greenhill

I think Goncalo Ramos would be decent, PSG are rumoured to be willing to sell at reasonable price (I heard of figures like 50-60M), salary is acceptable, very good finishing, good work rate. Mikautadze from Lyon is another that I like, his style is a bit similar to the likes of Isak and Ekitike, did quite well in Euro 2024, transfer fee is likely to be low given Lyon's financial problems.

Agree we should look at other leagues. I actually think Mikautadze from Lyon would suit us and we could get a deal done at 30-35m given Lyon's financial problems. We should at least try to bid for this kind of target. Imo we should also try to bid for multiple players at the same time. If the other teams know that we are very flexible with our target, that would give us more advantage on the negotiation table. In this summer we always focus on just one single target.

While I also have doubts about JSL's price tag, let's hope he would do well if the deal goes through. Liverpool paid Wolves 45m for Jota in 2021, there were a lot of doubts at the time but it proved to be a bargain. If you factor in inflation, 45m in 2021 is probably 60-65m in 2025. That's a range I think Wolves would likely accept. Transfer fee aside, JSL's salary at Wolves is rumoured to be 15k/week which would be very positive to our salary structure, even if we offer him 50-100% more.

It's also a reason I've got some gut feeling that he may not suit us very well. We knew we need a Wilson replacement before Isak's transfer saga, so if we rate Larsen that highly, we would have tried to gazump Wolves' buy option. We didn't do this even after Delap chose Chelsea. Gives me some vibe of Chris Woord. Not necessarily that he is bad. But we tried to buy an okay striker at whatever price during some urgency. I could see us paying 60-65m for Larsen, turn out not scoring a lot for us, then sell him at 35-40m to Forest in 2 years and he start to pour goals again

You're right, 4/6 for staying and 11/10 for Liverpool. Can't wait for this clown to play his next card.

Liverpool's odds lengthens to 11/10 again despite the rat's antics. Which card would this clown play next?

I would need 120m + Ekitike now

I've been following this cunt's transfer odds for a while. It seems that whenever Liverpool's odds lengthen beyond 4/5, he'll always do something within 24 hours to push for a transfer. Did he learn anything about gambling from Tonali?

I would ask for 100M+Ekitike+Szoboszlai+Konate because of their behavior

I saw quite a few Asian fans compare him with Brighton's Mitoma, which is decent if he could reach that level.

I would actually love Atletico - money + Alvarez...

4 quality CMs for 3 positions is a minimum for a 'strong' team imo. You have to play a minimum of 38+8=46 games in the league/European competition. If the minutes are spread evenly across the 4 CMs then each of them will need to start 34.5 games. That's almost the same as starting every game in a PL season.

He may have excellent potential but I don't think he is anywhere near Isak's level at the moment. Probably worse than Wissa or NJ at the moment as well. If we have the confidence to keep Isak for one more year then it may make sense to buy this lad and loan him out tho.

What do you guys think of the idea of getting a young ST from a super club on loan for a year as our backup if we can't get anyone at a decent fee, e.g. Endrick or Gonzalo Garcia from Real Madrid? Seems better than panic buying some average ST like NJ at some crazy fee? We do still need a main ST if Isak leaves tho

Maybe a bit off topic but the LWs in the Premier League seems quite poor especially when the league has so many talents at other positions. Anyone of Vini Jr, Mbappe, Nico Williams, Raphinha (who plays at LW this season), Rodrygo (who can definitely play at LW) could easily be one of the top 2 or even the best LW here had they played in the PL.

Selling Dubs and getting him back on loan for the remainder of this season would be the perfect solution. Any possibility of it happening though?

