Liverpool fans continue the net spend chat while wondering aloud if they should have signed Marc Guehi rather than Alexander Isak.
The mails continue to fly in on both transfers but we are open to other subjects.
Send your thoughts to theeditor@football365.com
Did Liverpool complete the wrong deal? Isak looks like ‘bit of a d***’
Cards on the table; like Mat, I’m a glass half-empty type when it comes to football, always expecting the worst. This summer has been surreal, watching Liverpool splash cash like never before, after years of (mostly) conservative spending. Granted, in perspective it’s less insane than it looks, given the loss of Trent and Diaz, the continued of Robertson, the inevitable decline of Salah, and the tragic death of Diogo.
But I can’t help but think that we got the wrong transfer done in the end, with Guehi potentially far more important than Isak. Konate hasn’t developed the way I’d hoped, despite his considerable gifts, he hasn’t matured, makes far too many obvious mistakes, in particular his tendency to grapple unnecessarily with players, rather than remaining focused on the ball. Add in his proneness to injury, and I know I’d feel far more comfortable with him as the 3rd CB, than one of our two starters.
My gut feeling is that he’s not quite good enough for a club that wants to win the CL, an injury to him would be bad news for our title challenge, and an injury to VVD would be catastrophic and leave us struggling for top 4.
Last thoughts? I hope Wirtz settles, he does seem very light-weight, yet without the silky touch of someone like David Silva. Isak seems like a bit of a d***, I hope he scores lots of goals, then I suppose I’ll have to forgive him.
Henry, LFC
READ: Man Utd’s second-choice keepers, Liverpool’s Guehi-shaped hole and other post-window squad gaps
Transfer history repeating at Liverpool?
There was once a transfer window when Liverpool smashed their transfer record to sign Newcastle’s star striker, while also acquiring a young forward from a Germanic team for a non-trivial fee. The Newcastle striker had enjoyed a couple of seasons scoring roughly a goal every other game (although prior to that, he had been far less prolific), whereas the player from the Germanic league had, in the eyes of Premier League punters, never truly proven himself at a top club in a top league.
Everyone assumed the striker from Newcastle would be a roaring success, while the one from the Germanic league was seen as more of a gamble.
What actually happened was that the Newcastle striker turned out to be injury-prone, overrated, and lacked the character required to thrive as a top striker at one of the world’s elite clubs. He was eventually sold at a huge loss.
Meanwhile, the player from the Germanic league went on to become one of the best strikers the Premier League has ever seen. Liverpool later sold him for three times what they paid, and he went on to form one of the most iconic partnerships in club football history—winning league titles, the Champions League, and starring at World Cups.
For me, Isak has a lot in common with Andy Carroll: injury-prone, overrated relative to his goal-to-game ratio across his career and at international level, with lingering questions about his mentality. Ekitike, on the other hand, looks extremely talented and has the potential to become a world star à la Suárez—possibly even a £200m+ player for Real Madrid or a similar club.
Let’s see how this pans out…
Paul K London
Normal service can now be resumed
I wrote in previously to say how the Isak transfer could have been handled differently by all parties and a much more amicable scenario played out. Newcastle issued a statement that “they did not foresee the criteria being met”, it was eventually but how hard did they really try? They will have known that upwards of £110mil was incoming but did their efforts reflect this.
Bidding less than 50% of the eventual fee for Wissa was a great example, they missed out on other “targets” so clearly were unwilling to meet criteria set by the selling clubs or players. Players ALWAYS say that “this was the club for me” once signed but this can’t always be true, did Utd approach Gykores, even given the shitshow that they currently are they are still one of the biggest clubs in the world and probably a “bigger draw” than Arsenal. “Always the club for me” translates to “they’ve offered me the best deal and terms my agent could get”. In Isak’s case there were no other suitors and club wants player, player is happy/wants to go should have been dealt with asap.
Which brings me to Marc Guehi, he’s being praised for not acting like Isak and Wissa, but maybe he should have done. Palace also had “criteria”, how hard did they try? Scrambling around on the last day of the window doesn’t seem to be “very hard”, I think Liverpool acted arrogantly in this case and believed that Palace were not serious about the criteria, Guehi will be disappointed but did he believe Palace were trying hard, there was no evidence, maybe Palace have privately agreed to re-visit this in January but will probably now have £10-15 mil less to find replacements.
