4 minutes ago, mojo said:

sad day 😢

Been sad around the club since they forced our beloved owner out.

I'm not going to point fingers and I'm going to be positive about the situation because there's nothing we can do about it. Hopefully lessons will be learned from this whole dire situation, so much has gone wrong I wouldn't know where to start. 

I'm now distancing myself from any rumours regarding our players if they're gone I'll say bye at the end of the season til then they wear the shirt they fight for the badge in my mind. If they're not trying hard enough they get benched assuming TT thinks this way I would expect he does. 

Come the summer we will have an expensive rebuild on our hands. It's been coming for years and with new owners it's time to embrace the change. Complete shake up throughout the squad. Players can leave on a free others can get sold. We build around a core of players that clearly are talented and we switch to a back 4 no more 5 defenders at the same time Chillwell and Reece are capable to do what they do at wb at fb if we have 2 solid cbs and a good dm to shield.

3 hours ago, charierre said:

He’s also a kid. As good as he might be in the future, he has yet to play any minutes in the Premier League. It’s unfair to pile expectations on him at this stage in his career, he needs to develop at a pace suitable to him.

Ofcourse but from everything I'm seeing and hearing about him he has teenage Varane vibes.

We shouldn't rely on him but I think a signing (Kounde) and his promotion will strike a good balance, especially If Azpi stays one more year and/or James at RCB happens more often.

1 hour ago, Argo said:

Ofcourse but from everything I'm seeing and hearing about him he has teenage Varane vibes.

We shouldn't rely on him but I think a signing (Kounde) and his promotion will strike a good balance, especially If Azpi stays one more year and/or James at RCB happens more often.

I have a feeling the days of 65mill on random defenders and huge money signings will be over. After Lukaku and Kepa cannot say that disappointments me.

We have an amazing academy. Just need our coach to believe in them and our fans to have patience with them and not expect them to be VVD or Salah right away.

Our cycle at the top is over for now imo. We need to rebuild and that will take time and patience.

1 hour ago, LongtimerLurker said:

I'm not going to point fingers and I'm going to be positive about the situation because there's nothing we can do about it. Hopefully lessons will be learned from this whole dire situation, so much has gone wrong I wouldn't know where to start. 

I'm now distancing myself from any rumours regarding our players if they're gone I'll say bye at the end of the season til then they wear the shirt they fight for the badge in my mind. If they're not trying hard enough they get benched assuming TT thinks this way I would expect he does. 

Come the summer we will have an expensive rebuild on our hands. It's been coming for years and with new owners it's time to embrace the change. Complete shake up throughout the squad. Players can leave on a free others can get sold. We build around a core of players that clearly are talented and we switch to a back 4 no more 5 defenders at the same time Chillwell and Reece are capable to do what they do at wb at fb if we have 2 solid cbs and a good dm to shield.

Last time a player leaving left upset is Zola.

From there on in Robben and Hazard going to a bigger club or others deciding to go is simply fine by me. If you dont want to be here, leave. I shed no tears over Toni, AC or anyone else.

48 minutes ago, axman2526 said:

Last time a player leaving left upset is Zola.

From there on in Robben and Hazard going to a bigger club or others deciding to go is simply fine by me. If you dont want to be here, leave. I shed no tears over Toni, AC or anyone else.

Pretty sure Mata wasn’t happy either

I think he meant ‘left me upset …’, not the player.  He just missed putting the word ‘me’ in his sentence.  Otherwise, the rest of his post makes no sense.

58 minutes ago, Phillip said:

I think he meant ‘left me upset …’, not the player.  He just missed putting the word ‘me’ in his sentence.  Otherwise, the rest of his post makes no sense.

You are correct Sir. I did miss the me. 

 

Reports are Toni's last offer from the club was at 230k a week and with good signing on fee and agent fees, however Toni wanted more basic wage and 10mill signing on fee and 10mill for his agent, his brother. 

Happy the club did not bow to these demands if true. He is not worth that to keep.

Seems strange Rudiger waited this long to make a decision on his future, then decided to make it just as our preferred new owners are on the verge of being announced.

Rudiger could quite easily have started informal negotiations with the prospective new owners as soon as the above announcement is made, with the owners likely being highly motivated to tie him up as an early win to impress fans.

4 minutes ago, Fatty_Speeding said:

Seems strange Rudiger waited this long to make a decision on his future, then decided to make it just as our preferred new owners are on the verge of being announced.

Rudiger could quite easily have started informal negotiations with the prospective new owners as soon as the above announcement is made, with the owners likely being highly motivated to tie him up as an early win to impress fans.

