Man City ‘spaff’ £250m on nine duds; ‘insanely arrogant’ Klopp, Liverpool must ‘look at themselves’
The Mailbox reckons Manchester City have ‘spaffed’ £250m on nine flops, while this season proves Liverpool and Jurgen Klopp are ‘insanely arrogant’…
Send your thoughts to theeditor@football365.com…
Liverpool, Man City transfer mistakes…
On the subject of transfer mistakes, it is silly to group players who failed to perform alongside players who had unexpected injury problems. Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain was not a transfer mistake in any shape or form based on what he was doing in 2017/18 before his knee injury against Roma. Thiago is less obviously defensible, as he had experienced injury trouble earlier in his career. I could be wrong on this, but it looks like he did not have (m)any injuries for the two seasons prior to transferring to Liverpool in 2020. If that is the case, I would argue this is also a case of a signing being unexpectedly impacted by injuries.
Generally speaking, if rival fans want to say “Liverpool made more than 1 transfer mistake in Keita”, fine, but don’t forget the fact that Liverpool’s transfer recruitment during the Edwards/Klopp era has been superior to every other club’s besides Manchester City’s, and that the success rate was noteworthy enough to inspire various articles about it over the years.
On City’s signings which did not work out as required, I’m not sure Andy’s list is exhaustive. I’m wondering about Nolito, Danilo, Cancelo, Douglaz Luiz, Angeliño, Porro, Ferran Torres, Sergio Gómez, Nunes and Kovacic. I’m definitely not saying each of them belongs on this list, I’m sure that at least a few of them made useful contributions, but adding some of these names would surely be more accurate than claiming the only 3 mistakes were Bravo Mendy and Phillips. The Jack Grealish transfer is probably the best illustration of Manchester City’s financial advantage, though. Regardless of whether he is good enough to play for City, 117m EUR is not a transfer fee any other PL club is paying for a nice-to-have option. Other PL clubs aren’t signing Doku to replace him 24 months later.
Oliver Dziggel, Geneva Switzerland
City waste £25om…
Not to nit-pick Andy D’s assertation that the only signings under Pep to have not worked were Bravo, Mendy and Phillips.
I’d say;
Bravo
Mendy
Phillips
Ferran Torres
Danilo
Nolito
Steffen
Angelino
Sergio Gomez
They all cost about £250,000,000 before taking wages into account. Clubs make mistakes when signing players, even City. Its just that they make better choices than most clubs do – Chelsea for example.
Will CFC (I wish Chelsea had only spaffed £250M away, good lord)
Klopp needs to look at himself
As much as I find the wheels falling off the Klopp and Liverpool media-love bandwagon enjoyable, it did make me ponder one question.
Has there ever been a case where announcing a departure prematurely has worked out well?
While obviously I’m primarily thinking in football, I can’t personally think of a case at any time in any industry that it gives any sort of bounce.
With one exception, and that is where the person is roundly disliked, leaving a situation where the staff can try to showcase themselves for a future boss.
Klopp, his agent and the Liverpool management really need to look at themselves for breaking the news half way through a season, especially one with potential. At least one of them thought it was a good idea while the others seemingly did nothing to stop it.
Or maybe they just thought it would be like announcing a band on a final tour, which is insanely arrogant.
Either way, good times.
Badwolf
FA Cup replay solutions
I have a couple of solutions to mitigate the loss of FA Cup replays. Hopefully they can tip the balance back to the lower league clubs’ favour.
1) Whenever there is a matchup between clubs from different divisions, the club from the lower division will get to choose whether they want to play the fixture home or away, and the opponent has to accede. So, depending on who they draw, a lower league team can choose to take a punt at a home game with the hopes of scoring an upset. Or if they draw someone like Man Utd, they can choose an away day windfall. The power lies with the lower league club.
2) Division of gate receipts.
I propose the following:
Matches between teams in the same division: 50-50
One division apart: 60-40 in favour of the lower division team
Two divisions apart (e.g. League One vs Prem): 70-30
Three divisions apart (League Two vs Prem): 80-20
Four divisions apart (National League vs Prem): 90-10
Five or more divisions apart: 100-0
I know point 1 can be slightly logistically challenging but surely it can be worked out somehow. And point 2 I think is the fairest I can think of that can help benefit the lower league clubs financially in lieu of replays.
Ben
READ MORE: Big Weekend… Manchester City v Chelsea, Everton, Declan Rice, Jurgen Klopp, El Clasico
FA Cup: A hindrance or a prize?