One thing seemingly overlooked is the Newcastle fans hypocrisy, I get they don’t want to lose their player but are happy to accept Wissa’s identical stance. Many have said “but he’s in the middle of a six year contract, he should honour that”, their club then approaches and bids for a player who signed a four year deal less than 2 months into that contract! Woltemade was 1 year into a 4 year deal also, Ekitike signed permanently for Frankfurt on 26/4/2024. Elanga 2 years into 5 the list goes on.
I’m glad it’s all over, delighted with most, disappointed by others and can’t wait to see it pan out. we can now also resume normal service and fill the mailbox and comments section with “Florian Worst, Yoane Missa, Jokeres and Mbumo” barbs depending on weekly results.
Howard (Salah was Arsenal’s best player, sort yourself out Mo) Jones
Anything less than a Liverpool Treble a disaster? Really?
Already since we’ve spent big in this window the narrative is out everywhere that Liverpool must win the treble or it’s a failed season. As if spending big means success. If it did, arsenal would have won more than one fa cup.the truth is spending big doesnt mean success but even if it did, Liverpool aren’t big spenders overall.
In the last 19 transfer windows Liverpool have spent £0 four times. No other Premier League title chaser has done that. We spent less than £30m four times.
So for half of the last 19 windows we’ve spent less than relegated teams.
Taking into account money recovered from sales Liverpool are actually the 7th highest spending club since 2016. Just below the financial giants of…west ham. Since fsg took over we’ve been a sell to buy club. A club run within it’s means and only spending what it generated. When Wenger did that arsenal stopped winning trophies, We’ve won two titles, a champions League, an fa cup and a league cup while living within our means.
In fact we won a title twice spending less than £15m. That’s less than leicester. So we are the only title winners to win a title spending next to nothing, if we win this season after spending the most it makes little difference and it’s telling that it’s only fans of clubs who don’t win anything despite outspending Liverpool pretty much every year who push this narrative we must win.
I agree, and every Liverpool fan agrees. We must win, but not because we spent the most, but because it’s just our expectations. We’ve proven you don’t need to spend to win, it does help significantly but arsenal and Chelsea are active examples that you can still win nothing even while spending big every year.
Lee
Scouse maths for 2025
Wow what a window for Liverpool. Never seen anything like it. Pointing at first-choice targets, saying we want them, and getting them ahead big hitters including City. It was only last year that we couldn’t sign Caicedo or Lavia despite bidding Chelsea money. Not getting Guehi is disappointing but if he is lined up to replace Konate when he Bosmans to Real Madrid at the end of the season then that still seems positive.
This is the first season in the Premier League era that Liverpool have been able to spend the money to add to the squad without having to sell Coutinho first. Goes to shows what a new half a stadium with lovely hospitality suites, a strong marketing department and competition prize money can do. The net spend/having to do more with less argument really is out of the window. Avoiding injuries to Gravenberch and/or VVD and we should be expected to do very well this year.
The one piece of the net spend puzzle that isn’t being taken account of is the loss of Jota. Strikers this season are costing £70m for a good half a season in a foreign league and £125m for a proven premier league striker. So yes we have dropped £400m this window, but a quarter of that is to replace Jota. He may have been insured or there is some other PSR calculation, I don’t know, and we’d all rather celebrate his life rather than talk about the financial implications of his death so I am going to stop there. With Isak signed, from a footballing perspective, we do not need to list him as a missing player although he will be missed.
If net spend is scouse maths, is missing players Gooner maths? A couple of counts of missing players from Norbit Arteta apologist Gooners. All with different counts obviously. One even counting playing their first choice right back in their missing player count! Rice has been guilty of it too.
It really is up to Arsenal and Arteta if they are happy with their approach. Against their direct rivals for places in the Premier League, they are negative, time-wasting, physical and purposefully reliant on Saka delivered corners. They are time wasting, nearly cheaters who are warriors in a box until they turn into randy salmon throwing themselves in the air and on the floor.
