Liverpool transfer guru Michael Edwards gets all the love. This is your page so send your mails to theeditor@football365.com
All hail Michael Edwards
After the Leeds game, absolute delight for the neutrals, any Liverpool fan would have been worried. Sure, Van Dijk had an Arsenal hangover from last season. The full backs weren’t marauding ahead (credits Bielsa).
But were the team just… Yawning? Sans Salah, did some of our players feel that it was a pre-season friendly? Can’t blame them, with these ridiculous situations.
Heading into the Chelsea game, me and the boys were sweating whether the team would get out of their slumber in time or would it require a berserker Salah to get points over Frank’s overhauled Chelsea who just played FIFA in the transfer market.
Then a beautiful human being in Michael Edwards delivers two absolute stellar signings.
The league champions have surely got a proper kick up the ass now. Turns out Thiago is eligible for the Chelsea game. I’m giggling again.
Mihir Nair, Mumbai, LFC. (A lot can happen in 24 hours, don’t lose hope ManU fans, just don’t do a Memphis with Sancho, okay?)
…It’s amazing how in the space of 24 hours, Liverpool’s window went from slightly concerning to absolutely excellent. If you’d asked me at the start of the summer what I would have liked to see us add, I would have said: left-back cover, more spark in midfield and strength and depth up front. That’s exactly what we have now.
The signing of Thiago really is incredible. He will add an extra dimension to our midfield, one that was lacking at times last season. More exciting than that though is that this is one of the best midfielders in the world. I can’t think of another time when Liverpool have signed a player that is considered one the game’s elite players. Torres is probably closest, or perhaps even Alisson but neither came with the equivalent reputation of Thiago. Perhaps the most thrilling part of the whole deal though is that Thiago wanted to come to us. He heard Liverpool were interested, turned down a new contract offer and had his heart set on Anfield. It would have been inconceivable 2 or 3 years ago and shows where we are as a club at the moment.
Just as I was texting my mate last night, saying all this and how great it was to sign Thiago, the news of Jota broke. I think this is a fantastic signing, exactly what we need. Premier League experience, won’t expect to start every week, can make an impact off the bench and young enough to be able to improve and develop. Some have said the fee seems high, but I’ve learnt to trust Liverpool’s scouts and analysts. If they say he’s worth the money, I’m happy with that.
The only slight tinge of ‘what if?’ from the window is Timo Werner. Seemingly he would have signed for us and if he scores 20 goals this season, it could be seen as a mistake. However, it seems unlikely we could have afforded the whole fee up front (we’re paying about £8million this summer for both Jota and Thiago). He would also have expected to play a lot more, and who knows, perhaps would have unsettled the front three.
All in all though, this squad with the three summer additions and the January signing of Minamino, make us far stronger than we were at the start of last season. Impossible to say how successful we are this season, but if we don’t win anything, it won’t be because of a lack of transfer activity.
Mike, LFC, London
Talking of Werner…
Wasn’t the official line out of Liverpool that they didn’t want to sign Werner (25 goals and 7 assists in the Bundesliga last year) because they couldn’t be spending ~£45M on a player who wouldn’t be first choice during the pandemic? And now they have splurged similar money on Diogo Jota (7 goals and 1 assist in the EPL last year). Me thinks this sh*t doesn’t come out in the wash? Explain yourself Michael Edwards.
Oliver, London
Liverpool smashing this; United need to wake up
I wrote a mail exactly ten days ago stating that I couldn’t understand why Klopp would not look to assert dominance over the league and other competitions this year, and in future years, by beefing up his squad. I wrote that knowing it made sense and ignored my strong United loving side.
Here we are, ten days later, and Liverpool have woken up and United are still in a summer hibernation. I have no qualms admitting that’s upsetting.
Also, City seem awfully quiet since getting their two deals done and considering they lost Sane and Silva this year, that’s odd. I also can’t understand why Thiago was never even linked with City (as far as I’m aware). Phil Foden is an unbelievable talent but he looks better in attacking positions than deeper, and may need time and more games in the 8 role before he excels there. Thiago would’ve been seemless into David Silva’s position, not to mention how outrageous it would be to have him and KDB lining up on either side of a pivot. On top of this inactivity is Aguero aging and it looks like will miss the first month or two of the season.
Anyway, I just wanted to say that I said I thought Liverpool were slight favourites. I was wrong. They are very much favourites. But if United sign one or two and not continue to upset me, second looks more open than previously thought.
James, Galway
More Liverpool and Man United thoughts
As a Liverpool fan I am pretty stoked to see Thiago Alcantara arrive. He will definitely add a touch of class to a team that has so much already. It will help diversify the attacking threat and allow Klopp greater flexibility in how the team set up. The guy oozes creativity, ball control as well as a bit of bite.
Having said that, I feel Utd fans are being a bit harsh on Ole and Woodie over the Thiago transfer and Bale loan. Sure Thiago would make any team better at the moment but some transfers are never going to happen. A serial winner looking for a new challenge but one in which he has a great chance of winning more and playing for a brand name coach. Compare to Utd, still finding their feet, an improvement over the Moyes/Van Gaal/Mourinhi years, yet not the finished article, hoping to compete at a higher level than recent years but likely to fall a tad short.