They can do that by sacking Lukaku.

14 minutes ago, axman2526 said:

They can do that by sacking Lukaku.

Well that should happen irrespective of the Rudiger or any other situation.

This is comical and the board has been extremely poor at re-signing our players and this has cost us.

we fail to give assurances around squad status and finances and wait too long. I am not saying we need to agree to player demands but surely can’t wait so long that we are losing first team players for free.

so in reality we will end up losing Tomori, Guehi, Lamptey, Livraminto, AC,Azpi,Toni for less than 60 mil. To buy a single defender in kounde for more.

on Toni he is reportedly at 90k per week I don’t blame him for trying to get the most for himself and family. 

Edited April 24, 20224 yr by Jangz

59 minutes ago, Jangz said:

This is comical and the board has been extremely poor at re-signing our players and this has cost us.

we fail to give assurances around squad status and finances and wait too long. I am not saying we need to agree to player demands but surely can’t wait so long that we are losing first team players for free.

so in reality we will end up losing Tomori, Guehi, Lamptey, Livraminto, AC,Azpi,Toni for less than 60 mil. To buy a single defender in kounde for more.

on Toni he is reportedly at 90k per week I don’t blame him for trying to get the most for himself and family. 

It's honestly embarrassing for a club as large as us to leave it until the player's contract is in its last year before resigning them. Especially someone like Rudiger who is one of the best defenders in the world. This just makes Madrid stronger and us weaker.

I don't agree with those saying the clubs failure to renegotiate contracts is embarrassing.

These players are holding clubs to ransom and it simply has to stop. Rudi wanting £200k + per week, is crazy. 

We messed up in the past by paying stupid salary's to players like lukaku, werner, kante (albeit he has been world class), kepa and CHO - to name a few. It has to stop somewhere, and if the club think that players are not worth what they are asking , then credit to them for stopping it.

 

23 minutes ago, nonotnowjim said:

I don't agree with those saying the clubs failure to renegotiate contracts is embarrassing.

These players are holding clubs to ransom and it simply has to stop. Rudi wanting £200k + per week, is crazy. 

We messed up in the past by paying stupid salary's to players like lukaku, werner, kante (albeit he has been world class), kepa and CHO - to name a few. It has to stop somewhere, and if the club think that players are not worth what they are asking , then credit to them for stopping it.

 

Whilst I agree totally with your sentiments on wages being far too much and broadly with the clubs desire to reduce the wage bill. Unfortunately the genie is well and truly out of the bottle, at this point we have to decide were our aspirations lie. The club has grown beyond all recognition in the past 20 years via massive investment in the team that in turn fuels the commercial side. If we want to remain at the top table,player investment is imperative, top players demand top wages or will move elsewhere. The clubs who have the biggest pockets have a tendency to be at the top of the food chain. 
It’s interesting that reports are surfacing of there being doubts from prospective new owners in how they can make a profit from their shiny new investment. Maybe we will have to lower the wage bill and our aspirations to be at the top, given the  ground restrictions. We clearly won’t be able to continue running at a loss, investment companies don’t do vanity projects.

22 minutes ago, nonotnowjim said:

I don't agree with those saying the clubs failure to renegotiate contracts is embarrassing.

These players are holding clubs to ransom and it simply has to stop. Rudi wanting £200k + per week, is crazy. 

We messed up in the past by paying stupid salary's to players like lukaku, werner, kante (albeit he has been world class), kepa and CHO - to name a few. It has to stop somewhere, and if the club think that players are not worth what they are asking , then credit to them for stopping it.

 

I agree. Every club in the major leagues would benefit from a salary cap. Very few clubs, especially the big ones, are able to break even, sometimes even in a successful trophy-winning season. The whole thing is totally out of control. Agents is my bug bear. Why do the clubs have to pay these parasites ? If the players want to use an agent, then the player should pay for them, not the club.

Where we have screwed up, is in letting talented homegrown players like Tomori, Guehi, Lamptey, Livramento leave for relative peanuts because there is no perceived clear path into the first team. There is perhaps some mitigation for the latter two, as they had James in their way (I still think there should have been a way to keep them), but Tomori was effectively frozen out (most of us didn't understand why Lampard did that), and Guehi didn't really ever get a chance, despite promising pre-season appearances. As academy graduates, they would not cost as much in wages as an expensive foreign recruit, nor would they necessarily perform any worse, and they'd have the "Chelsea DNA", and correct motivation etc for having come up via Cobham.

Tomori, Guehi, Chalobah, Colwill, James, Livramento, Lamptey, Chilwell would have been a great home-grown nucleus for the defence for a decade.

