KopTalk.com Forums Football Liverpool FC Forum Stop kidding yourself...

I don't want to be totally pessimistic as we are hopefully on a good run at the moment and things could seem much better come 5.45 tomorrow. My point is clear. Any my question to those ever optimists, what do you think our big players are going to do when the summer comes round again and we don't have

A) champions league football.
B) considerable improvement in league position.
C) competing In the transfer market.

They will want to be at the best teams in the world and its natural for them to not be loyal in a modern game. We have been lucky with skrtel agger and Suarez committing their futures but after this season If the 3 above have not happened the likes of them will be looking at the exit door. We shouldn't be a selling club and it was widely rumoured that if the right offers came in for agger and skrtel that we would of already sold them. Even when agger in particular said he wanted to stay. These Americans have to earn the trust of the players as much if not more than the fans because if we are to keep Suarez and co then they need help with the same calibre of players around them.

At least we have them all on long contracts at the moment, which means we will not sell them for £ 1 M like with Kuyt.

If they want to leave then who can blame them. The big issue then is us getting paid properly which we will. I see problems with replacing them though, but it's not impossible. It will set our evolvement back a year or two but that's what happens in a club if the owner's ambitions don't match the players dito.

It's sad, but frankly I don't care that much anymore. What happens will happen and I will still be a proud LFC supporter.

If we can get Swansea, Newcastle or Everton scouts than maybe well be able to replace them.

unfortunately whats happend to us is the normaly procedure for Clubs who cant stay competative at the top. The problem we face is that we are in a catch 22 situation, our best players want to leave because they will never play Champions League and the players we need to try and get us into the Champions League wont come because we are not playing in the competition. The other problem we face is that the big Clubs will always take our best players when they reach a certain level or standard, this will be evident once Sterling reaches it at both Club and International level, again it's virtualy impossible to build when once your better players get to a standard they are poached by bigger fish, so you remain in that in between state of play. I think the only way to get around this is to be taken over much like City where, no top stars wanted to sign for them so instead they had to compromise that by paying the players obscene wages in order to atract them, this is why the likes of big Yaya, David Silva and Super Mario all ended up signing for 200k a week or more, this was the only way to attract them...

Maybe we will do those things

Yeah, I agree with you on that Joe.

What would help a bit for us is better scouting and negotiating jobs being done at LFC.

The few bob we (the owners) have available for signings shouldn't go to players like Borini, Henderson, Downing, Carroll, and the likes. We must (really must) find gems like Michu for the kind of money (around £ 2 M) Swansea seem to be doing regularly.

If we started making those kind of deals on a regular basis it wouldn't matter that much if the big boys came in and took our best players away from us.

Agree with most of this, it's down to the owners to show some investment next month as wemove so slowly, the summer might be too late.
Someone's going to miss out on CL football, but not everyone will lose their best players. It's probably naive but players should want to propel their team into the CL, not have it as a given. If we finish mid-table, we probably can't blame them so it's down to the owners again - and scouting department of course.

I feel like this gets said every window, but this window's a particularly important one.

I think there are some really good players our there but as you say, its wether our scouting network can find them, Michu looks real quality at such a young age. I think this way of progress might be our best way of doing things, dont think it would send out very good signs if we started signing players like Sturridge or Walcott who are both being turfed out of there clubs because they both are demanding 100k a week, we have already had our fingers burnt with obscene wages with Cole and Sahin and we dont want to be seen as a Club where players go just because we pay stupid wage amounts, besides that we would be spending beyond our means because we cant offer Champions League but still pay Champions League wages...

Michu is 25 going 26 wouldn't say hes "at such a young age". I'd take him though very good player so far.

I believe that our 1st eleven is good enough to get top 4 but we lack depth and this is where we fall away when we have injuries or suspensions. The first eleven can get us to CL football IMO but FSG need to invest in squad depth so we have cover when we do get injuries or suspensions.
Sure we do need to invest up front but if our squad wasn't so thin, we would be in a better place and be able to rotate. I honestly believe now that we are a chance to get fourth spot,(admitedly a few weeks ago i thought we couldn't) so if we do, then we will be in a stronger position to attract better players. LFC will be more attractive because players will see they will actaully play and not just sit on the bench and the players we have now will want to stay because they are the ones who will have earned us a CL spot.
The race for 4th, even possibly 3rd, is wide open at the moment and i think there are 6 sides who could fill both those positions.