Transfer Deadline Day Summer 2016

[willby]

We haven't been able to strengthen a couple of positions which clearly need it and IMO the disappointment over that is fair enough. It's true that panic buys are not the answer, but I'd have hoped we wouldn't have got into that situation in the first place. I share most posters' confidence that Klopp will sort things out in due course, but it's still a pity that we haven't managed to do so in this window.

Apart from most of our initial targets ending up at Dortmund, I suspect there would've been many more constraints at play. A huge squad & wage bill with fewer games this season; overpriced players across the board and perhaps a need to divert funds to the New Stand etc. That said, i fully understand the disappointment from unmet expectations, but going into the season as underdogs is not necessarily a bad thing; this squad is very capable of dominating anyone as we've already seen with Arsenal and Spurs.

 

[manwithnoname]

Apart from most of our initial targets ending up at Dortmund, I suspect there would've been many more constraints at play. A huge squad & wage bill with fewer games this season; overpriced players across the board and perhaps a need to divert funds to the New Stand etc. That said, i fully understand the disappointment from unmet expectations, but going into the season as underdogs is not necessarily a bad thing; this squad is very capable of dominating anyone as we've already seen with Arsenal and Spurs.

Yeah, and luckily we don't have to play Burnley every week.

 

[rurikbird]

Besides doing fairly well in terms of moving on players (and inserting favourable clauses), a few other factors that help lessen the disappointment for me was that we did look into options for the areas that required strengthening (as least according to rumours) and it seemed like they're all '1st choices' - in the sense that we didn't settle for fall back options simply because we failed to get those at the top of our wanted list.

Piotr Zieliński, Mahmoud Dahoud
Ben Chilwell, Jonas Hector, Raphaël Guerreiro

etc.


Where majority of the players we were linked with finally moved to also seem to justify their calibre.

If you look at the Summer Summary, we have been linked with 10 different LBs this season, most seriously with Hector, Chilwell, Guerreiro and Lucas Digne (on whom we "just missed out", according to reports). It's probably a good thing that we didn't go for a stop-gap option or someone who is not worth the trouble of integrating them in the squad. However, it's clear things didn't go to plan – if the plan was all along to have Milner and Moreno as 2 first-choice LB surely we wouldn't have spent months chasing a dozen of left-backs around Europe. It should not be a catastrophe, because Milner will cover the position competently and Moreno still might improve and at least be useful in certain games – buying Balotelli on a deadline day, THAT was a catastrophe! – but something definitely went wrong in that process. I wish Klopp just paid whatever Köln were asking for Hector before the Euros.

Something similar happened at the DM/CM positions – we were clearly very interested in Dahoud, but that didn't work out, refused to increase the valuation of Zielinski and went for Wijnaldum instead. However even after Wijnaldum was signed, Klopp seemed to think we need another midfield anchor and there were reports of a bid for Inter's Gary Medel and Roma's Paredes, both of whom have been extensively scouted by LFC (Klopp even reportedly went to Argentina to watch Medel at Copa America). It's mystifying that none of these purchases were made in the end – I doubt Medel or Paredes's asking price was an issue, so what was it, did we realize after all that scouting that they were not good enough? Again, that might be not a huge issue if several things happen – Can stays healthy, Henderson rediscovers his form of 2 years ago, Stewart progresses, maybe Ejaria and Brannagan contribute during the season. But together with one of our CMs already tied up covering the LB spot, this does create a sense of imbalance and of unnecessary risk going into the season.

 

[davud graham]

Is Ayre still in charge of negotiating transfers? If he is then that would explain a lot.

 

[Tinto]

Our attack is, more or less, a known quantity. It will have games when they misfire.

When they do though, it's up to our defence to be reliable and not do anything daft to give away soft goals like it's been doing for half a decade. Hopefully Matip and Karius can be the upgrades we need to improve things there.

 

[doctor_mac]

If you look at the Summer Summary, we have been linked with 10 different LBs this season, most seriously with Hector, Chilwell, Guerreiro and Lucas Digne (on whom we "just missed out", according to reports). It's probably a good thing that we didn't go for a stop-gap option or someone who is not worth the trouble of integrating them in the squad. However, it's clear things didn't go to plan – if the plan was all along to have Milner and Moreno as 2 first-choice LB surely we wouldn't have spent months chasing a dozen of left-backs around Europe. It should not be a catastrophe, because Milner will cover the position competently and Moreno still might improve and at least be useful in certain games – buying Balotelli on a deadline day, THAT was a catastrophe! – but something definitely went wrong in that process. I wish Klopp just paid whatever Köln were asking for Hector before the Euros.

Something similar happened at the DM/CM positions – we were clearly very interested in Dahoud, but that didn't work out, refused to increase the valuation of Zielinski and went for Wijnaldum instead. However even after Wijnaldum was signed, Klopp seemed to think we need another midfield anchor and there were reports of a bid for Inter's Gary Medel and Roma's Paredes, both of whom have been extensively scouted by LFC (Klopp even reportedly went to Argentina to watch Medel at Copa America). It's mystifying that none of these purchases were made in the end – I doubt Medel or Paredes's asking price was an issue, so what was it, did we realize after all that scouting that they were not good enough? Again, that might be not a huge issue if several things happen – Can stays healthy, Henderson rediscovers his form of 2 years ago, Stewart progresses, maybe Ejaria and Brannagan contribute during the season. But together with one of our CMs already tied up covering the LB spot, this does create a sense of imbalance and of unnecessary risk going into the season.

You're advertising the bajaysus out of the Summer Summary Rurik.

 

[rurikbird]

You're advertising the bajaysus out of the Summer Summary Rurik.

Of course, I get paid per-click!

Seriously though, because of the way I summarize links by position there, it's pretty clear that LB was a big priority and there was an extensive search for improvements in this area – so the fact that we ended up signing none of these players is surely a sign of some kind of problem or failure of the process.

 

[doctor_mac]

Nah, I think you're absolutely right. We deffo were interested in strengthening the positions we all know needed strengthening. We went wrong somewhere.