Hugo Ekitike (not playing for Liverpool for a while)

[Kid Icarus]

4 minutes ago, Cf said:

 

But the issue is your Chelsea's, Man City's, etc are throwing silly money around and selling clubs know this so if there's a hint any of them are remotely interested then it's best to knock back any initial offers to see if you can get more from them. 

 

In the Trafford case if we went up to £40m we might find ourselves in the same situation. Burnley just go to City and say what we've bid and if they want him back now's the time to act. Burnley would rather City buy him I imagine as I assume that would negate the sell on clause. 

You're at the point of inventing hypotheticals though. The reality is that we don't meet club's valuations in the first place, seemingly in the hope that it'll get closer to the transfer deadline and the price will come down.

 

The decision to do that has nothing to do with any other clubs. We could have had Trafford tied up, bit the bullet on the fee and cut our cloth accordingly in order to get 4 signings instead of 5, or a cheaper player elsewhere.

 

Instead we stick to this strategy that leaves us holding our dicks and with no alternatives. It doesn't work. 

[andycap]

1 minute ago, Gawalls said:

 It’s want it lowered but have a 20% sell on clause, then getting it lowered to 35, Burnley still get more than us giving them £40 and there’s reports they want to do a deal to get City’s current second choice keeper so it’s in their interests to sell to them.

Just saying if we payed up the money early doors in the window I think we'd of getting him as city were in the cwc still had both keepers no bids for either of them. 

So the longer it's been unresolved has giving city the opportunity to get him now. 

[Gawalls]

1 minute ago, andycap said:

Just saying if we payed up the money early doors in the window I think we'd of getting him as city were in the cwc still had both keepers no bids for either of them. 

So the longer it's been unresolved has giving city the opportunity to get him now. 

That’s a fair point, chances are City would have said “nah let him go”

[Cf]

1 minute ago, Kid Icarus said:

You're at the point of inventing hypotheticals though. The reality is that we don't meet club's valuations in the first place, seemingly in the hope that it'll get closer to the transfer deadline and the price will come down.

 

The decision to do that has nothing to do with any other clubs. We could have had Trafford tied up, bit the bullet on the fee and cut our cloth accordingly in order to get 4 signings instead of 5, or a cheaper player elsewhere.

 

Instead we stick to this strategy that leaves us holding our dicks and with no alternatives. It doesn't work. 

 

It's not a hypothetical though, it's what is happening. I'd say our offers have been more than fair but prices are getting inflated and inflated year on year by the only clubs who can afford to pay them. 

 

There is definitely an argument we should be looking elsewhere but what that ultimately means is players who a) aren't as good, or b) have potential but more of a risk. We probably want a certain amount of b) anyway but given we are in the CL now then a) isn't as palatable. 

 

And again, even if we bid £40m for Trafford we could still be in a spot with Burnley dragging their feet, the difference being of City say nah we're on the hook for £40m rather than £30m. 

[Gawalls]

3 minutes ago, Cf said:

 

It's not a hypothetical though, it's what is happening. I'd say our offers have been more than fair but prices are getting inflated and inflated year on year by the only clubs who can afford to pay them. 

 

There is definitely an argument we should be looking elsewhere but what that ultimately means is players who a) aren't as good, or b) have potential but more of a risk. We probably want a certain amount of b) anyway but given we are in the CL now then a) isn't as palatable. 

 

And again, even if we bid £40m for Trafford we could still be in a spot with Burnley dragging their feet, the difference being of City say nah we're on the hook for £40m rather than £30m. 

Unfortunately though it’s coming to choose between current squad, short on numbers or run the risk a little either way players that may be good enough from further afield. This is why teams like us need a top notch scouting setup imo.

[Kid Icarus]

6 minutes ago, Cf said:

 

It's not a hypothetical though, it's what is happening. I'd say our offers have been more than fair but prices are getting inflated and inflated year on year by the only clubs who can afford to pay them. 

 

There is definitely an argument we should be looking elsewhere but what that ultimately means is players who a) aren't as good, or b) have potential but more of a risk. We probably want a certain amount of b) anyway but given we are in the CL now then a) isn't as palatable. 

