Tom Ince

[~LFCHistory~]

Yes and while we continue cost cutting and lowering the wage bill we will continue to slide down the table, our global fan base will gradually dwindle away and our sponsorship deals will dry up. Great plan.

You make a very good point though about Arsenal's best players however if Walcott does want to leave Arsenal and be a regular starter his options are limited IMO :

Utd - He'd be nothing more than a bench warmer at best there
City - See above
Chelsea - A possibility but again he'd probably be a squad player
Spurs - Can't see Arsenal allowing him to go there and even if they did Spurs have a strict wage structure
I suppose there's a possibility he could go abroad but how often do top British players go to Spain or Germany, not very often.

So does where does that leave him ?

[MrMichael]

Yes and while we continue cost cutting and lowering the wage bill we will continue to slide down the table, our global fan base will gradually dwindle away and our sponsorship deals will dry up. Great plan.

I don't think that's necessarily true. We've not won the league for more than 20 years but we still have a global fanbase and large sponsorship deals. Of course we would suffer from a sustained period way out of contention in the league, but you only have to glance at that graph to see that we absolutely HAVE to get the wages to turnover ratio under control before it sinks us. The fact that our wages have gone up so significantly while we've gone through our worst spell in the league since Souness (if not decades before that) demonstrates that simply throwing money at wages has had the opposite effect to what you're saying it should.

I totally don't understand how, in a league where flipping Everton are able to do pretty well, so many of our fans seem to think that throwing money at the problem is the only feasible solution. The sooner we put our house in real order the sooner we'll have extra funds to spend that aren't just burdening us with debt and the sooner we can build something sustainable for the future.

You make a very good point about Arsenal's best players though however if Walcott does want to leave Arsenal and be a regular starter his options are limited IMO :

Utd - He'd be nothing more than a bench warmer at best there
City - See above
Chelsea - A possibility but again he'd probably be a squad player
Spurs - Can't see Arsenal allowing him to go there and even if they did Spurs have a strict wage structure
I suppose there's a possibility he could go abroad but how often do top British players go to Spain or Germany, not very often.

So does where does that leave him ?

Staying at Arsenal imo

I agree that his options would appear to be a bit limited, although he may have a high enough opinion of himself to think he can get into Chelsea or Utd's team. Utd might get rid of Nani and Chelsea are currently playing Victor Moses, he'd legitimately think he could play instead of those. You could argue he might even give City something different instead of Nasri who really hasn't done it there (and Balotelli who could be off), or Sinclair who is very meh. Plus they'd all actually pay him the wages he wants.

In any case, none of that is actually a positive answer as to why he would consider leaving Arsenal for us; below them in the league for the last 4 years, not in the CL and possibly not even in Europe next year, and trying to enforce a strict wage structure. It just doesn't make sense.

[~LFCHistory~]

I don't think that's necessarily true. We've not won the league for more than 20 years but we still have a global fanbase and large sponsorship deals. Of course we would suffer from a sustained period way out of contention in the league, but you only have to glance at that graph to see that we absolutely HAVE to get the wages to turnover ratio under control before it sinks us. The fact that our wages have gone up so significantly while we've gone through our worst spell in the league since Souness (if not decades before that) demonstrates that simply throwing money at wages has had the opposite effect to what you're saying it should.

We've kept a global fan base over the last 22 years because until recently we were almost always among the top 4/5 teams in the league, that is not the case now. Name me one other permanently mid table club that has a global fan base and large sponsorship deals. There are none and unless we start rising in the league we're going to fade even further into obscurity rapidly. FSG need to realise this and very quickly.

And on your last point I said quite clearly in an earlier post that I'm not advocating signing 5/6 players on big wages. We need 2 or possibly 3 top players on high wages to significantly improve. If we can afford to spend 18 million quid on the likesof Sturridge and Ince then it stands to reason that we can offer someone like Walcott 100k a week.

[Tee]

We've kept a global fan base over the last 22 years because until recently we were almost always among the top 4/5 teams in the league, that is not the case now. Name me one other permanently mid table club that has a global fan base and large sponsorship deals. There are none and unless we start rising in the league we're going to fade even further into obscurity rapidly. FSG need to realise this and very quickly.

