Roberto Firmino

[Shaggy]

[ame]https://twitter.com/mattsav7/status/613786181919207424[/ame]

[Paddy]

"their signing of James Milner that most excites me"

How did you gain access to his account Shaggy?

[Shaggy]

Haha. On my phone and only wanted to post the Ronaldinho quotes.

[Paddy]

Meh

[Bender]

Is that your gate?

pipe down ya low expectation mofo

[CJ]

Bendy I have high expectations of you

[marcus50bucks]

£29m Roberto Firmino deal puts spotlight on Liverpool transfer policy

Tony Barrett
Last updated at 3:09PM, June 24 2015

It says everything about the widespread lack of faith in Liverpool’s transfer committee and the now endemic rush to judgment on social media that the Merseyside club’s acquisition of Roberto Firmino for £29 million is already being dismissed in some quarters as an undue extravagance. Not only do Liverpool have form in paying over the odds for players, but the Brazilian is an unknown quantity in this country and as such the fee cannot be anything other than excessive.

In fairness, Liverpool can have few complaints about the scrutiny after lavishing £25 million on Adam Lallana, £20 million on Dejan Lovren, £20 million on Lazar Markovic, £16 million on Mario Balotelli and £15 million on Joe Allen, to name but five, since Brendan Rodgers took over as manager three years ago. The “bang for their buck” that Fenway Sports Group, Liverpool’s owner, had sought from transfers has, with few exceptions, proved elusive.

So, it is in many ways both inevitable and understandable that the decision to make Firmino the second-most expensive player in the club’s history behind Andy Carroll is greeted with suspicion. When you have a reputation for buying badly, you cannot complain if the idea that you might have bought well does not immediately take hold.

That Firmino is something of an unknown quantity might add mystique to the deal, but beyond the exotic and the YouTube videos that make most players look good, a lack of knowledge leads many to ask how Liverpool could have paid £29 million for a player they do not even know.

All of that, though, remains moot. Beyond the sizeable minority of Bundesliga addicts who have tuned in to watch Hoffenheim games and kept abreast of Firmino’s progress in Germany, it is impossible for the rest of us to pass any kind of judgment on the 23-year-old. All we can do is wait and see. If the Brazilian performs well for Liverpool, offers some of the qualities they have been lacking and improves the team as a result, then £29 million will be money well spent. If not, his name will be added to their list of failures and, more than likely, heads will roll.

The point is, it is far too early to make any kind of call on Firmino. Like any new signing, whether recruited at a vast cost or for a relative pittance, he has to be given the time to prove himself. What can be evaluated, however, is what his acquisition and the scale of it says about Liverpool’s transfer strategy in the light of recent failings in both their attempts to attract world-class talent and their ability to extract value for money from the market.

The first thing that should be stressed is, in contrast to many of their dealings in the past few years, Liverpool have displayed both an absolute ruthlessness and a determination to get a deal over the line while others, most notably Manchester City and Manchester United, were still weighing up their options. No time has been wasted, no expense has been spared. The asking price has been met, negotiations have not been allowed to drag on and, perhaps most importantly of all, Liverpool have backed themselves whereas previously they may have wavered or attempted to extract value that was not available.

Players bought since Rodgers’s appointment (season by season)

2015-16 Roberto Firmino (£29 million, Hoffenheim), Joe Gomez (£3.5 million, Charlton Athletic), Adam Bogdan (free agent), Danny Ings (tribunal to set fee, Burnley), James Milner (free agent)

2014-15 Mario Balotelli (£16 million, AC Milan), Javier Manquillo (on loan, Atletico Madrid), Alberto Moreno (£12 million, Seville), Divock Origi (£10 million, Lille), Dejan Lovren (£20 million, Southampton), Lazar Markovic (£20 million, Benfica), Emre Can (£9.75 million, Bayer Leverkusen), Adam Lallana (£25 million, Southampton), Rickie Lambert (£4 million, Southampton)

2013-14 Victor Moses (on loan, Chelsea), Tiago Ilori (£7 million, Sporting Lisbon), Mamadou Sakho (£15 million, Paris Saint-Germain), Aly Cissokho (on loan, Valencia), Kolo Touré (free agent), Simon Mignolet (£9 million, Sunderland), Iago Aspas (£7.6 million, Celta Vigo), Luis Alberto (£6.8 million, Seville)

