Liverpool to accept ‘substantial loss’ on £100m-plus man next season

Florian Wirtz probably has to return to the Bundesliga because Liverpool just doesn’t suit him and that’s fine.

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Florian Wirtz is done at Liverpool
Not to dwell on Wirtz for too long, but yeah, the Premier League doesn’t look for him. He’s just not physical enough and needs a lot more time than he’s getting to look as good as his (previous) reputation. Substantial loss incoming once the board accepts that.

When it comes to Barcola, yoinks, we might have well signed Usain Bolt. Early days though. We know Isak can play in the Premier League however . 1 out of 3 on our £100 million + signings? Yeah that’s c**p, isn’t it.

Despite the underlying point I’m eventually going to make, I do think Wirtz is done. Barcola though, maybe not? Barcelona spent insane money on Dembele to replace Neymar and it just did not work. Eventually they just had to give up and accept it, he just wasn’t that good.

Imagine the surprise then when the very same Dembele turned out to be the best player in Europe at PSG. Certainly you wouldn’t have predicted that.

There is a *right* league for these guys. For Dembele it’s Ligue 1. For Wirtz it’s the Bundesliga. It’s not a criticism, just a fact. No one forced us to pay so much for him and if there was a chorus of people against the signing, I certainly missed them. He looked quality, he is really, just not in the Premier League.

Barcola can work out for us, he’s got plenty of time. His confidence most likely isn’t that high and that makes such a difference. A couple of assists, a long range rocket or two and he’ll be an utterly different player. Hopefully.

Or he’ll need to go back to an easier League. Wirtz does, Dembele did, maybe Barcola doesn’t.

Then two thirds of our huge signings have worked out, everyone is more or less happy and we can just stop making them.

Those prices are a millstone around anyone’s neck.
James, Liverpool

No, Florian Wirtz needs more time
I must say it does get difficult to defend Florian at the moment but I still think it’s too early to pass down judgement on him. This time last year some said it was a mistake buying Isak instead of a defender but it doesn’t seem like a mistake now, does it?

The solution can’t be as simple as benching him for Gravenberch and playing Szoboslai in his place otherwise Slot would probably still be around as he did revert to that on occasion last season but with little success.

That midfield might have won us the league but the impending departure of Trent meant change was inevitable. The transition from having a fullback control our play to a no. 10 has been trickier than expected but we can’t go back. Slot tried to with the Szobo experiment and it failed.

Iraola has been tinkering with with the squad for a while but I think he’s stumbled upon our strongest line up yet.

Allison looks reassuring in goal once again. Our fullbacks still can’t put a decent cross in but Araujo at least tones down the nonsense that was happening that side. Jacquet looks like a massive upgrade on Konate who seemed lucky not to be sent off every game.

Macca no longer looks lost and somehow seems to be in the right place to stop attacks despite his limited pace.

Szobo is still learning his new deeper role. Gakpo seems like a new player. Barcola is the Luis Diaz replacement and should be a lot of fun. Isak is the poacher we needed.

Florian needs to improve but he needs to build connections with his teammates like the manager said and he can’t do that from the bench.
Flo hasn’t set the world alight yet but it’s not like he was given the platform to do so. He was playing in pretty much a dysfunctional team from day one. Besides, we are only 5 games into the season under a new manager.
Philip Correa

READ: Florian Wirtz is ‘nothing’ and Liverpool aren’t much more because of him

No, Wirtz is worse
Nice to see Shunt in the Mailbox continue to deflect away from Wirtz. You see, it’s not that he’s absolutely powderpuff and thus completely ineffective, it’s that the team isn’t set up for him… How many properly world class players need the entire side specifically structured around them? And if you did wave a magic wand and have this mythical team around him, do you think he’s suddenly going to become prime de Bruyne/Zidane/Rui Costa?

You’re right, if he went to Bayern or PSG he might suddenly look great… but it’ll be against Mainz, or Le Havre. He’ll deliver absolutely nothing in the latter stages of the Champions League. Why? Because he’s just not good enough. Any Liverpool fan still kidding themselves that there’s an elite player in there is in denial. As a United fan, I know. Kagawa and Sancho were exactly the same. They tore up the Bundesliga but looked small, slow and weak in the Premier League. Apparently we needed to “Free Shinji”. We didn’t, he just wasn’t good enough.

It’s nice to see the media finally coming to terms with this, because he’s had an incredibly easy ride in comparison to other big money flops so far. Carragher was entirely right as to why; people had decided he was brilliant before he’d kicked a ball for Liverpool, and people don’t like to be proved wrong.

He’s rubbish, move to the acceptance phase before his “loan with a €35m option to buy” move to Dortmund in the summer/Jan 28.
Lewis, Busby Way

Do running stats matter?
Should any opinion be taken from average distance covered per game?

Liverpool are bottom of this league with our 4 bedfellows being City (good) and Villa, Spurs and Utd (not so good) and with Arsenal top.

What does it mean? Fitness issues, structure, motivation, nothing as we’re only 5 games in so why are you even writing this you clown?

