In Comolli We Trust

[el matador]

i would say that comolli has done a reasonable job given that dalglish signed charlie adam and stewart downing. i think we have seen comollis influence in the henderson signing and the signing of doni.

i think comolli has his own ideas about players but the final decision is kennys. hence the signing of a 27 year old and a 25 year old but we havent seen many of comollis cheaper unearthed gems from europe or south america signed in the 19 - 22 age bracket.

anyway who gives a **** who signed who just as long as we sign some quality players that improve the team and squad. talking of which i realised this morning that liverpool went on their asian tour without as many as seven first team players missing.

reina, johnson, henderson, downing, gerrard, lucas and suarez. to say that we saw a fair bit of quality out there suggests that the squad is coming together nicely.

[Neil Young]

we might as well close down the LFC forum during the summer?

Good idea.

[Muddled]

I totally understand what you're saying. In the end it's just the absence of actual football and the bizarre slowness of trnafer dealings that grates on all our nerves. Although it can be quite annoying when posters seem to talk with great authority about our dealings when they clearly can't have a clue. The Fabregas situation is a brilliant example of the madness of it all - what the **** is actually going on there? And I don't expect an answer that makes any sense. Even the top football journos who are supoosedly close to the agents etc are wrong way more often than they are right. I'd say the whole process isn't helped by the amount of shysters, hard men, criminals, bull****ters, know-it-alls, borderline retards, drunks, prima donnas, hangers-on, WAGS etc that make up the football transfer community.

Yup, I've tried to word the thread in such a way that it gets opinion on how we've operated as a club in the summer - mainly around our transfer strategy and how we've conducted our business. It is quiet during the summer with lack of football and everybody wanting to buy everyone; we've done the player aspect of the summer to death, I just thought we could consider how those deals have worked and if it would work again if replicated in next summer.

I also realise it's difficult to get a serious debate going, especially when we only have two transfer windows and a handful of transfer to compare.

[Muddled]

i would say that comolli has done a reasonable job given that dalglish signed charlie adam and stewart downing. i think we have seen comollis influence in the henderson signing and the signing of doni.

i think comolli has his own ideas about players but the final decision is kennys. hence the signing of a 27 year old and a 25 year old but we havent seen many of comollis cheaper unearthed gems from europe or south america signed in the 19 - 22 age bracket.

anyway who gives a **** who signed who just as long as we sign some quality players that improve the team and squad. talking of which i realised this morning that liverpool went on their asian tour without as many as seven first team players missing.

reina, johnson, henderson, downing, gerrard, lucas and suarez. to say that we saw a fair bit of quality out there suggests that the squad is coming together nicely.

Try not to think of the players we have bought, but more so about how we bought those players. How every transfer this summer seems to have been epic; even the Suarez transfer nearly took all of January.

You make an interesting point about Comolli unearthing some gems, he has knowledge of the French market, but Europe? I can give you Modric, but I'm yet to see any gems from South America?

[Muddled]

Good idea.

[Exiled_red]

I can see both your points.

But if we look at it another way, what was the fee paid up front by Sunderland? £9m? I'm sure there is add-ons, what if we thought £9m the price we would go too, yet £9m would secure his services and with personal and club success, the fee would rise to £13m - would you include that in your price for neogtiation?

Surely those add-ons will be the result of success so would be worth the extra expenditure? What would you think if we missed out on Wickham because we thought we didn't need those add-ons and it was £9m take it or leave it?

As for tabling bids to show we can walk away from a deal is an interesting point; I can see why you would do this, but it relates back to my initial post about being too obvious in our strategy, I can't see any major differences to any of our transfers - perhaps we are mixing it up with a few bids that don't go anywhere, maybe Wickham is an example of that.

Chrono's point about a split budget is a valid one too, something I hadn't really considered.

The add-ons are presumably something you have to budget for, things like appearences and goals (for a striker), you would have to assume you are almost certain to pay sooner or later.

The structure of deals beyond that is something you have to take into account too, you can't assume that it's ok to pay an extra £1m for a player that helps you win the league or qualify for the CL or whatever. As you could easily end up paying an extra £10m or so because you put such an agreement into so many deals. And while winning the league or qualifying for the CL is good from a football point, you can't afford to give away all the financial benefits of such an achievement to other clubs who you bought players from.

[RedReet]

Try not to think of the players we have bought, but more so about how we bought those players. How every transfer this summer seems to have been epic; even the Suarez transfer nearly took all of January.

You make an interesting point about Comolli unearthing some gems, he has knowledge of the French market, but Europe? I can give you Modric, but I'm yet to see any gems from South America?

I blame Twitter, not Comolli.

[Muddled]

The add-ons are presumably something you have to budget for, things like appearences and goals (for a striker), you would have to assume you are almost certain to pay sooner or later.

The structure of deals beyond that is something you have to take into account too, you can't assume that it's ok to pay an extra £1m for a player that helps you win the league or qualify for the CL or whatever. As you could easily end up paying an extra £10m or so because you put such an agreement into so many deals. And while winning the league or qualifying for the CL is good from a football point, you can't afford to give away all the financial benefits of such an achievement to other clubs who you bought players from.

Would those add-on's come out of future transfer budgets though? Surely a £9m investment this summer, would mean that if we have to pay an extra £2m (for arguments sake) because we have qualifed for the Champions League, means that, that add-on has pretty much paid for itself? So it could be argued that bending those fee's we'd previously said we wouldn't go above, was worth it?

