KopTalk.com Forums Football Liverpool FC Forum Are we a future selling club.

Been wanting to do a topic for a while and anybody thats paid any attention to some of my previous posts will know that i have been drawing comparisons from the way arsenal run thier ''tight ship'' as to the way FSG are trying to run Liverpool. now im not pro or againt FSG and i kind of agree with thier no nonsense attitude to wasting money on overated and overpaid players. e.g Dempsey siggurdson. Now joe cole etc etc.Lets face it damien comloi got raped in the boardroom so ou cant blame them for wanting to try and be wiser with money. Teams used to add on 5 million because it was us interested in thier player. It seems that we are setting a president of how things will be in the future. E.G NOT GETTING RAPED in the boardroom.

However i have taken some quoted from john henrys open letter a few months ago.

''The transfer policy was not about cutting costs. It was - and will be in the future - about getting maximum value for what is spent so that we can build quality and depth. We are avowed proponents of UEFA's Financial Fair Play agenda that was this week reiterated by Mr Platini - something we heartily applaud. We must comply with Financial Fair Play guidelines that ensure spending is tied to income. We have been successful in improving the commercial side of the club and the monies generated going forward will give us greater spending power in the coming years.''

''We are still in the process of reversing the errors of previous regimes. It will not happen overnight. It has been compounded by our own mistakes in a difficult first two years of ownership. It has been a harsh education, but make no mistake, the club is healthier today than when we took over.

Spending is not merely about buying talent. Our ambitions do not lie in cementing a mid-table place with expensive, short-term quick fixes that will only contribute for a couple of years. Our emphasis will be on developing our own players using the skills of an increasingly impressive coaching team. Much thought and investment already have gone into developing a self-sustaining pool of youngsters imbued in the club's traditions.''

Well done John Henrys publicist.

My problem is: what happens when the likes of Allen,Sterling,Lucas, Agger, Suarez, etc etc develop into better world class players and the big boys come in to sniff around our best young pool of talent.Are we going to have to give in ''for the better of the club''and sell to our rivals like arsenal and like we have with torres or are we going to get our cheque book out and protect our assests and keep our now developed young pool of talents.

I want a tight run ship. We need a tight run ship. It was horrible being in debt and it wasnt even me that was in debt. But at what point do you have to swallow your pride and give in to the big spenders and at what point do you have to protect your best players. Only time will tell but if in 3 or 4 years time we are selling the likes of yesil who we spent a million on and other young talent that we have spent time and effort developing, then we are defeating the object.

It all depends on whether FFP is brought in and enforced. In that scenario it becomes prohibatively expensive for a club to try and buy the likes of Suarez as well as pay him the wages he might demand. He could easily command 150,000 a week of city so a buying him for 40mil and a 7.5mil a year contract over 5 years adds an immediate 15/16mil to expenditure. Teams won't be able to purchase more than 1 of these kind of players a season at most.

FFP also will probably reduce the transfer fees paid for players which reduces our need to sell for a deflated price.

Although we are not a Champions League club anymore, there are probably 5 realistic teams capable of buying Suarez at the minute - City, Chelsea, Barca, Madrid and PSG.

Arsenal were foolish in their handling of players contracts by allowing them to run down and forcing them to sell players. Fabregas and Song are 2 exceptions to this rule but they got good value for them, certainly Fabregas in any case. Arsenal still compete for the Champions League places and have built an entirely new infrastructure based on Wengers ability in the transfer market to get maximum value for a player bought cheaply. It will be very interesting to see their transfer budget in years to come and they could undoubtedly challenge for the league with 1 or 2 buys in CB and a def midfielder

I think it's a difficult one, with the stage we're at our better players i.e Suarez will be looking to better their chances at winning competitions and competing at the higher level.

At the moment we don't look likely to win anything this year, if FSG can get us to the point where we are challenging for top honours then players won't wish to move on but at the moment we are not the best option for these type of players and the longer we stay out of the top 4, the longer we go without European football then the closer we get to becoming merely a stepping stone, a way of players showing their worth to the better clubs. Once they reach the level the top clubs demand they will be off.

This is why I'm no fan of FSG, what this club needs is major investment and so far they don't appear to be the best people to get us there. It's poor management and lousy transfers that have us in this situation.

The best way to counter this or make the best out of a bad situation is to ensure our better players are always tied down to a long contract with a selling clause high, so if the time does come where the top clubs come in for our players we get the best price for them, so long as it's reinvested in suitable (most likely up and coming) talent.

I wouldn't put too much faith in FFp being enforced against the top clubs, hope I'm proved wrong but I can't see them booting any of the key/top clubs out of the CL. Also I think FSG are using FFP as a shield/excuse for not investing to anything like the extent we need.

we have always been a selling club. the skill is to get the highest possible return on our best players and re invest in the team to make it stronger. for example

Keegan(27yrs old) for 500k, replaced by Dalglish (440k) and Hansen(110k), arguably better players.

Souness to sampdoria (650k) and replaced by Molby, Mcmahon and Whelan stepped up. another good deal for a 31 yr old as well.

Rush to Juve(3.2mil) - 26yrs old and replaced by Barnes, Beardsley, aldridge, Houghton (total outlay 4.2mil) creating the most exciting team in LFC history.

all in all we were good at business back then selling players in their prime for high sums and replacing with better younger players for modest fees.

the problem is during the 90s and 00s we failed miserably when selling players. Mcmanamen and owen went for free or buttons and each time we took a little step back.

if FSG are able to return the old days of high value selling and prudent purchasing then we will certainly improve, so far it's been a mixed bag of success and failures.

We are also guilty of selling world class players and not replacing them, Alonso,Owen,Mascherano e.t.c

All our big players signed long contracts this summer, along with our top youngsters.

Suarez, Agger, Skrtel, Sterling, Suso, Wisdom etc

Agger 25m??? Didn't happen, would have if we were a selling club??!!!

Where's the problem???? Sometimes I think our fans go out of their way to find something that isn't there yet to be upset with!!!!

Are you serious? Owen left 9 seasons ago lol under Parry, and Alonso and Mash under G&H

When RM or Baca want a player, what club can hold them really????? Not a club in the world can. United, Spurs and Arsenal have even had to sell their best to them. Why would we be different, especially to a foreign player with no affiliation to England

No sh1t,we have been replacing good players with crap ones for 20 years.

That's assuming the good old newspaper were telling the truth....