I’m leaning towards the latter but thought it just about worth asking the question on our way into the interminable international break.
Aidan, Lfc (btw liked Alex’s missive t’other day…not sure I fully understood it but a good read…and he’s a mate)

Man Utd poor but Mainoo the man
I get the feeling Carrick looked at his team against Fulham entering around the 70th minute thinking that if the best 11 available to him that has started the game couldn’t breach the worst team in the league, how on earth would our squad players manage it? No wonder he was reluctant to make changes there was no depth on that bench. Mount, Zirkzee and Dorgu as senior attacking options with Shea Lacey unused after a cracking goal in the cup last week.

People had us top 4 mainly, some tipped us for the title the idiots, I, and my fellow fans dismissed them as….well….idiots. But top 4 would have been realistic after a 3rd place finish and a couple of midfield reinforcements you’d think. It’s already looking bleak, 10 points off the top after 5 games is truly awful especially given the start we were handed, it really couldn’t have been easier. Hull Ipswich Everton Fulham and City with 10 men for an hour!!!

It’s now time to see if Carrick has what it takes at this level, some were split on whether he should be given the full time gig, but after last season you’d have to reward the results so I’ll get behind him. Let’s see what he can do.

Also, does anyone watch Kobbie Mainoo and think wow what a fkn player? Seriously, watch him receive the ball in space, first thought is a forward pass into feet, when receiving under pressure his ball retention is superb, athletic, strong, good tackler but not great, probably that and goals/assists need improving to maybe a few per season, but for a deep lying midfielder I think he’s absolutely class and would love to one day hear why Ten Hag and Amorim binned him off.
Gibbo (MUFC – down under)

Not a Ratcliffe fan
How the hell can a gormless pr*ck like Jim Ratcliffe manage to get approved to buy a premier league club? And why does it have to be my club?

I’m sure there are lots of English BIllionaires, or should i say former English Billionaires, as they all seem to now be holed up in tax havens, hiding their money from being used to help the country that they are so keen on letting everyone know they love, but seem to do 2/5ths of f*** all to help in any way.

But why does one of them have to own (25% of) the club i love, cherish and lose countless amounts of sleep just so i can watch them be mediocre?

I mean imagine owning one of the most marketable and profitable clubs in the history of professional sports, and somehow doing worse than a bunch of Florida diamond dealers.

And how can we not be mediocre?

We have a billionaire with no self awareness and no ability to take responsibility for his failures. A Man who claims to want ‘Alpha’s’ but only hires yes men. Yes men whose inability to focus on more than one position at a time makes me wonder if they could walk and chew gum without falling A over T. But luckily for them, there job only requires them to kneel down with lips puckered, and say ‘yes Sir Jim, you’re right Sir Jim, it tastes like sherbet, Sir Jim’

But as they say, like attracts like. and an owner with his head up his arse, is likely to hire people who are willing to shove their own heads up his arse.

Yet somehow, the man who can’t even find a hairbrush, thinks he has the answers to his (former) country’s woes.

But just like at Man U, there are no answers. Just general complaints that you could copy and paste from any right wing wanker filled chat room. and instead of it being the lunch lady, or the boot studder, it’s immigrants and people on welfare, that are somehow the reason why that twig armed tosspot had to move to Monaco.

And I will end by pointing out something that is obvious to anyone with half a brain and a modicum of common sense. Sir Jim Ratcliffe is not an ‘Alpha’ male. He might not even make it to ‘Beta’.

He is just a rich arsehole with a fragile ego, who has enough money to buy enough losers to tell him how great he is, and how all his problems are someone else’s fault.

There is a bloke like that in the White House. There is a bloke like that running X and Meta, and there is a bloke like that who owns a fair portion of the media landscape in both the UK and the Divided States of America.

and when i say bloke i mean it in the Australian sense of calling someone a bloke, because you can’t call them a ‘see you in the Northern Territory.’

I love my club and have done so for 30 plus years. But I don’t like it right now. It’s run and owned by people who I have genuinely developed a hatred of.

I’d almost take a sports washing oil barron, willing to spend billions to distract from various crimes against humanity, over some tax dodging ‘Sir’ who may have the title, but in reality wouldn’t be fit to shine the boots of a real Knight.

But hey, that’s the joys of following a sport where private ownership is the norm. We’re not ‘fans’ to these people. We are consumers. Our job is to fill their coffers and shower them with praise.

And until common sense becomes a prerequisite for owning a football team, we are all emotional slaves to these third rate bond villains, who take all the tax breaks they can get, then send all the profits into their off shore bank accounts.

The f***ing wankers.
Cliff, Australia

How Man Utd have f***ed it
1. They failed to address the left back position. Keeping faith in a very big Liability (Luke Shaw). They kept on chasing Lewis Hall but the best alternative could have been Malick Diouf.

2. They ignored a great defensive midfielder in Manu Kone just to go and spend 50m in Andre Santos and decide not to play him.

