Keegans Export

Depends how much "decent" is but if we add an extra (for eg) two years as part of the deal, his amortisation cost comes down which will negate some of that. The advantage (to him) of having that release clause locked in is that it guarantees we can't start shifting the goalposts once we get to next summer. Edit - very, very quick estimates but I think we could give him +2 extra years, +£100k per week and the cost of the wage increase would be cancelled out by the drop in amortisation by spreading it over two additional years

I also wonder whether he might think about the potential options next summer too. Take a decent wage rise from us, have another productive year in the PL and Champions League, if his release clause is in the £100-120m range there could be a bidding war between numerous elite clubs which means potentially more money in his pocket.

These are the sorts of deals we should be considering, and I'd like to think we are. Are they absolutely optimal in terms of age? Not really. But in the same way we spent a period chasing Botman in that first January window then quickly moved onto Burn when we got priced out, we should be willing to be flexible. Plus, as you say, the Saudi "Get Out of Jail Free" card is there in the future. Would be a fantastic addition imo, at the right sort of price.

That's exactly it. They've set the market value with their deals for Wirtz and now Ekitike - two hugely talented players but totally unproven in the Premier League.

Really? £150k/week is £7.8m - we got more than that for Longstaff. Plus if we extend it reduces his amortisation on the accounts

Obviously you can read whatever you like into those comments but if I was the relevant person at Liverpool I'd be putting my "turn Isak's head via the media" plan into overdrive next week. He's so distracted by the reports he can't even sit on the bench and support his teammates, even though he was already in Glasgow? We're going to see the usual suspects Tweet/blog about this constantly for the next week and either he/we buckle and things start to properly move or he's on the plane to the Far East and Liverpool move on to Ekitike and whatever other targets they've got.

Looks like Joelinton is there, sat next to Dan Burn on the bench

Ideally that's absolutely what we should do and seems to have been the strategy with Elanga and Pedro/Ekitike but as we've seen, we're competing with clubs bringing in substantially more money than us. Aiming a tier below could still massively improve our depth across the board and if we're targeting players in Germany, France, Italy, maybe even the Championship, we are more likely to be the most attractive destination for those players.

I disagree. I'd back our first XI to go up against pretty much any side in Europe, even more so with Elanga in there. The problem is that same XI playing three games a week. Look at some of the fixtures - we have a run of 7 games between 22nd Nov and 13th Dec, starts with Man City (H), ends with Sunderland (A) and has our 5th and 6th CL games in the middle. I'd be great to add three or four immediate starters but if that isn't possible then three better alternatives than Willock, Osula and Lascelles would at least give us a chance to rest some of our key players at times without massively dropping the quality of our starting XI.

Too much noise from where? The press? Twitter?

Would it matter? If we bid £50m (for arguments sake) Man City could still just offer whatever the clause is and it would have to be accepted? I'm not 100% sure how these things work. I wouldn't be surprised if it was coming from the Burnley side mind. If we've basically decided not to up our bid and we're banking on them blinking first and dropping their asking price then it benefits them having another club interested with a fee already agreed in principle - "Agree a deal now otherwise once Man City shift one of their keepers they're going to nab him"

I totally disagree with this btw Players & their agents aren't daft. They know who is or isn't interested in who and they're not just going to sign the first deal put in front of them if they know there are other options potentially available.

Just to play Devil's advocate - presumably we could go to £40m, agree the deal with Burnley, only for Man City to match it and offer Trafford £50k/week more than we're offering?

I've got my optimistic hat on. I think we're working on the forward - whether that is a Pedro/Ekitike level signing or someone cheaper, we'll then know which targets for the other positions we're going to move on to and we might see a few deals done relatively quickly. We probably are only "working on" one deal at a time, but we'll have had preliminary discussions with players/clubs to get an idea of how much the various keepers, CBs and midfielders we're looking at would cost.

We were linked with Kalimuendo earlier in the window. More of an out-and-out striker like Delap than a Pedro/Ekitike type but should be affordable both in fee & wages, plus you think he'd jump at the chance to play PL and Champions League. Would mean we'd probably need to target a big name striker whenever Isak does leave.

Depends who it is but playing in the Premier League and Champions League with the likes of Tonali, Bruno, Isak etc is going to appeal regardless of how far down the list they supposedly are/were.

When we think about "resale value" obviously £40m+ for a 28/29 year old isn't going to offer much of that, but perhaps we think there are enough players in the squad now with resale value (and more arrivals still to come) that we don't need to think about resale value for every signing? In isolation, a striker with 31 PL goals in the last two seasons would be a more than adequate backup/support to Isak

Exactly my thoughts. Obviously we can't know exactly what our budget is but I wouldn't be disappointed if we aimed more in the £30-40m range for a forward and either spread the extra £30-40m a Pedro or Ekitike would cost between GK, CB and a midfielder. It means we probably wouldn't have the nailed-on Isak replacement that we hope Ekitike would be (looking ahead to 26/27 season), but the squad would be stronger. If we qualify for the CL again, plus get £100m or so for Isak we'd be in a very strong position to rebuild next summer.

"So Seung-soo, how do you feel about windmills and tulips?"

Aye, do that 👍🏻

Regardless of how the Ekitike situation plays out, I'm looking at the positives. We wouldn't be looking at Pedro, Ekitike at £60m+ knowing it'd leave us short in other areas. Get Ekitike, great. If not then we go a bit further down our list of targets, if they work out cheaper then thats more money to spend on GK/CB and maybe another midfielder. We've shown time and time again that our talent ID is good. Now we clearly have a substantial amount of money to spend, we're going to have a good summer. Obviously this all hinges on Isak still being an NUFC player next season...

If we like the idea of Isak and Ekitike, no reason they wouldn't think the same. Especially if Nunez and Diaz are on their way out.

It's one of those where his value to us is greater than his value to someone else. A non-footballing example would be selling my house - I don't really want to sell it. It has an objective "value" but selling it for that doesn't appeal because firstly, I don't want to move and secondly, if I did sell it I'd have to go through all the carry-on of moving/buying a new place. The Bruno situation last summer was another example - his value to Man City for example was considerably lower than his value to us, so they never got close to his release clause.

Super agent Ali Barat left his favourite pen

I think we're definitely interested and wouldn't be surprised if we are speaking to the club/player but that doesn't mean our interest isn't being heavily leaked to encourage Liverpool (or someone else) to make a move. The Romano tweet about our bid being higher than another club's offer was pretty transparent.