KopTalk.com Forums Football Liverpool FC Forum James Pearce on Transfer comitee

Our director of football isn't one man, its a committee. It doesn't matter who it is, so long as they are concentrated on signing the right types of players. Liverpool have done that quite well in my eyes. I couldn't be further removed from Savage's views on our transfers.

I actually do agree with you that we have bought well enough. Rodgers just needs the time to get things working, its taking longer than normal and he's been unlucky with injuries. Hope they don't mess about bringing in 'potential' talent for strikers though, that would be unforgivable. You can train players for any other positions but a striker is a different animal altogether. This is one department they need proven talent. Telling the mid-fielders to pretend they are strikers is not going take the team very far.

A committee is a quite different thing from just one man (or woman) implementing the strategies of a club or any organization.

That LFC have signed the right players is up for debate - as you say: not a fact.

In my eyes we have overpaid incedibly well for the following players:

£ 22.3 M for Lovren
£ 27.3 M for Lallana
£ 22.0 M for Markovic

In my view about 50 % of the fees above would have been apropriate. If the selling club didn't take a bid at that level, then why didn't we do as we did with Costa, Sanchez, Mkhtariyan, Konoplyanka et al: Move on to the next target!?

To me it seems so strange that we have succeeded in signing average players for over the odds money, whereas we have failed at signing top players for under the odds money. Where is the strategy and logics?

We have recently signed other players though:

£ 17.6 M for Balotelli
£ 15.8 M for Moreno
£ 10.6 M for Can
£ 4.8 M for Lambert

Out of those fees I think Balotelli is a bit too high, and Moreno too. But Can and Lambert is around where they should be.

Next question is the quality added to a squad that as going to play CL football for the first time in a number of years. Remember that we lost our best (only world class) player during the summer.

What kind of quality did we need to sign? We needed to add players to a glaringly thin squad, that was a pure fact. But did we need to add 9 new players - in positions where we were already covered? Or did we need to add quality in perhaps 3 positions (striker, dm and cb)?

I have my opinion, and it is not to add 9 prospects, out of whom half were grossly overpaid for.

I suppose that's what happens when players don't want to come. You don't get the players you want and you pay over-the-top for the others.

A lot of the bigger clubs overpay. To me that is not our main issue. It's the endless turn around of [oops] players.

Take;
Borini - 11m offers nothing
Coates - 7m offered nothing
Aspas - 7-8m offered nothing
Alberto - 7m offered nothing

I don't think we overpaid for Balotelli. We just signed the wrong type of player.

Lallana 25m people say we overpaid by 10m. He offers something to the team, can get goals and could doing that for the next 5 years for us. His performances will add value and help us to CL, more money etc.

The others offer nothing. They are not as expensive but they are the signings we are making over and over again. Overpaying for players who add something to the team is not the problem.

Some really good points, and yes you are correct buying a few top players over the 8 or so utterly mediocre players we did purchase would have been a far better strategy. The important thing here is that this isn't in hindsight, as it was said by many over summer and prior to summer, as well as the fact that we have seen many times with other clubs including our own that the strategy they employed almost never works. The naivety (at best) and stupidity (at worst) of buying players like Lallana + another also ran over buying a potentially top player (something Lallana most definitely is not) or already top player is disgusting when exhibited as often as it has been those at the helm of our club.