3. I had a conversation with a friend a couple of weeks ago. He is an Arsenal fan and he says the problem with United is that they fail to get rid of waste and they still continue to recruit badly. How do you have players like Dorgu, Dalot and Maguire in such a big club in 2026? What is the point of Andre Santos?

4. Refusing to sell Rashford to Barcelona at a reduced price. Just for United to reintegrate him in the squad and make the team worse. Imagine if they could have just sold him and bought Adeyemi.

Things will just get worse, the sooner they get rid of Carrick the Better. I would prefer Conte as a replacement. He is a no nonsense manager who will try to get the best out of the squad and eventually get rid of the waste.
Ticco, Windhoek

Man Utd fans might be liars but the club is lying too
Interesting perspective from Dale May which I think probably disregards history a little bit.

I am pretty confident that Mikel Arteta would have been fired by Arsenal if large swathes of his early years were played out in stadiums with fans in them rather than the sadness of Covid era Premier League football…

Not the point I want to make though. I’m not sure the biggest issue with Man Utd at the moment is impatience from the fans. As I see it, the issue continues to be Man Utd trying to take shortcuts to get back to where they think they belong. So instead of taking their medicine for a few years, what they do EVERY SINGLE SUMMER is go out and spend big on prime age players, for more money than they’re worth, and expect that in doing so they’ll cover up the multiple holes in their squad. This is on the people who run the club, not the fans.

It seems pretty clear that Utd are working in a restricted financial situation at the moment and as a result they’re basically trying to fix one area of the team each summer in the hope that eventually it all comes together. The problem with this approach is that because they spent a whole bunch of money buying prime age players in their attack last year, by the time they’ve got round to fixing their defence, they’ll probably have to fix the attack again and the cycle continues.

Basically, Utd need to burn it all down, take their medicine as a Europa League (ish) team for 3-4 years and go again. But because of what they were, what they think they are, they’ll never take the pain they’ve so obviously needed to endure for the last 10 years and so they cycle will just continue.
Simon, London

Groundhog day for Spurs
International breaks invariable arrive post a Spurs loss. They used to come at a time we blew going top, or breaking into THE TOP FOUR but those were different times.

There is a lethargy that comes with being increasingly, and obviously, pony. I feel it as a shoulder shrug of “yeah, of course that happened” which leads me to RDZ’s replacement, because obviously.

There’s a repetition to this too; it’ll be some other well paid sap who thinks they can be the one to final settle the club into something coherent. They can’t.

One transfer window wasn’t, and shouldn’t, be enough to solve the issues we’ve brought upon ourselves, however it really ought to be enough to be a little less wimpy, spineless and, to a man, individually capable of being really very stupid.

Alas….
Dan Mallerman

An ode to the thunderb**tard
I recently took a week off work and decided, pretty much on a whim, to head to Amsterdam with a couple of mates. My therapist had also suggested I take a proper break from work, so who was I to argue?

This past weekend was the final weekend of the trip, and one of my friends suggested we hit up a café and try what I’ll call, for the remainder of this email, a “special cake” that makes you fly.

Seemed like a perfectly sensible way to spend a Saturday afternoon.

I timed it so we’d be done in time for Tottenham v Aston Villa, with the hope that by kick off I’d be somewhere between mildly relaxed and Superman.

By the time Emi Buendía scored that absolute thunderbolt, I was in the clouds.

And it got me thinking about what I consider the greatest type of goal in football:

The thunderb*****d.

Don’t get me wrong. I love a tap in at the end of a beautifully executed team move. The sort of goal Barcelona used to score for fun during their tiki-taka days. Ten passes, everyone moving like they’ve been programmed by NASA, goalkeeper eventually picking the ball out of the net.

Lovely.

But nothing beats someone standing 25, 30 yards out and absolutely leathering the thing into the top corner.

That’s the beauty of it. Nobody expects it.

Not the defenders. Not the goalkeeper. Not the bloke in row 14 who’s halfway through a pie. Sometimes, judging by the reaction, not even the bloke who actually hit it.

Everyone is left with the same “what the f*** just happened?” expression.

Think about Szoboszlai’s recent one against Spurs (they all seem to be against Spurs). Just under 30 metres, roughly 32 yards, and absolutely ripped.

And if you tell me you knew he was going to do that before he hit it, you’re a liar.

It’s also my favourite type of goal to score on FIFA. There’s that beautiful 50/ 50 element to it. Pull it off, and you’re a god for about five seconds. Blast it into the stands, and you’re sitting there wondering why you’ve just tried to recreate Roberto Carlos with a player who has 61 shooting.

That’s what I love about the thunderb*****d.

Risk. Reward. Chaos.

So what’s your favourite type of goal?
Gaptoothfreak, Man. Utd., New York (It’s basically football’s version of the slam dunk.)

Chapter and Merse
“You can’t keep scoring loads of goals to win football matches,” said Paul Merson, while explaining why he thinks there is “no way” Manchester City will win the league.

Having read that quote from Merson, it’s now making all kinds of sense why his managerial career began and ended at Walsall.
Ant MUFC (no offence, Walsall)