TheBrownBottle

Not sure if we'd be able to get him, but I also think DCL would be a decent transfer, he's a very good PL CF

Yeah, a shitload - particularly early on in Klopp's time. Coutinho, Sakho, Benteke, Solanke etc

Liverpool's team that started the European Cup Final last week cost £350m almost on the button - their bench that day cost £180m. £530M total. It's not Man City cash-spunking - but it isn't exactly doing it on the cheap. Over half a billion is a serious chunk of change. That doesn't detract from the fact that they've generally recruited well and that Klopp is an exceptional manager - clearly both are true

I always felt Robbie Elliott was better than all of them, tbh. Cracking left foot too - scored more from full back than anyone I've seen in B&W

I honestly don't understand why so many are so desperate for it to be Aramco, etc. Per PL rules, they can't do a crazy sponsorship deal in any case. That being so, I'd actually prefer it wasn't one of the PIF companies who became sponsors - it would attract a shitload less attention

Liverpool's squad still cost a fortune, for all the data crunching they've done. It's not exactly moneyball stuff - spend lots and lots of cash on really good footballers. I'm not suggesting that data analysis wasn't the key driver in their recruitment - but spending huge sums on footballers is generally a pretty assured route to winning things

Again, you're listing three companies that half of NUFC twitter have been guessing will be sponsors since last October, and then saying it is 'two from three'. You don't know anymore than the rest of us; and even if Saudia etc are the sponsor, it still doesn't mean that you knew - you've just accurately guessed what every budding Steve Wraith has too.

If the fee being discussed is close to true, then again it would suggest that the budget is higher than Edwards and co have suggested - it would be incredibly risky to spunk half the budget on an unproven teenager from the French top flight when several positions could do with obvious strengthening. I'm also assuming that Howe and the scouting team have seen far more impressive stuff from the lad than that youtube video suggests; I'm more than happy to place my trust in their process. Signing the lad is still a gamble - all unproven young'uns are - and some won't pay off; but if the lad comes good, based on the clubs that apparently were after him, we could have a player on our hands.

Athletic hack says 'no red flags'...

You're giving them far too much credit

At first, I genuinely hated Almiron's agent, touting his player round to 'bigger' clubs in the press irrespective of how shit Miggy had been. I think he's fantastic now though - Netflix should give him his own special. He's a funny bloke

I did buy one when I was 16, though in fairness I was more svelte back then. Haven't bought one since. Squeezing into one at 40 (as I am now) would lack dignity ... but, each to their own

Christ, I really hope it is that William Storey. The bloke just screams 'football cautionary tale' in a decade or so time - he'd spend his time attempting to be a lairy gobshite towards us, knowing that it will distract from his pisspoor running of the club. And the dozy twats would lap it up

I'm with you on that one. If Dennis Wise had pointed me to the youtube clips, my expression would've been Keegan-esque. Doesn't mean he's no good mind - the compilers of those videos seem to think irritatingly overloud shit Eurodance works well with snippets of a player doing 26 backheels to nowhere and the odd mishit finish. I'm willing to bet he's a canny footballer in real life.

I'm happy to buy that he's telling the truth. But I do have a higher mark for being a decent gadgie than 'isn't a massive racist'. He's still a complete wanker as far as I'm concerned

Signing young European football talent without any notion of being a stepping stone feels bloody good after all those years of Ashley. Ekitike will have been sold on where the club is going, not the club being a shop window Love it

Yep - it can’t be an ‘affiliated party’ transaction. Brought in back in October, oddly enough … edit: sorry, yes ‘inflated’ affiliated party

That’s the same guess as the ITK Twitter crowd tbf. The problem is that Aramco is directly linked to PIF, and Saudi Golf is ran by one of the club’s directors, so either of those would immediately run foul of PL rules

They are comically amateur mind. It’s no big deal, but fuck me you couldn’t imagine adidas or Nike doing this

He may be a mackem, but he does know his stuff - and I've always agreed with Jonathan Wilson's take on the unrecognised importance of full backs (he voiced that if you want to know who is likely to win a World Cup, look for the team with the best full backs). A player of Trippier's quality on the left would make a massive difference for next season - someone like Lodi would certainly represent that. Like most on here, I think Targett has done a cracking job; but if we don't sign him, I'm assuming it is because Howe has his sights set elsewhere, and I'll trust his judgement on this one. This doesn't mean I'd be disappointed if Targett walked back through the doors though.

Debt and losses are separate issues - under FFP, you can only rack up 110m in losses over three years; if you came into that three years carrying a billion of debt, that won't impact it. Stadiums, training grounds etc don't count towards FFP -so the likes of Spurs and Arsenal are able to rack up losses on infrastructure which don't hit the FFP bottom line. NUFC under Ashley carried around 130m of debt, but we were golden under FFP as we won't losing money season by season Chelsea lost an average of around 1m per week for the entirety of the Abramovich ownership - though of course, they didn't ultimately, as the club was sold for 2.5bn which means that Abramovich would've made a sizeable profit on the money he'd sunk into the club (or at least roughly break even given inflation) were he allowed to actually have the money

We shouldn't get too worried if it remains Fun88 (though it is a fantastically shite design); any new sponsor, particularly given the PL's rules, would likely only increase commercial revenues by a couple of million a year - we'd find it hard to argue at present that the club is more attractive to sponsors than West Ham, for example, who bring in just over 3m more in shirt sponsorship. This is why the rebuild will take years, not months - get ourselves regularly finishing top six / seven, and grow from there. In five years, with the club being run properly (Ashworth signing should give real hope on that front), and we'll be bagging the big money sponsorships like the others at the top end. https://www.statista.com/statistics/254513/value-of-jersey-kit-sponsorships-in-the-barclays-premier-league-by-club/

Yeah, there's a good chance that they bought themselves a bit of favourability there. My concern would be that I can't imagine Ashley inserting break clauses into commercial contracts, particularly when it is just 'free' income. Without this, there could be sizeable costs to buying out the contracts. We also don't know how long the Fun88 contract actually is - I wouldn't put it past Ashley's NUFC to have signed up to several years.

The KSA football shirt market isn't exactly huge, and the club only get a very, very small % of the sale of a shirt - I don't know how arsed they'll end up being tbf.

The fact that Castore are still our kit manufacturers - on the no doubt shit terms Ashley and Charnley 'negotiated' - should give pause to anyone assuming that all the current deals will be binned off