We can't compete financially with Man City or Real Madrid; Haaland and Mbappe will end up at one of those clubs.
We need to scout the new Mbappe and Haaland and beat the RB Leipzig's of this world to their signature.
It's not difficult to spot talent; I watched lower league football for many years and regularly suggested buying the likes of Ings (from Bournemouth before he went to Burnley for £1m), Callum Wilson (from Coventry for £2m before he went to Bournemouth), Joe Hart (from Shrewsbury for £500,000 before City signed him a year later for that amount) etc, etc.
There is no downside to signings like this as those amounts of money are negligible to a team like Liverpool and if things don't work out you loan them to a Championship club for a year and then sell them for 500%+ profit.
I also sometimes recommended some players who were already on the radar of some bigger teams but I thought their success was so nailed-on that we should make a move before the others. With Wilf Zaha, I said he was the best talent I'd seen at Championship level in many years and suggested a £5m bid about 18 months before United bought him for £15m.
Now of course, living in Czech, I no longer have time or as much access to watch lower league English football.............but, due to the lockdown, I have been watching an awful lot of Czech football and guess what..............Czech football is on the verge of a new golden generation. The last golden generation was about 20 years ago when the likes of Nedved, Cech, Poborsky, Smicer, Rosicky etc could have won the Euros in 1996 and should have won in 2004 (if only Nedved hadn't gone off injured in the semi finals against Greece).
The current Czech team is built around the 2 central midfielders; Soucek (West Ham) and Alex Kral (Spartak Moscow).........Soucek gets most of the attention but IMO Kral (who is 22) is every bit as important. I'm not sure Kral should be a target for us as he would cost at least €30m and that's too much for us to spend considering we already have good DM'ers.
Czech have other talented players like Coufal, Darida, Masopust etc .................they could cause a shock in this summers Euros...........they beat England last year (deservedly) and the only 2 bad results in recent times were a defeat at home to Scotland (when 24 Czech players i.e the whole Czech squad were quarantined and 20 uncapped players brought in..........even then Czech were the better team.
Now, here's the reason I think Czech are about to turn from a decent European team into a top European team....................
Adam Hlozek & Adam Karabec...............when watching these videos remember that Hlozek won't be 19 until July and Karabec won't be 18 until July! Two extraordinary talents.
West Ham tried to sign Hlozek in January but I think because he's currently out with a foot injury they've hesitated. Rumour has it they are coming back for him in the summer.........but apparently Leipzig and Arsenal are now both in the hunt. No doubt West Ham were alerted to Hlozek by Soucek and Coufal but I'm wondering if we can get our Czech keeper (on loan in Ireland) to do some introductions as he knows Hlozek very well as they both came from Sparta and are the same age. I reckon £15m plus a % sell on clause and the promise of a pre-season friendly might swing it. For me Hlozek could be the new Van Basten, he's quick, skillful and good in the air (Hlozek and Karabec are both already 6ft and still growing.)
Many experts think Karabec will be the better of the two (I am not so sure) and whereas Hlozek is definitely a centre forward, Karabec is more of a Stevie G type....midfielder who bombs forward at every opportunity and fantastic long range passing. Maybe we can offer £35m for the pair?
Karabec played again my team, Zlin, yesterday and scored a cracking goal (Sparta's first in a routine 0-3 win). He already looks too good for this level!
And now onto the bargain basement.............my team Zlin have a 20 year old DM'er Cheick Oumar-Conde who only broke into the team at the start of this season. In a poor team he stands head-and-shoulders above the rest, very solid tackler, reads the game very well and gets better in possession with every game. The 2 big Prague teams are watching him and he'll probably leave for under £1m in the summer...........and it wouldn't surprise me if he became a hot property in 2 years time.
We could buy him from Zlin, lend him to someone like RB Salzburg and watch him progress.......if he succeeds it's great, if he's a moderate success we sell him for £5m and if he fails we've lost peanuts.
I'm not sure what affect Brexit has on us signing kids like these but if there are problems getting Hlozek and Karabec registed we could loan them back to Sparta and wait until they are big stars for Czech on the international stage.