Exactly, 2 weeks ago I got insulted here for pointing out the fact that Howe got only 11 points in 12 games, now it becomes 14 in 14. The only win that looked convincing was against Wolves last week. To a lesser extent vs Aston Villa, but we were a bit lucky on set piece in that game, and they always looked threatening in the second half. Against Fulham we were lucky with the early red card, and even with a one-man advantage they looked dangerous on the counter until we scored the first goal. Against Nottingham (A) the game could really go either way. Against Luton (H) and Bournemouth both looked more like a point rescued than 2 points lost. Of the 8 games that we lost, we were soundly beaten in most games. Maybe we could have rescued a point against Everton if Trippier didn’t make that mistake. If you look at our performance, I can’t help but have a sense that this pattern will remain largely the same until the end of this season. If my prediction becomes a reality, we will get ~25 points in our last 24 league games. IMO this season had demonstrated that Howe is a decent but limited manager. He is a great motivator, the players were willing to run their lives for him, that’s why that “intensity is our identity” style worked initially. Unfortunately, after 2 years, the freshness and excitement of having a new manager becomes a distance memory. I don’t mean the players are now lazy or unprofessional or anti-Howe, but the desire to run that extra mile and challenge for every ball is gone, for a legitimate reason. Who wants to work hard in order to be punished by getting injuries that could risk their own career? We might have entered the point that we need something new and fresh to bring back the players' desire to work very hard. Howe is also good for nurturing players, whether you like Howe or not, you can’t deny the likes of Longstaff, Almiron, Gordon, Murphy etc had improved a lot under Howe. But it has been 2 years and this growth is inevitably slowing down. If you compare the likes of Longstaff and Almiron in 23/24 vs 22/23, you can’t help but think that their performance declined a bit. Unless we change our squad significantly, I don’t think we could see significant improvement in abilities in our existing players under the same manager again. That being said, I don’t mean I am anti-Howe, I think he should be given the chance at least until the end of this season. After all, what I said is just a hypothesis which might not be true. But what if what I predicted becomes a reality? We need to have a plan. IMO with a decent but limited manager, we should make an educated gamble in the summer. If it is possible to lure the likes of Tuchel or Nagelsmann, I would be seriously tempted. If all we could get is the likes of Mourinho or De Zerbi, then I would wait for maybe 10 more games to see how Howe does next season. If we get anything less than say 40 points in the last 24 league games this season and the first 10 league games next season combined, that’s 34 games which is almost a full season, I think we should look for the best available manager anyway.

I agree with you and that's my point. I think we should keep our faith on Howe at least for the moment, but we need to be rational at the end of the season. If we are poor for 24 games not 12 then questions have to be raised.

Because we make decisions based on what he is doing now, not his CV. Since that Everton game we had been poor for some time, and things are not fixed yet. And FYI, Bruce got 12 points from his last 12 league games in charge.

I don't suggest Howe is a bad manager nor we should sack him now, he is probably a much better manager than Bruce but our current results is worse than that under Bruce is also a fact. I hope and I still have some faith that he could turn things around. But if that doesn't happen before the end of this season, we have to reflect why we were that bad. We still have 12 more league games to play, if our performance and results remain that bad over 24 games it's hard to argue it's over 'a curated set of fixtures'.

When everyone think that Bruce had done an awful job and someone is doing worse than Bruce, there must be something wrong.

Since that loss against Everton we got only 11 points from 12 league games, that equates to ~35 points in 38 games. Bruce got 44 and 45 points in his two full seasons. Compared to 3 or 4 seasons ago, we got upgrades including Bruno, Trippier, Botman, Burn, Livramento, Gordon, Isak, and Miley featuring heavily during this run, the major subtractions are ASM, Shelvey and Willock (mostly injured). I don’t mean we should sack Howe now, but it is a fact that he is doing worse than Bruce with a much stronger squad at the moment. We are just not as good as we should be right now, even if injuries are accounted. He has to turn things around or questions will be raised.

I think we should sign 2 more players in this window. We will probably be in Europe next season and we will likely need to play 10+ more games than this season. With our current squad I think we overachieved this season and if we are not careful enough, we may be dragged into a relegation battle next season like 16/17 Leicester, 05/06 Everton, 05/06 Real Betis and 03/04 Celta Vigo. We will need at least 5-6 more players for European competitions and if we only sign them in summer it also takes time for so many players to gel in the team. If we can sign 2 players this month then hopefully it can smooth out the process a bit while also giving us a lift for the push into top 4.