Part of reason Chelsea sell well is that their wages are relatively low - that's why it's hard to sell player's like Zinchenko, the fee isn't the issue, it's the wages

Chelsea will have increasing trouble holding onto their best players unless they increase their wage bill hugely, Palmer for example is on relatively low wages i think

The Chelsea model is utterly unsustainable as their wages increase, there's no way they'll be able to stop it mushrooming

Yes I’d be very happy with 70m+

The last fees we got that I was pleasantly surprised by, probably Willock, Iwobi and somewhat in hindsight Oxlaide Chamberlain as he did Jack at Liverpool. All in the 30-40m range.

All young English players coincidently, or not.

It’s not rocket science, the players who go for big money are regular starters or young or both.

If Martinelli wasn’t on north of 150k he might be the best candidate but he’s also come off a mediocre season.

I think you have to accrue young players to generate good money. Look at Liverpool with Harvey Elliot. Looking to recoup 50m for him and they’ll probably get it. Probably selling him at the point of give him a big contract or sell him. That’s the sliding doors moment we had with Martinelli, we could have sold him for about 80m, we signed him to a big contract and then he regressed massively. Gambled and lost.

That first big contract for young players is often the moment you stick or twist.

The wages are heavily bonus oriented. That’s the thing I didn’t get with players signing for them on long contracts at low wages. Hato has gone there and if he doesn’t play much I’d imagine it’s a modest wage. But I bet he backs himself to hit all his targets and earn something much higher.

They’ve got the 4th highest wage bill in the league atm. But they’ve got champions league, it could be a fait accompli.

But their squad is massive. They don't have players on our level of wages I don't think.

We definitely pay big wages to players who haven’t yet demonstrated they deserve it then it becomes a problem later on as we can’t sell them.

Lokonga is on 50k a week. Nobody in their right mind would offer him that elsewhere. He’s a championship player at best and the average wage there is 10 to 30k a week. Who is going to offer him similar this summer. He will have to compromise but they are usually reluctant.

The club were nuts offering Nelson and Eddie 100k a week even if they were going to leave out of contract, not worth anywhere near that. We got lucky with Eddie as palace offered a decent fee.

Zinchenko on 150k a week ? Decent player but not worth anywhere near that.

Must cause such an issue when sitting down with new prospective clubs interested in signing them, no way lads !

4 time prem winner Zinchenko in his prime wasn’t overpaying at £150k a week when we signed him.

We may pay too high for some younger players who haven’t done enough yet, but Zinchenko was worth that. Zinchenko elevated our game from top 5 to almost champions nearly overnight. I still think he’s an underrated player and still has something to offer at left back in some games for us.

Chelsea may pay younger players lower wages which helps when moving them on simply because it opens up more teams available to sign them but look at the wages they pay their highest earners. These are players nowhere near challenging for the title and who haven’t been in the champions league for Chelsea.
I’d say there’s only Cucurella, Palmer and Caicedo who are worth the wages they are being paid. James is paid more than Rice and Nkunku more than Saka.

It should also be considered that Chelsea can look like they’re selling well because they also have a ridiculous amount of players. Their young player signings tend to come in cheap and they turn a profit on them, but the bigger names are often not successful in the team and not sold on for profit. Chelsea are operating at an unprecedented loss and use loopholes in the rules and creative accounting to keep buying players

Snow shoes? Its summer here and 78F today and will be 80F + for most of the week Most stuff from China has free postage and if not, still very reasonable priced... this just might be to encourage international trade. So much of the junk that comes from China is poor quality and/or copies of western items. I have a couple of Chinese made guitars... construction really isn't too bad but most of the hardware and electronics are crap, of course!

Newcastle bidding €80m plus €10m in add ons for Sesko. I reckon he’ll be asking for a release clause as part of any deal as well. We paid some €30m less for Gyökeres.
We had other purchases to make so couldn’t afford to get in to a bidding war or have Leipzig keep pushing the price up.

We have to make a move on a left winger/creative player. It’s the most glaring gap. I do think Madueke may surprise some Arsenal fans whose main dislike of the transfer was that he came from Chelsea, he has pace, carries the ball well and gets shots off. Of we’re planning to play Madueke on the left I don’t think it will be long before he makes the spot his own IF we don’t make another signing

Yes indeed, good to see a few new faces brought in - though I don't know much about them yet and will be looking out for them in the upcoming friendly games before the new season starts in a week or two. Good to see those academy players doing so well for us in these friendlies, whoever is coaching them there is definatly earning their money

He wasn’t starting games. It’s mega money for a left back of that quality. I doubt anyone else would have offered anything like that. Andy Robertson is on 160k a week at Liverpool

That's what they say about me ...

Don’t worry we’ve sacked all the SGF tea ladies.

I know all clubs do it but poaching kids who've been with another club for many years at age 16 strikes me as pretty low

I dislike Chelsea but there need to be far better protections to prohibit players being poached for tiny fees at this stage

https://www.liverpool.com/liverpool-fc- ... a-32176244

Can't disagree - they are clearly cheating FFP, and it's only going to catch up with them at some point - their wage bill is clearly in process of mushrooming....

Whitnall and I ... what a classic. My wife went to school with Richard E Grant in Swaziland of all places!

Belter of a movie. He’s quintessentially British that guy

What do these people expect,

https://dailyafc.com/arsenal-group-prot ... t-hearing/

If he’s found innocent he and the club should sue the arseholes off these people for defamation

So the Sesko package is 80 million quid for Newcastle or United.

