Philippe Coutinho hands in transfer request....damn

[OnDoutside]

He's going then.

[awesomerwb1]

1. We'll see.

99% of the time when Madrid and Barca want a player, they get him( very few exceptions).

Usually with a ton of money and underhanded tactics using the Spanish newspapers as allies which will then be quoted by the British newspapers. At that point the player's agent starts to see dollar signs and the player magically gets injured.

Hope Philippe doesn't become a malcontent if FSG are serious about keeping him.

[OnDoutside]

2. It's the nature of things nowadays, once the player hands in a request

The club usually end up selling. Suarez, we were lucky to hang on to for a further season. If Barcelona offer anything above £100m, it will have been a nice bit of business for Liverpool. On the other side, Virgil van Dijk has handed in a request at Southampton, so what goes around comes around.

[awesomerwb1]

3. Karma's a bitch.

What goes around comes around.....What did we do to deserve Trump though?

Suarez is a freak of nature. Always played hard no matter what his contract situation was. Without that last bite we would have had him for another season imo.

I have a feeling Philippe's "injury" may have been agent induced *ahem*.

Van Dijk's a great player, but not worth that much money for a defender. We f-ed up there how we handled things.

Not an FSG fan here (not a hater either). I know they'll go for the money if the price is right, and that will piss Klopp off, but it's time we won something soon or they need to find new "care takers" with deeper pockets.

[OnDoutside]

4. The loss of Suarez was like losing 3 players, but his wife was

from Barcelona iirc, so we were lucky to have kept him as long as we did. He's still a hero on Merseyside, which says a lot.

VVD has done a great job at Southampton but so did Clyne, and he hasn't come through as much as I would have expected. Then again Lallana has been fantastic for Klopp. We have to get a top class Central Defender, if we want to move on as a team.

FSG are like all the rest but they have done so sustainably, the mountains of debt others like Man City are carrying, isn't sustainable in the long term, if the TV deals collapse.

[awesomerwb1]

5. His wife had relatives in Barcelona

she's Uruguayan.

FSG lol don't get me started. *Not saying they're bad owners! But: Massively overpaid for players early on, hired bad managers, kept awful employees, and now back to focusing on keeping debt low in case someone comes look at the books to buy. Footie clubs are a lot more attractive when carrying little debt. That's why breaking the bank for a defender like Van Dijk doesn't make sense to them without selling players. Van Dijk at 60million is not twice the player a defender at 30 million would be.

I'm not hoping for a sugar daddy for LFC (a la Chelski, PSG, Man City per se), but although City's and PSG's business "models" may not look sustainable, they will be sustainable as long as their own businesses are.

Those owners want to win, not re-sell. FSG want to sell and get a nice return on investment. Some board member$ have never stepped foot in Merseyside. They know they can't compete with the elite club$ and their moneyball approach only works to an extent.

As for the TV deals, the TV deals are not going to collapse, but if the money offered goes down in the future, they will just cause prices to go up and the costs will be passed on to fans (big LFC disadvantage compared to London based clubs). When TV money goes down, we will start hearing about a European superleague. It's the next logical step to sustain this 100 million player sillyness.

Nice chatting with you OnDoutside!

[OnDoutside]

6. The valuations are absolutely insane....think of a number and double it !

For a central defender, that money is crazy but Southampton will go for the max is Coutinho goes for 100m+.

I think FSG probably need to do something before the Klopp reign ends, they can't just be top 6, with top 2 or 3 if not in Europe.

You might well be right about that Superleague, anyway we'll hope for the best, for this season !

[ornotna]

7. This sucks so bad

I really didn't think he would do that. One more year Phil, that's all I'm asking. Barca will always be there, just one more year man.

The Spanish press is worse than the English press.