And on your last point I said quite clearly in an earlier post that I'm not advocating signing 5/6 players on big wages. We need 2 or possibly 3 top players on high wages to significantly improve. If we can afford to spend 18 million quid on the likesof Sturridge and Ince then it stands to reason that we can offer someone like Walcott 100k a week.

Spot on, especially the opening sentence.

[Neil Young]

It won't take long to get the wage bill down. It's not like FSG are promising a decade of austerity, they're not as hopeless as that f*ckwit Osborne. Of course our global popularity will slide if we continue to be down the league but I doubt the long-term plan is to stay scrabbling around for a Europa League place. It's a period of adjustment and a new project. It'll take a bit of time and it's a gamble of course, but then so is your plan.

The difference is that your plan was tried and failed. I know the answer is to have bought better players than Dalglish did but even so there's no guarantee it would work. If we tried it again though and it failed again, then it would have devastating consequences because we'd either have to do what we're doing now only starting in another two years' time, or the club would be so f*cked financially, we'd be in real trouble.

As for Walcott, my view has pretty much been said by MrM. And hasn't Wenger been trying him up front recently, with some success?

[Daniel 7]

Walcott will never be worth the money he wants

[yamiedo]

It won't take long to get the wage bill down. It's not like FSG are promising a decade of austerity, they're not as hopeless as that f*ckwit Osborne. Of course our global popularity will slide if we continue to be down the league but I doubt the long-term plan is to stay scrabbling around for a Europa League place. It's a period of adjustment and a new project. It'll take a bit of time and it's a gamble of course, but then so is your plan.

The difference is that your plan was tried and failed. I know the answer is to have bought better players than Dalglish did but even so there's no guarantee it would work. If we tried it again though and it failed again, then it would have devastating consequences because we'd either have to do what we're doing now only starting in another two years' time, or the club would be so f*cked financially, we'd be in real trouble.

As for Walcott, my view has pretty much been said by MrM. And hasn't Wenger been trying him up front recently, with some success?

I think we are building a sustainable team that will gradually shift into a fiercely competitve one. I only see the upside of what FSG have done since Rodgers has come in. We are not in a financially sustainable place right now to start spending unwisely. We need to take a step back, and being more strategic in the transfer market and I think FSG are doing that.

[BigChief]

Caught some of the live Blackpool v Wolves game. Both decent and recent premiership teams. But blimey the Championship really is a step down in quality. On a sidenote Suso would look ridiculously good there if he kept his attitude right.

Suffice it to say Ince looked like Blackpool's best threat in the bits I saw. Certainly didn't look like a little boy he was with us. A reasonable squad player to give Sterling a break.

Edit: from commentators it was sounding as this was Ince's last game for Blackpool and he was almost nailed on to come back to us. A sort of resignation.

[Corndog]

Caught some of the live Blackpool v Wolves game. Both decent and recent premiership teams. But blimey the Championship really is a step down in quality. On a sidenote Suso would look ridiculously good there if he kept his attitude right.

Suffice it to say Ince looked like Blackpool's best threat in the bits I saw. Certainly didn't look like a little boy he was with us. A reasonable squad player to give Sterling a break.

Edit: from commentators it was sounding as this was Ince's last game for Blackpool and he was almost nailed on to come back to us. A sort of resignation.

I saw the match as well, Blackpool dominated and somehow lost 2-1 (very liverpool-esque) but yea Ince was the most exciting attacker on the pitch and easily could have had a couple of goals, but the keeper made a few great saves.

[Shaggy]

Chris Batchelor @1982Batch
"@TheRodgersWay: Thomas Ince spotted in the VIP area at Anfield at the Fulham game! pic.twitter.com/7lGgi9oH" @thisisanfield seen this?

[Reece]

Can you say for sure that's Ince? Hard to tell.

[Shaggy]

It is hard to tell but I've seen a few people (online) claiming they saw him.

[Chris]

Looks like Nigel Reo Coker and Liam Ridgewell either side of him. Oh god.

[Reece]

Buy British

[saj]

Looks like Nigel Reo Coker and Liam Ridgewell either side of him. Oh god.

And Rafa at the end