Personally I think some fault may lie with the current players. Most of the Liverpool players have shown incredible professionalism the last few years. Meanwhile, Utd players have been embroiled in controversy on several occasions and Pogba can be a bit of a diva. I am sure that leaves an impression on a top player. If you are going to ‘gamble’ the last of your best years, which English team would you choose right now?
Meanwhile, I think Utd are better off not getting Bale. While someone was trying to favourably compare age and games played vs Thiago, it is clear Bale has not been the model professional, commitment, fitness and more. Sure Zidane has been OTT in relation to Bale, but Bale has brought some of that upon himself by not fitting in. Either way, Utd may just have dodged a Sanchez shaped bullet. The bright lights of London vs Manchester. Imagine the diva wars between Pogba and Bale.
Paul McDevitt
Thoughts of an insomniac
Club rivalry is fun. Baiting each other can also be fun, but criticism for the sake of it gets boring very quickly. We all know it but why do we still get sucked into it?
Admit it, footy fans can make some of the best jokes at each others teams’ expense and we’ve all laughed at jokes on us. Granted, we’d rather listen to jokes at the expense of other teams which is one of the reasons we come to the mailbox daily.
However, the criticism and outrage of which fans are most annoying or how dare Liverpool say “this means more” I find a bit pathetic and it got me thinking. I used to hate Pool, I used to hate City, I used to hate Arsenal. I don’t now and I even respect some elements of those clubs and others although am not quite ready to come out of the closet and admit it publicly – previously I just put it down to getting older, more chilled, more grown up and mature, no time to watch all the games when I’m too busy adult-ing … bollocks. The hatred is bred (or is it inbred) in the pubs and the terraces fueled by a few beers where I used to frequent a hell of a lot more than I do now. The best banter comes in the pub where often the audience is one sided, the harshest criticisms and insults come from the terraces as rivalry and tribalry plays out from home fans across the grass to the away supporters and back. It’s easy to stand tall and say anything when you’re surrounded by ten thousand of your mates. If you’re going to hear someone cross the line from harmless banter to something racial, sexist, homophobic, anythingelse-ist it’s going to happen in the pub, on the terraces or on route.
I don’t know what the point of this mail was, I just couldn’t sleep, so I’ll make something up now. I actually woke myself up mid-dream singing out loud, yes, you heard that right, singing out loud, “Land of hope and glory” (no clue what I was dreaming about to prompt that, never heard of sleep-singing before, WTF!) But think about it guys, you hate listening to other fans with their pointless “we’re better than you” arguments backed by biased stats or outdated views so don’t rise to it. Rather keep sending in the dry humour, the well thought out thoughts (great use of English there), crazy and crappy arguments others can ridicule, the biased opinions, teams consisting of people with tortoises as pets, stupid rule changes that will never happen and the like (note I did not mention VAR – another hard “No” and I’m avoiding politics in case William, Leicester and his band of not so merry enemies are reading). We love those and we love the mailbox and F365 for being a great platform for us.
Keep up the good work F365 and family. And I didn’t even praise your own great writers and articles, I did now.
Jon, Cape Town (As you were, slate each others signings, lack of signings and net spend – i am a little jealous of Chelsea and Liverpool’s signings but that doesn’t dampen my hope for the new season)
The obvious Woodward rebuttal
Ved Sen, the criticism of Ed Woodward is that he’s bad at his job, and has cost Man Utd signings, points and prize money as a result. He’s wasted money on a scattergun approach before and now is counting coppers when we appear to actually have some kind of a plan with transfers.
No, no one actually thinks a player is “worth” £140M or whatever; but if that’s what the seller is asking and that player is what you need you pay the price they ask. But you know, even if you’re right and it’s ludicrous to pay such sums to buy out a contract, your point is null and void when one of the major reasons for the upset is that Liverpool signed World Cup and Champions league winner Thiago for £20M – ffs he’s the man who replaced Xabi Alonso at Bayern; Thiago is exactly the kind of player we need to replace Matic for the next 4-5 years and we should have been all over him like flies on warm turds, but instead Woodward didn’t even put in an offer after speaking to his agent. Ok we don’t know what they said but what kind of incompetence is that (discounting the possibility that Thiago said “f*** no I’m not joining this clown-show club”)?
And by the way, the whole “negotiation is always a game of chicken” is absolute, 100% Brexit-batshit nonsense. Dortmund don’t need Man Utd’s money more than we need Sancho. Dortmund are alright financially, they don’t need to sell Sancho, he’s got 3 years left on his contract, he seems happy enough to stay. Literally every ball is in their court. We can shout we’re going to walk away as much as we want but all that means is we’re not going to get the player we actually need. And if we do sign Sancho, Ed’s not going to get any money off, he’s just going to pay the bloody price, just like he did for Maguire and just like he did for Fernandes. So yeah, he’ll have wasted the entire pre-season huffing and puffing to no end, while Sancho would have missed all the pre-season training and integration he may have done had we just paid the same amount weeks earlier.
That’s called being bad at your job.
Daniel (doesn’t hold with “they need us more than we need them”) Cambridge
