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Antoine Semenyo

Klopp probably was a factor, but if we went head to head with city for a transfer there would be zero chance.

Not necessarily. To begin with City were hot to trot for Virgil at the same time as we were. The story eventually put out was that they didn't want to pay what Southampton were charging but there were also suggestions in the press that Klopp had sold Virgil on our "project", so Virgil told Southampton and City that he was Liverpool-bound come what may and City were just trying to put a brave face on things. In this version (which I can well believe) the fuss cooked up about our supposed "malpractice" was that b@stard Les Reed's last attempt to keep City interested.
 

Aidy Bryant Snl GIF by Saturday Night Live
 
Shame. Have wanted him for a long time. He’d be wonderful for us but can’t blame him chasing a league title this season with City.
 
Not necessarily. To begin with City were hot to trot for Virgil at the same time as we were. The story eventually put out was that they didn't want to pay what Southampton were charging but there were also suggestions in the press that Klopp had sold Virgil on our "project", so Virgil told Southampton and City that he was Liverpool-bound come what may and City were just trying to put a brave face on things. In this version (which I can well believe) the fuss cooked up about our supposed "malpractice" was that b@stard Les Reed's last attempt to keep City interested.

Yeah but how much is paper chatter. Rice preferred city by all accounts but they didn't want to pay the fee, so he went to arsenal and it "was always them"

Hard to believe what comes out of anyone's camp tbh.
 
Not necessarily. To begin with City were hot to trot for Virgil at the same time as we were. The story eventually put out was that they didn't want to pay what Southampton were charging but there were also suggestions in the press that Klopp had sold Virgil on our "project", so Virgil told Southampton and City that he was Liverpool-bound come what may and City were just trying to put a brave face on things. In this version (which I can well believe) the fuss cooked up about our supposed "malpractice" was that b@stard Les Reed's last attempt to keep City interested.
No, we did breach the unwritten code of conduct. This was Edwards's first attempt at landing a big fish and he messed it up - prior to that Ian Ayre had led on doing deals. There's a kind of gentleman's agreement that you let your counterparts know when you're sniffing around one of their players. If they tell you to fuck off then you do everything officially (you can sort a lot via agents but you don't meet directly with the player), if they don't tell you to do one then it's implied that they're OK with you speaking to the player.
In this instance, Edwards didn't speak to Southampton and the next thing Virgil and Klopp were spotted at Blackpool Airport (why Blackpool still eludes me to this day). Saints complained to the FA who were poised to investigate. Their investigation would have run "Please send us the details of any flight manifests for [date] where the flight was commissioned by the club". That would have revealed that we paid for a return private flight from Southampton to Blackpool, sole passenger Mr V van Dijk. We'd have been bang to rights and probably got a transfer ban, so we backed off.
The player was sold on joining us by Klopp and Saints knew we were the only destination. They weren't trying to keep City interested, they were using the prospect of a transfer ban to get the fee they wanted and/or to keep the player. Fair play to them, we were out of order, or more particularly, Edwards didn't play by the rules.
 
Ian Ayre. Reminds me of Konoplyanka and Alex Teixeira. Thankfully we didn’t get either of them.
 
Ian Ayre. Reminds me of Konoplyanka and Alex Teixeira. Thankfully we didn’t get either of them.
Thing is it's hard to know in a different set up how good either of them could have been.

It worked out well for us but who knows if it could have worked out better
 
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