I can see your point; we have a £6m and £9m to go for a player, but if £9m can secure him, yet we have to pay that little bit extra in one, two or five years time, that extra expense would be covered by our success that the add-on demands? If we had to fork out £12m up front, then yes - I agree, we have to walk away as it's not met our valuation, but if we walked away because we were too confident he would hold out for a move to us, that surely is an error?

[BrooklynRed]

Try not to think of the players we have bought, but more so about how we bought those players. How every transfer this summer seems to have been epic; even the Suarez transfer nearly took all of January.

You make an interesting point about Comolli unearthing some gems, he has knowledge of the French market, but Europe? I can give you Modric, but I'm yet to see any gems from South America?

I was yelled at for making similar points, but I agree 100%. It was intimated that Kenny is also a big part of this strategy, which I believe is likely true. I am not sure why we are not casting a wider net and getting business done more quickly and more realistically in terms of what has been reported as our initial bids. Maybe we like to haggle our way up. I am not a fan of how we've done business and wish we set our sights higher; maybe Aguero said no way to LFC, maybe Mata has passed on us, it seems we lost out on Jones by dragging our feet (I'm not too heartbroken on that... yet). I don't have the information, but again, while I welcome Downing, Henderson, Adam and Doni, I don't really see them as world beaters. We've strengthened through depth, but i feel we need more to push for the title.

Martin Jol was not a fan of Comolli, maybe Kenny is more involved?

[Muddled]

I blame Twitter, not Comolli.

I've avoided it this year.

[Neil Young]

I heard a good word yesterday - "microanalysis."

It means scrutinising something to an unjustified level of detail.

Can't think why it just came to mind.

[RedReet]

I was yelled at for making similar points, but I agree 100%. It was intimated that Kenny is also a big part of this strategy, which I believe is likely true. I am not sure why we are not casting a wider net and getting business done more quickly and more realistically in terms of what has been reported as our initial bids. Maybe we like to haggle our way up. I am not a fan of how we've done business and wish we set our sights higher; maybe Aguero said no way to LFC, maybe Mata has passed on us, it seems we lost out on Jones by dragging our feet (I'm not too heartbroken on that... yet). I don't have the information, but again, while I welcome Downing, Henderson, Adam and Doni, I don't really see them as world beaters. We've strengthened through depth, but i feel we need more to push for the title.

Martin Jol was not a fan of Comolli, maybe Kenny is more involved?

As far as I’m aware we are only behind Sunderland and Norwich in terms of numbers and I guess only behind United in terms of figures.

We also have a lot of dead wood to get rid of which is probably holding things up.

[Redspin]

Yeah, I can accept we might have a ceiling price - an amount we won't go over, but my take on the Wickham transfer is that we would have gone that little bit extra if we didn't get so cocky. I don't think we were too far from agreeing a fee, from memory, maybe £1m off - if the fee was poles apart, than yeah, I agree, you have to limits and stick to them, but I think when it comes down to a little bit extra to secure a player we had identified as the future of this club, then we would have paid it.

I think the transfer failed because we got too big for our boots; we belived Wickham wanted to come to Liverpool. However, Wickham got cold feet and when we didn't seem to value him, he got worried he was going to be left in limbo.

This tactic worked with Adam, we knew he wouldn't go anywhere else, so we dragged our feet, but we were playing with a teenagers future here and Wickham made the decision to go to Sunderland. We can't take that risk with another upcoming player next year, I just hope we learn from these lessons and not become rigid in our approach.

Still very heavy with assumptions. Your particular take is just that and is no more likely to be correct than anyone else's.

We are entitled to have a ceiling above which we won't go and if it means missing out on players, so be it. In the past we've paid over the odds for players who didn't work out - the list is quite extensive - so I'd much prefer us to pull out when our ceiling has been reached.

Besides, Wickham's goal-scoring record is modest for one with his reputation and it's noticeable that we weren't exactly competing with Europe's elite for his signature. So I'm not losing any sleep over "missing out" on Wickham and long may what you perceive as our stubborn stance continue

[Muddled]

I was yelled at for making similar points, but I agree 100%. It was intimated that Kenny is also a big part of this strategy, which I believe is likely true. I am not sure why we are not casting a wider net and getting business done more quickly and more realistically in terms of what has been reported as our initial bids. Maybe we like to haggle our way up. I am not a fan of how we've done business and wish we set our sights higher; maybe Aguero said no way to LFC, maybe Mata has passed on us, it seems we lost out on Jones by dragging our feet (I'm not too heartbroken on that... yet). I don't have the information, but again, while I welcome Downing, Henderson, Adam and Doni, I don't really see them as world beaters. We've strengthened through depth, but i feel we need more to push for the title.

Martin Jol was not a fan of Comolli, maybe Kenny is more involved?

I think you make an interesting point about 'haggling up' and I do think we are more capable of wrapping up our business a lot quicker, which does make me wonder about how we will operate in a different market in the summer (if we are in the Champions League). It's this haggling up that just makes us obvious in any transfer - I don't want any deal being 'typical' Comolli.

[Muddled]

I heard a good word yesterday - "microanalysis."

It means scrutinising something to an unjustified level of detail.

Can't think why it just came to mind.

It's made my afternoon go that little bit quicker. :wink: