the price a couple years ago.

We may think they do, though for what it's worth Swiss Ramble estimated they are fine both for the PL and Europe.

They somewhat surprisingly reduced the % of payments based on coefficient with the new format. But by adding more games and guaranteeing high profile (Super League-esque) group stage games they can justify bigger broadcast deals so everyone who is regularly in it will get more money.

Apparently credentialed journalists have to pay $20 for a press meal, which is a sandwich and bag of chips (crisps). I don't know if the WC is the same but this seems second rate as is everything about the tournament.

On Dec. 2 we were 5th (3 points off 2nd) having beaten Chelsea and Man United the previous week, plus being robbed in Paris. By the end of the month we were 9th, out of the League Cup, and out of the Champions League. This past season Liverpool were second on Oct. 28, a point behind City. By Christmas they were 12 points ahead of City and 6 ahead of Arsenal having also beaten Leverkusen, Real Madrid, and Girona in the CL and advancing to the LC semifinal. It was Nov/Dec when City completely fell apart last season. I think it's a key stretch when you've already been through a couple months of multiple games a week and all that comes with it.

After the November international break is the following month: City (h) Champions League Everton (a) Spurs (h) Burnley (h) Champions League Sunderland (a) League Cup (possibly) Chelsea (h) Lots of home games thankfully, but that's when the wheels came off last time.