The problem with the FA Cup is that for pretty much every club that has European fixtures the FA Cup just isn’t worth it.
It might be the oldest cup competition in the world but it’s prestige is pretty much limited to the UK. It has the same level of prestige abroad that the DFB Pokal does here. And the prize money isn’t big for any premier league club.
We all have happy shiny memories of the magic of the cup because many moons ago the cup final was the only one broadcast. Now we are exposed to football all the time so the shine isn’t what it used to be. Also, there are few surprises and it’s dominated by ‘the cartel’ (though you can argue it’s mostly been dominated by top clubs).
This means that big clubs see it as a hindrance rather than a prize.
There is a solution.
Take the 4th place Champions League spot…and give it to the FA cup. Imagine how competitive those FA Cup games will be with that on the line. You won’t get Man United refusing to enter so they can play Chivas Regal for the Club World Cup. You probably won’t even get managers complaining about fixtures either.
Secondly, just give the gate receipts of the tie 100% to the smaller club, the big clubs don’t really need it and it’ll mean that smaller clubs don’t need to play for a draw to get the windfall they get it anyway.
Lastly, I’d like to talk about the logic of replays. So if the reason for people supporting replays is – it’s a windfall for smaller clubs, experience against a big team and a good day at a shiny stadium then why did we get rid of endless replays? Because if the logic is sound for one replay it should for infinite replays until someone wins, if right now you’re thinking ‘well that’s stupid’ then….why? Why is it sound logic for one replay but falls apart for further replays?
I think the suggestions I gave above should negate a need for replays (based on the common reasons stated to keep replays) and if the reason is something..something tradition. So what? Tons of things are tradition but we change it over time. There was a time when passback didn’t exist, offside , there was a rime the league had less teams, there was a time when only the fa cup final was broadcast, there was a time when players were prisoners of their club and didn’t earn a real wage and all the money was kept by the club – all ‘traditions’ we’ve moved away from and arguably most are for the better.
If we kept tradition for traditions sake we’d still be curing headaches with trepanning.
Lee
I’m a bit late to the game as I work in a prison and don’t have 24-hour access to my phone but why on earth were the football league clubs not given a vote in the FA Cup?
I’m a Huddersfield fan (soon to be league one) and with a terrible recent history in the FA Cup so not have personal bias but as mentioned in the mailbox recently fa cup replays are a vital source of income for lower league clubs.
The fact the FA didn’t include any of them in the decision-making process is appalling and shows what little they actually think of a) the competition and b) clubs outside the premier league
Fans have to voice their protests and let the FA know how wrong they are, I’m talking of a level with the Super League protests.
Can anyone answer why all the clubs weren’t given a vote?
Can F365 conduct a poll as to whether fans actually want replays or not?
Sara (PGMOL have confirmed it was not a penalty against Bristol so we’ll be getting the 3 points for a win to take us out of the relegation zone will we? Oh and the referee who made that decision has a women’s super league match this weekend? #notbitter)
READ MORE: Premier League shows arrogance and power again with selfish FA Cup replay sop
Where has the optimism gone?
Hello, what the f***. When I was a little kid football used to be about jumping around and having an amazing time. We absolutely loved our victories and our losses were disappointing but you get over that. What has happened to all of the commentary and the comments on this side?
It’s so depressing to see everyone only ever talk about what they’ve thrown away, who has failed to win something.
You must realise there are a lot of teams like Arsenal Liverpool Newcastle even Man U or Spurs just trying to win something and they may not ever win much but still, the fans will have an amazing time. We might get close occasionally and that’s not bad. It’s your turn next.
Especially in the comments section, have any of you ever thought to say great finish, great goal, compared to t*** for missing that one?
Big caveat but have to say Man City are one exception for me, my mate actually my brother sponsored me 50 million to run the marathon.
But still, give everyone else some fucking credit for having a go!
Dave (LFC but not slagging everyone else off, good luck to you fellas)
Spurs enjoying Arsenal cock-ups…
Some years ago when the Dannys, Baker and Kelly, hosted football radio shows, they described South American football as follows. The favourite team of people who quite like football is Brazil, those that broadly get it, go for Argentina but those that really get it the favourite is Uruguay.
Hans, your email re Spurs fans enjoyment of Arsenal cock-ups would indicate that you fall into the first category. You don’t get it, do you?
Sean (In truth I wish I could be the same because irrational commitment has caused me far more pain that pleasure)