2012-13 Philippe Coutinho (£8.5 million, Inter Milan), Daniel Sturridge (£12 million, Chelsea), Samed Yesil (£1 million, Bayer Leverkusen), Nuri Sahin (on loan, Real Madrid), Oussama Assaidi (£3 million, Heerenveen), Joe Allen (£15 million, Swansea City), Fabio Borini (£10.5 million, Roma)

Total spent £244.65 million (Ings’s tribunal, loan fees and money received from sales not included)

They could have attempted to drive down the price or to convince Firmino that he should accept a lower wage, but to do so would have invited competition. Even the complications of third-party ownership did not prove a significant impediment, although they did mean the deal could not be completed until after some had claimed it had already been signed off. Otherwise, Liverpool were decisive, illustrated by the decision of Ian Ayre, the club’s chief executive, to fly to Chile to meet the player’s representatives before he could be sure that there was a deal to be done.

That sense of purpose has been evident in everything that Liverpool have done this summer, as illustrated by Firmino being the fifth deal they have put in place before the transfer window has opened. Danny Ings, James Milner, Joe Gomez and Adam Bogdan have been recruited and that early business has given the club’s much-maligned transfer committee a solid platform as they look to add the attacking flair that Rodgers readily accepts was lacking last season following Luis Suarez’s move to Barcelona.

Again, it remains to be seen how well that quartet will adapt to their new surroundings but the significance that can be drawn lies in the fact that Liverpool have managed to snare their targets. Milner was coveted by Arsenal, Gomez had a host of admirers, Tottenham Hotspur informed Burnley they were willing to pay £12 milllion for Ings and, well, Bolton Wanderers would have preferred not to lose Bogdan on a free transfer. In each case, Liverpool showed the same decisiveness that allowed them to sign Firmino; their interest being established early with agents and followed up rigorously until the point at which signings that could have been missed out on moved inexorably in their direction.

What is most significant of all, though, is that this kind of activity comes in the aftermath of a period in which the future of several leading figures at Anfield, none more so than the manager himself, was brought into question after a profoundly disappointing campaign. While Rodgers had to come through an end-of-season review and the previous work of the transfer committee was brought into sharp focus, FSG has responded to such uncertainty with an emphatic statement of intent by giving them the tools to move with remarkable speed in the transfer market.

These are not the actions of a club who have lost faith in themselves, even if others continue to doubt them. Should their faith in Firmino be repaid it may also be the signal for a reassessment of Liverpool’s aptitude in the transfer market. Again, though, only time will tell on that front.

Liverpool’s record signings

£35 million Andy Carroll (Newcastle United, January 2011)
£25 million Adam Lallana (Southampton, July 2014)
£22.8 million Luis Suárez (Ajax, January 2011)
£20 million Lazar Markovic (Benfica, July 2014), Dejan Lovren (Southampton, 2014), Stewart Downing (Aston Villa, 2011), Robbie Keane (Tottenham Hotspur, July 2008), Fernando Torres (Atletico Madrid, July 2007)
£17.5 million Glen Johnson (Portsmouth, June 2009)
£17.1 million Javier Mascherano (January 2007)

http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/sport/football/europe/article4478787.ece

[Mattshark]

Jindal is a ****

[Maxiedge]

Ahhhhhh I feel so happy and relaxed in this thread. Might just camp here tonight

[Shaggy]

[ame]https://twitter.com/dominicking_dm/status/613814538446741504[/ame]

[captainfog]

Can he play right wing back?

[Cormack74]

I've watched a bit of the Bundesliga this year and for the life of me I can't ever remember getting especially excited about Firmino but hey ho, hopefully I just wasn't paying enough attention and he's going to tear up the prem' like Torres and Suarez combined.

[Paddy]

https://twitter.com/dominicking_dm/s...14538446741504

FFS, that should be the other way around. I know 11 is a strikers number, but maybe that's a sign to his position for us.

[BrooklynRed]

FFS, that should be the other way around. I know 11 is a strikers number, but maybe that's a sign to his position for us.

He wears 11 for Brazil, so maybe he's going RF11 and keeping his branding tight.

[Paddy]

He wears 11 for Brazil, so maybe he's going RF11 and keeping his branding tight.