 

And again, even if we bid £40m for Trafford we could still be in a spot with Burnley dragging their feet, the difference being of City say nah we're on the hook for £40m rather than £30m. 

Us meeting a valuation and then another club sweeping in is hypothetical because we don't meet the selling club's valuation in the first place.

 

We don't even necessarily need to look elsewhere either I think, we could pay what's needed and sign fewer high quality players in one window, prioritise one or two and maybe pay more, then get another one or two in another window.

 

At the minute we seem to be trying to get everyone cheaper and ending up losing out.

 

 

Edited July 20, 2025 by Kid Icarus

[astraguy]

I'm not fussed by this at all,noway were we going to pay 95m. One thing that will piss me off is if pif buy nunez from them 

[Yorkie]

1 minute ago, Kid Icarus said:

At the minute we seem to be trying to get everyone cheaper and ending up losing out.

 

We made enormous offers for Pedro and Ekitike. The only one you can make that argument for is Trafford but we had some leverage there because the player wanted to come. He's also only proven at Championship level. 

 

Clearly there's going to come a point where we have to just buy worse players like Cf says, but the point I was making at the beginning is that the cartel control the market and it's a dire constraint for us and anyone else with serious ambition. Whether you think we've lowballed Burnley or not (we clearly haven't imo).

[Cf]

1 minute ago, Kid Icarus said:

Us meeting a valuation and then another club sweeping in is hypothetical because we don't meet the selling club's valuation in the first place.

 

We don't even necessarily need to look elsewhere either I think, we could pay what's needed and sign fewer high quality players in one window, prioritise one or two and maybe pay more, then get another one or two in another window.

 

At the minute we seem to be trying to get everyone cheaper and ending up losing out.

 

 

 

 

But their valuation is £whatever you offered + £whatever else we think we might get out of the cartel now they know what you offered. 

 

What are the PSR limits? £105m over 3 years is it? And it hasn't been adjusted up since it came in? The current prices going around are insane. Even the prices we've offered e.g. for Ekitike have me wondering how we're going to handle it. 

 

The price inflation along with the cartel being the only ones who can handle it is entirely by design and it's not a club we're in. 

[Sibierski]

3 minutes ago, Yorkie said:

 

We made enormous offers for Pedro and Ekitike. The only one you can make that argument for is Trafford but we had some leverage there because the player wanted to come. He's also only proven at Championship level. 

 

Clearly there's going to come a point where we have to just buy worse players like Cf says, but the point I was making at the beginning is that the cartel control the market and it's a dire constraint for us and anyone else with serious ambition. Whether you think we've lowballed Burnley or not (we clearly haven't imo).

I know it’s not intended as such, but we need to move away from downplaying Championship quality if the player is excelling at the top 1% of that league. It’s literally like the 6th strongest league in Europe. I have more confidence in players coming from there than Eredivise, and quit a lot of the Portuguese League, and that’s been shown over recent years of the talent that’s been picked up from the championship. 

[KaKa]

13 minutes ago, Cf said:

There is definitely an argument we should be looking elsewhere but what that ultimately means is players who a) aren't as good, or b) have potential but more of a risk. We probably want a certain amount of b) anyway but given we are in the CL now then a) isn't as palatable. 

 

We just need to make sure we pivot to other options in time to get in the numbers we need, and this is still feasible.

 

We are attractive enough to get players good enough to compete, even if we don't land our main targets. The manager's ability to get the best of his players and more is a big advantage for us.

 

Our first team is pretty much right there already. We need to just get in a couple more additions there, along with some better rotation pieces.

[Kid Icarus]

15 minutes ago, Yorkie said:

 

We made enormous offers for Pedro and Ekitike. The only one you can make that argument for is Trafford but we had some leverage there because the player wanted to come. He's also only proven at Championship level. 

 

Clearly there's going to come a point where we have to just buy worse players like Cf says, but the point I was making at the beginning is that the cartel control the market and it's a dire constraint for us and anyone else with serious ambition. Whether you think we've lowballed Burnley or not (we clearly haven't imo).

There's a clear pattern of us not meeting club's valuations and losing out regardless of other clubs swooping in. You can argue over lowballing, but if you're consistently making bids well below the selling club's valuation and they keep getting rejected, the buying club is the common denominator, so the choice then has to be pay more for fewer players or buy lower quality players. 

 

We work around it or we don't. Complaining about the environment is legitimate but it isn't a solution.

 

 

[Kid Icarus]

20 minutes ago, Cf said:

 

But their valuation is £whatever you offered + £whatever else we think we might get out of the cartel now they know what you offered. 

 

What are the PSR limits? £105m over 3 years is it? And it hasn't been adjusted up since it came in? The current prices going around are insane. Even the prices we've offered e.g. for Ekitike have me wondering how we're going to handle it. 

 

The price inflation along with the cartel being the only ones who can handle it is entirely by design and it's not a club we're in. 

The valuation is still often affordable. We could have paid what was necessary to buy Trafford and chose not to. Now he's off to Man City to play for possibly the next 10 years over a £10m difference in valuation. We know what the environment we're working in is.

[duo]

22 minutes ago, Yorkie said:

 

We made enormous offers for Pedro and Ekitike.

Before we bid we must have an idea of how much they want for a player, and how important that player is to Eddie.  We lost Pedro over haggling £10/£20 mil but then offered more than what we were willing to spend on Pedro for Ekitike.  A player who is more of a risk and is not PL proven.  If they had just offered Brighton the £60 mil they wanted for Pedro he could be a Newcastle player now.  And this isn't a criticism of Eddie more of PIFs strategy. 

[AyeDubbleYoo]

1 minute ago, duo said:

Before we bid we must have an idea of how much they want for a player, and how important that player is to Eddie.  We lost Pedro over haggling £10/£20 mil but then offered more than what we were willing to spend on Pedro for Ekitike.  A player who is more of a risk and is not PL proven.  If they had just offered Brighton the £60 mil they wanted for Pedro he could be a Newcastle player now.  And this isn't a criticism of Eddie more of PIFs strategy. 

Wouldn’t Pedro’s agent just call Chelsea and they would come in?
 

I just think the idea that we can wrap deals up quickly and secretly before any other club finds out is silly. 
 

We would need Pedro to reject Chelsea and prefer to come here, which he obviously didnt. 

 

 

Edited July 20, 2025 by AyeDubbleYoo

[The Prophet]

Based on the "fair value" conversation, we must fancy Elanga to have a hell of a ceiling.

[duo]

Just now, AyeDubbleYoo said:

Wouldn’t Pedro’s agent just call Chelsea and they would come in?
 

I just think the idea that we can wrap deals up quickly and secretly before any other club finds out is silly. 
 

We would need Pedro to reject Chelsea and prefer to come here, which he obviously didnt. 

 

 

 

We don't know - and we'll never know - but time is critical in getting a deal done.  And we left that door open.  

[AyeDubbleYoo]

2 minutes ago, The Prophet said:

Based on the "fair value" conversation, we must fancy Elanga to have a hell of a ceiling.

Could (almost) double the price if he improves for another couple of years I guess. That would make him one of the most dangerous and productive wingers in the best league in the world. That’s quite valuable. 
 

Guess there’s the price of guaranteed success as well, obvs. 

 

 

Edited July 20, 2025 by AyeDubbleYoo

[sempuki]

Really hope we don't make any future moves for him. Wouldn't give him another opportunity to blow us out again. Embarrassing stuff.

[WinstonFC]

[Nucasol]

Just now, WinstonFC said:

Yep. Completely out of our stratosphere. No way we can compete with that unless we want to leave the squad paper thin or flog a purple. PSR proceeding exactly as Emperor Henry has foreseen…

 

[OoOGazOoO]

95 million? Yeh no thanks!

Thanks for the double pie Ekitike!

[gdm]

 

[r0cafella]

People really upset we didn't spunk 40m on a keeper?

[gbandit]

Overpriced but he’ll succeed there. Only thing that would stop him succeeding would be an injury I think. He’s going into a squad perfectly set up for his style of play. Fair fucks, hope it turns to absolute dogshit for you lad