Somehow, they had Kerkez on toast whilst not getting past him once and creating zero chances whilst he kept a clean sheet. They tactically set up with the seven players of defence and midfield whose job it was to get the ball and pass it back to the goalkeeper. Who said it was Arsenal’s responsibility to play pretty football? Arsene Wenger did. For 20 years, whilst Chelsea, United and Liverpool won leagues and champions leagues, Arsene Wenger bemoaned physicality and unpretty football whilst polishing their fourth place trophy.
And the Norbit Gooners lapped it even creating their own football tournament settled by not goals, but who made the most passes. Now they are team of cloggers and hoofers preying on set pieces. Instead of counting trophies, they count missing players. Gooner maths.
Alex, South London
RIP to scouse net spend accounting
Extorting £140m from Barcelona for Coutinho didn’t make Van Dijk, Alisson or Naby Keita any cheaper. Nor did it make Klopp any better or worse.
Now we’re at the “well, we’ve earned the money” stage, after a whopping two league titles in 30 years.
Can’t think of another club that used its success to fund player transfers. Completely unheard of.
Anyway, enjoy the shiny new toys and trophies before City/Chelsea figure out how to blow a billion next summer*.
Simon MUFC
*£70m for Jackson… Thanks for that Bayern
No, Liverpool net spend chat still alive and well
Weird of fans of other clubs to bring up net spend after a summer window in which Liverpool’s net spend was lower than the club literally one place below them in the league last season and lower than Newcastle’s over the last five years despite chucking them £125m yesterday.
Micki (don’t let the facts get in the way of a good narrative) Attridge
…Lovely to see Chris, NUFC, taking time out of his day today to send his caring thoughts to Liverpool fans as we are “No longer holders of the net spend trophy”.
Of course, I quickly realised there is no such trophy anyway (I see the humour there) and he was just being silly. But then I realised – Chris is a comedy genius. Slapstick letters could be a new genre that he is very much at the forefront of.
Chris, of course, knows full well that Liverpool have won lots of proper trophies in recent years ( 2 Premier Leagues, a Champions league, a World Club Cup, a UEFA Super Cup and an FA Cup all in the last 6 years, for instance) so his jest really was quite clever.
Chris knows how important trophies are to clubs as his team recently won their first trophy in 56 years (albeit a minor one mostly contested by reserve teams etc) with the League Cup (oops, just realised Liverpool have won 10 of them and two in the last 3 years alone!!) but he clearly also appreciates good humour, hence his email today.
It did prompt me to consider updated “net spend” numbers, though, and I immediately went to the Transfermarkt database for their latest and updated numbers. I was astonished to see that despite selling Isak directly to Liverpool for £125m just yesterday, NEWCASTLE STILL HAVE A HIGHER NET SPEND THAN LIVERPOOL OVER THE LAST 5 YEARS!!
Sorry about all the capital letters, but this irony just has to be the crowning glory of Chris’ joke email. As such, I could not let such clever comedic writing be lost on anyone.
Imagine writing in to fire jibes at serial winners Liverpool’s net spending when your teams’ is even higher and you lost your shit because you’ve just won your first trophy in 56 years!!! And your best player saw this too and went on strike to leave and join those serial winners!!! Absolute slapstick at its’ finest. To write such funny yet seemingly unintelligent emails actually takes a sharp comedic brain.
Anyway, I have to stop, this comedy writing is brilliant. I need to take breath. Cheers, Chris NUFC, you really made a lot of football fans chuckle I reckon.
Brilliant.
Mark Ing, Redcar (still chuckling)
Newcastle eventually transfer winners
It sure took some time but, for all the noise, and for all the Swedish elephant in the room, Newcastle have eventually had a good transfer window.
We finished last season with a mostly good first XI but an aging wider squad, and in need of a goalkeeper who could pass, a fast young centre back, an upgrade at right wing, and quality depth at central midfield and centre forward. That has, eventually, all been delivered. Since January 1st we’ve made the following changes in the first team squad:
Dubravka -> Aaron Ramsdale. 9 years younger, Ramsdale is better with the ball at his feet, mostly a better shot stopper, has everything from relegations to first choice in the champions league for Arsenal. Passing range allows the team to play out far better. Will likely take over as first choice within a year, but if he doesn’t it’s only a £4m loan fee with option. Low risk, big upgrade. At 27 can still improve.
Lloyd Kelly -> Malick Thiaw. 3 years younger, thiaw is faster, a better defender and a better passer. As a long term replacement for Fabian Schar he has time to get up to premier league speed, but already had three years in serie A and the champions league under his belt as well as German caps. At 24, can still improve.
Miguel Almiron -> Antony Elanga. 8 years younger, faster, more two footed, and frankly with a much higher ceiling. 17 goal involvements in the league last year, 14 the year before. At 23 can still improve.
Sean Longstaff -> Jacob Ramsey. 3 years younger. Has Longstaff’s endeavour with a higher technical ceiling, and champions league experience. Adds quality depth. At 24 can still improve (seeing a theme here?).
Callum Wilson -> Yoane Wissa and Alexander Isak -> Nick Woltemade. The elephant.
Isak is – obviously – a brilliant striker with great footwork, dribbling, link up play and finishing. He may well be the world’s best for much of his new contract. He’s also – as Liverpool fans may learn – susceptible to injury, and often flagging by minute 60. Rotating with Ekitike, that’s unlikely to be too much of a problem for Liverpool, but without a fit replacement Newcastle too often had to deal with him fading out of games, or simply being unavailable, when we were crying out for quality depth. As Callum Wilson’s fitness and pace declined in the last two years, as he moved into his mid 30s, there’s no doubt that cost us. Two great strikers for NUFC over the years but not a great pair for availability and fitness, and Isak clearly no longer great for the dressing room.
Meanwhile Wissa was the main man for Brentford – scoring more non-penalty-goals for them than almost anyone in the league. And Woltemade was developing rapidly at Stuttgart, breaking into the first team, winning the DFB Pokal, and top scoring at the U-21 Euros before now becoming arguably Germany’s first choice striker.
Wissa is 4 years younger than Wilson, Woltemade is 2 years younger than Isak, and – yes – the two new boys scored more goals and had more assists last year. In all league and domestic cup competitions Isak had 32 goal involvements – but Wilson had 1 for a total of 33. Meanwhile Wissa had 24 (mostly in the PL), and Woltemade had 19, for a total of 43. Like Isak, Woltemade even scored a key goal in a winning domestic cup final. Isak’s £130m fee almost exactly pays for both.
What’s the takeaway? Once Isak decided to strike, Newcastle would always be weaker at first choice centre forward one way or the other. We hate it but we know it. He’s so good he’s irreplaceable in one person… But his output in a whole season including his injuries and off-days can be replaced in the aggregate.
Newcastle have gone for that by signing one proven PL centre forward with similar output last year, and another still developing with massive potential (as well as being generally massive). That leaves the centre forward department as a whole at least comparably strong, depending of course how Woltemade develops – his ceiling looks extremely high but his limited period as first choice for Stuttgart and Germany makes it hard to know.
There has been a lot – a lot – of noise, claim and counterclaim, and three decent performances overshadowed by an incredible sulk. At the end of it Newcastle have taken a squad that came fifth and won a cup, and upgraded in multiple positions, taken years off the squad average age, and probably improved the overall striker department. We have a core XI of players in their mid and early 20s who can play together for five plus years. And we received the third highest upfront transfer fee of all time for someone who somehow came to hate us, to likely take care of PSR constraints for the next 3 years.
Well done Eddie.
Roger, (bring on Barcelona in a few weeks…), Newcastle in London
READ: What Alexander Isak agent’s nasty 24-word quote reveals about invisible enemies
…I wrote in a few weeks back lamenting the state of Newcastle’s backroom team and how we’d approached the summer.
A few responses essentially relayed the same points I’d been making back to me as gotchas, which was tempting to reply to but I thought I’d wait until the end of the window. I still have the same gripes about sponsorship, stadium, CEO/DoF but at least the CEO looks like it’s getting sorted soon which will send us in the right direction.
It’s been tough. Going for targets we shouldn’t have gone for, not actually going for targets but being told we’d been rejected by them, operating with a cobbled together recruitment team under the dark cloud of the Isak situation. But I’m relatively happy with the team and the fact that Eddie will be coaching them. I really like Ramsey, Thiaw looked sharp against Liverpool, Elanga with Howe’s coaching will improve and we still have Murphy in reserve. Botman is back fit and we have 2 good strikers. We look well positioned to manage the fixtures – case in point being Wolves followed by Barcelona followed by Bournemouth in the space of a few days (though I dread Bournemouth more than Barca).
On Isak, you may think I’m saying this now, but he was immensely frustrating last season outside of his purple patch. He started the season poorly, he ended it disgracefully, half-arsed and clearly at half pace. It’s absolutely fine for us to think he’s disgraced himself, his fans and his manager, but I really doubt he cares. He’s one of the best players I’ve seen at Newcastle but I hope his injury woes continue, he deserves it.
Liverpool fans and associated voices in the media calling us out on perceived hypocrisy on Wissa is also massively tiresome. Do we as fans influence or control who we go after? We’ve had to go after Wissa with few other options, we’ve made reasonable offers for a player with 1 yr left (+1 potentially), and Brentford have had our pants down in the end. No Newcastle fans were lauding his behaviour, we’re ultimately happy we have a ready-made striker but you’ll find no fan happy at how he handled it.
Newcastle fans and geordies in general (plus anyone from the North East) are a fiercely proud, emotional people who wear our heart on our sleeve. It’s been humbling to have our best player taken from us – but it wouldn’t have been as bad had he conducted himself with a bit more dignity, ultimately he’s a massive b*ll end.
So what now? Despite those same voices who pretend to speak for us in the media telling us we’ve failed, I am hopeful for the future. One of the USP’s we have, that others don’t have, is a manager and coaching team who improve every player they have.
Rules were put in place to stop us, players are being aggressively unsettled and taken from us, plastic virgin twitter accounts look to belittle us, but despite all that we will be competing, beating and ruffling most of those teams again and again, and it’s only getting better. Isak and Wilson scored 23 goals last season, we’ve now got two strikers, one of which scored 19 and one of which with Eddie’s coaching could eventually score even more. If Isak hadn’t downed tools we’d be on more points, but we’ll get better, because Howe has proven now what he can do – he’s better than most of your managers, especially given the circumstances.
I maintain my same strategy as last time. Be hated, siege mentality, get into them (which Carragher thinks was a banner made just for them, another eye roll), every home game and away end will sell out, we’ll continue to build – just increase the revenues so we can keep progressing.
Side note: looking at Bournemouth this season, that manager is headed for the very top, he’s bloody brilliant. Keep him away from Man Utd.
Harry, York
Transfer fees are actually illegal
I had this thought this morning. Stick with me because while anyone reading the title (assuming the eds don’t change it) will think I’m talking nonsense by the end I guarantee you’ll agree.
After watching isak move from Newcastle to Liverpool after ‘downing tools’ a thought struck me. Why is this considered a bad thing? Playing football is a job right? And literally every single other job if you wanna change jobs there’s nothing anyone can do to stop you. It’s literally your legal rights.
Imagine for example if you worked at Asda, but Tesco were offering you more money. If Asda told you “yeah you can do work for Tesco but only if Tesco compensate us X amount first” you could and would destroy Asda in a legal court case for violating you freedom to work where you like. That would be deemed 100% illegal in every single job except football.
Now you might say that this is because footballers have a contact, that’s why fees exist to buy them out. Except it’s not is it, otherwise every transfer fee would simply be the remaining value of their contract and isak (assuming a salary of £125k per week) would actually cost about £19.5m since that would be his contract value. But that isn’t what it costs, instead it’s a random figure plucked straight out of the selling clubs ass which as far as I can tell is illegal since the club is saying the player will not be allowed to exercise his free right to work where he pleases UNLESS someone compensates the club for 100x the value of the contract.
Because I was curious I went looking to see if any government of any participating country has ever made a rule or law exempting football from labour laws, and they haven’t. For some reason everyone accepts that football clubs regularly break the law and breach players civil liberties all the time.
Even something like a non compete clause which would state that a player couldn’t sign for a direct rival are pretty rare in Europe and so strictly regulated that they’re rarely used and even more rarely enforced because its hard to win that case at a European court.
Football transfers and the process of restricting players moving where and when they want are illegal.
Lee