Anyway, that ship has sailed unfortunately ... 

Ok reflection I think I’m more gutted that he’s leaving for free rather than him actually leaving. This is another £40m+ we’re going to have to take out of the transfer kitty we need for the rest of the squad.

6 hours ago, Frankie8Lampard said:

It's honestly embarrassing for a club as large as us to leave it until the player's contract is in its last year before resigning them. Especially someone like Rudiger who is one of the best defenders in the world. This just makes Madrid stronger and us weaker.

He isn’t even close to being one of the best in the PL. He is playing in a system that protects him.

 

6 hours ago, Frankie8Lampard said:

It's honestly embarrassing for a club as large as us to leave it until the player's contract is in its last year before resigning them. Especially someone like Rudiger who is one of the best defenders in the world. This just makes Madrid stronger and us weaker.

Well Rudiger has had a contract offer on the table for the last 2 years, kept moving the post and stringing the club along when he had every intention of moving as a free agent. That is not on the club.

Still rumours. Not over til it's over, anything can still happen. #believe #hustle

35 minutes ago, ducavis said:

He isn’t even close to being one of the best in the PL. He is playing in a system that protects him.

 

Well Rudiger has had a contract offer on the table for the last 2 years, kept moving the post and stringing the club along when he had every intention of moving as a free agent. That is not on the club.

Strongly disagree. He's definitely up there in the top 7 or so in the PL. Our loss against Arsenal showed how much we were missing without his presence in the backline.

Also he was probably on his way out two years ago when Lamps left him out in the cold so it makes sense why signing a contract at that point wouldn't have been the wisest of ideas. Since Tuchel came he's been one of our best defenders and has clearly shown he deserves an upgrade in his contract. 

16 hours ago, axman2526 said:

Last time a player leaving left upset is Zola.

From there on in Robben and Hazard going to a bigger club or others deciding to go is simply fine by me. If you dont want to be here, leave. I shed no tears over Toni, AC or anyone else.

When did I say I didn't want to be here? I said I'm not reading any more rumors on this that means I'll be avoiding the news sites like BBC/Sky Sports etc and ofc Twitter.

Edit: reading your comment back I'm not sure if you're talking about Rudi or me leaving but if you did mean Rudi then I completely agree, only player in recent seasons I've been disappointed to lose was Hazard.

Edited April 24, 20224 yr by LongtimerLurker

27 minutes ago, LongtimerLurker said:

When did I say I didn't want to be here? I said I'm not reading any more rumors on this that means I'll be avoiding the news sites like BBC/Sky Sports etc and ofc Twitter.

Edit: reading your comment back I'm not sure if you're talking about Rudi or me leaving but if you did mean Rudi then I completely agree, only player in recent seasons I've been disappointed to lose was Hazard.

Yeah I meant Rudi. I don't give a toss if he has decided to leave. He could have waited it out, he has not. Last one that upset me leaving was Franco. I wanted him to retire here.

2 hours ago, timetowaste said:

Ok reflection I think I’m more gutted that he’s leaving for free rather than him actually leaving. This is another £40m+ we’re going to have to take out of the transfer kitty we need for the rest of the squad.

Nah we got Levi Colwill already.

6 hours ago, nonotnowjim said:

I don't agree with those saying the clubs failure to renegotiate contracts is embarrassing.

These players are holding clubs to ransom and it simply has to stop. Rudi wanting £200k + per week, is crazy. 

We messed up in the past by paying stupid salary's to players like lukaku, werner, kante (albeit he has been world class), kepa and CHO - to name a few. It has to stop somewhere, and if the club think that players are not worth what they are asking , then credit to them for stopping it.

 

I think two points-

1) if we (club) thinks he and AC are top players than that is the going rate of you look around. It’s not about them holding the club to ransom.

2) if we thought they aren’t that great. we should have sold them at the start of the season or put a deadline for their contract acceptance else we sell them. Because we (club) think they are not that great hence replaceable. This is just naive that we will end up losing both for free.

Yes salaries are high but the decision making authorities have cost us a cool 60mil pound which is 2% of our valuation. In a  real world people lose their jobs for this.

3 hours ago, timetowaste said:

Ok reflection I think I’m more gutted that he’s leaving for free rather than him actually leaving. This is another £40m+ we’re going to have to take out of the transfer kitty we need for the rest of the squad.

Signing 45m + 120k/week on a 5/6 year contract roughly equals 230k/week on a 4 year deal + 20m in signing/agent fees. The former also offers resale value. If Liverpool won't pay Salah that, why should we pay a DEFENDER.