Thats nuts. Glad we didn’t go there. We’ve acquired Gyökeres and several players for that.

totally - these people are just morally standing attention seekers - there is such a thing as due process for a reason

Arseholes.

Tyler Morton £15m from Liverpool to Lyon with a 20% sell on clause. He had 2 solid but unspectacular loans in the championship and got the move off the back of those. He’s also nearly 23 so Liverpool must have been paying him a decent wage as he’s not some teenager.

This is the area we need to be better at. We’re currently arguably the best big club at bringing through top class players from our academy for the first team, that’s great but it’s a small percentage of total academy players. We need to consider the academy just as much of a set of players who generate funds as potential first team players.

Our loan system is really poor, too few players on good loans like Morton had, we also don’t recruit enough at youth level, there needs to be a sizeable budget available to compete with the others for top U17 players. Teams like Chelsea, Liverpool and City start each summer £50m+ ahead of us simply through selling younger players no longer needed.

Liverpool to sell Nunez to Al Hillal. Don't get that. Not sure they are recruiting well. One or two injuries to the midfield and defence and they could be in trouble.

Yep, big loss on Nunes of around 20million pounds ish

Liverpool aren’t done yet though, Their net spend will be like a quarter of ours after selling Nunez. Then it’s practically neutral if they can sell Elliott.

It will mean without question they will go back for Isak. It’s inevitable at this point. It’s also pretty nailed on that Guehi will end up there as palace will need to sell before he goes on a free next summer. Then all you are missing really is that midfield anchor and they have recruited real quality elsewhere I’m afraid.

If you add in the Nunez sale, they have a net spend of c€100m. Obviously, a lot smaller than ours and they spent nothing last summer. But, it's €300m of gross transfer spend. That's a lot for one window and a big shake-up to the team. Also, it isn't possible to replace what TAA brings in terms of forward passing, so they will have to change their tactical approach.

Team for today’s match

No Reiss Nelson in the squad is interesting. Lokonga being on the bench isn’t.

Havertz missing.

The key for all the top sides will be keeping your best players fit. Liverpool’s core identity won’t change, they will be favourites, but they are just as reliant on a few key players in key positions as any of the other top clubs.
If they get Guehi and Isak they look strong but they could still be integrating a new RB, LB, CB, CM and striker in to a starting 11 potentially more with the gk and Ekitike.
To try to pick holes in Liverpool as they stand:
Big reliance on Van Dijk to hold together the defence - if he breaks down for a significant period (he’s 34) I don’t think they can win the title
Current lack of depth at CB, Guehi would help but very reliant on Joe Gomez to provide back up
Big reliance on Salah for goals and assists. Phenomenal last season but dropped off in the back end of the year, can still have quiet games, has AFCON and has lost form post tournament before
Lack of viable alternative to Gravenberch to hold in midfield
Integrating Wirtz- great player but as a true 10 or a creative left side it doesn’t fit with any way Liverpool set up last season.

They’re still favourites though

The need to move players on is big because it seems them moving are linked to any more incomings. Still 4 weeks left in the window but only 11 odd days to the start of the season. Eze really needed for us.

Desperate for Gyökeres to get a goal and for Madueke to come on to a big cheer and play well. Big difference between the social media ‘fan’ vs those who go to matches.

Understand the challenges of integrating players but many of those signings will have played in the league before. Isak, kerkez, Guehi. I always find that’s less of a concern to be honest. After a few weeks they tend to find their feet.

Feels like the team for the opening day is getting pretty fixed. Some players haven’t had enough matches pre season to start the first game possibly
Raya
White
Saliba
???
MLS
Zubimendi
Rice
Ødegaard
Saka
???
???
I reckon only 3 players to be determined as it stands. CB if Gabriel is deemed fit and sharp enough, striker Havertz or Gyökeres and the endless debate on who starts on the left - at the moment I’d guess Martinelli

I tend to agree but I was considering more the quantity of new players, 5+ in a starting 11. I doubt it’s a big problem. But even if it causes a few problems for the first few weeks before it settles (as you say) then Liverpool have Newcastle away and us at home in weeks 2 and 3. Dropped points at any time in this league always feels seismic

I think I'm more nervous for Gyökeres than he is.

The weight of expectation is massive (unfairly of course) and he probably needs to bang in the PL for us to realistically have a chance at the league.

I'm not looking for a a full debut hat-trick or anything like that, just some signs that he's the real deal and a step up from Havertz.

Signs that he might be the man would be some great efforts on goal, some pacy runs with and without the ball, some top class movement and just an all round "presence".

Thing is we ourselves will have to integrate 2 players minimum possibly 3 into our regular line up and we have a bigger change in as much as we now have a striker who will want to run in behind. We haven’t been playing like that, We will require a bigger adaption possibly. Havertz just wanted to drop short. Bane is a different beast. Hopefully he smashes a first half hat trick to ease fears

Bit worrying that we still haven't seen big Gab on the pitch.

More concerned that Calafiori isn’t even on the bench. Not sure you can sell Zinchenko if that keeps up until deadline day.

I think we will play kiwior at old Trafford. Gab won’t be match ready

Our lads are still on the beach.

We’re getting our batty podgered without lube

Your link looked a bit dodgy so I decided to give it a miss... meanwhile I'm more than a little shocked to see us go 2-0 down and was just wondering which of the many new first team players was going to give us the spark to wake the team up when I get a text to say its now 2-1..
Maybe there are just too many young academy players and newbies in the team for things to go smoothly?