Cartman

A contradiction if there ever was one:lol: I would love to know how a Liverpool based hack would know who Real Madrid intend to sign, even before Madrid's mouthpieces Marca and AS find out. And then there is the standard "Southampton want Sakho" line that Liverpool have been pushing for the last couple of months. If we wanted him we would have got him in January when his stock was lowest, not give him the opportunity to put in some good performances for Palace and increase his value. As if stealing our players wasn't enough, now they use us to drum up interest in a player they no longer want. But none of this actually winds me up. What does is that people believe and give credibility to someone who doesn't actually report any news but simply pushes the agenda of whoever feeds him with information they want in the public sphere, whether it is real or not. In this case, like last month with the VvD story to Chelsea, it's blatantly Liverpool behind it. But this is not just about Virgil or football, it's about everything. For some reason, people believe these bullsh!t merchants and have their opinions infuenced by them and, while sometimes the stories are just money making clickbait, sometimes there are more sinister motives behind them.

http://www.footballforums.net/threads/summer-transfer-rumours-thread.265293/page-37 All right, calm down. No need to top yourself over what journalists say. If everyone did that there wouldn't be anyone left.

https://www.joe.co.uk/sport/liverpool-ready-to-challenge-chelsea-and-manchester-city-for-the-signature-of-virgil-van-dijk-121636 Sound like the biggest load of bullsh!t I have ever read. So this clown knows who Liverpool want, Real Madrid want and we want. And weren't these Liverpool connected hacks saying Liverpool had no chance of signing Virgil when they were saying Chelsea were getting him to push Sakho on to us? Almost sounds like it's season ticket renewal time.

You mean all those players who were in the last two years of their contracts and refusing to extend, so that we were faced with those assets declining in value if we decided to keep them? And even then we kept Wanyama and Clyne until the final year. Or perhaps you mean 2014 when we had a big financial hole caused by our former CEO spending more than we could afford, so we had to sell to cover our cash shortfall and then sell some more to reinvest in the squad and make it stronger overall? So which of these scenarios applies to this case? Far from being more of the same, to sell Van Dijk now would out of character on our part. Not to say it definitely won't happen, but it would be unprecedented for us to sell a key player without being effectively forced to.

And what would we do with the money? The accounts prove that we have been spending everything we earn. It would be pointless to sell as he would get more than we would be able to spend. And we wouldn't be losing any money by rejecting it, with 5 years left on his contract, if we get offers of £50m now, we will get them next year and the year after that. We need Van Dijk more than we need any transfer fee we will realistically be offered. £50m isn't as much you seem to think it is.

You assume he would be given a choice.

I swear, if Wenger stays and Alexis goes we are finishing above them next season and it even be close.

Arsenal and Everton. Easiest question ever.

And also by our third goalpost in between the two metal goalposts (literally in between and rarely any further forward than that).

This for me is one of two big reasons he should be sold this summer. One bad season can be explained away as just poor form, the whole form is temporary, class is permanent thing. A second bad season and will be his poor performances that will start being seen as his class and make will him harder to offload. As things stand we could probably get someone like Palace or West Ham to buy him this summer. The other reason is obviously having a goalkeeper that doesn't save anything handicapping us for another season.

Rather have Szczesny. One year left on his contract and having a very good season at Roma who probably won't keep him as they have got Brazil's number one waiting to take over. Cech has been poor, Fabianski was known as Flappyhandski when he was at Arsenal so maybe questions should be asked of their goalkeeper coaching.

The two year mark isn't random. It's the final point at which under normal circumstances the selling club will get full or close to full market value in the sale. The buying club aren't going to pay significantly more for a player with four years left than they will for the same player with just two. On the other hand, the decrease in the transfer fee accelerates after the two year point, and further still in the final year until he out of contract and the transfer fee is 0. Under his original contract Virgil would still have three years left so we would still be under no pressure to sell but also importantly we would be paying him far less in wages than we are now. So if we sell him this summer, regardless for how much it is for, it is very hard to see what was in it for us when offering him a new contract. As far as I can see, when you take into account the fact at his wages are likely much higher now than they were last year and that he was still under contract until 2020, the only incentive we had to offer him a new contract would have been the prospect of keeping for an extra two years beyond whenever we were planning on letting him go under his original contract. And that's 3 posts. See you in 24 hours.

We shouldn't be making such agreements. Make it clear that we will hold him to his contract and let him make his decision whether to sign or not, it is of little worth to us to give a player a 6 years deal and at the same time tell him he can leave whenever he wants. These off contract gentleman's agreements potentially ignite the attempts at trying to force through transfers, if each party's obligations to each other are exactly those written in the contract then every one knows where they stand and if the player wants to leave all he needs to do is not sign anything and run down his contract. I would be surprised if we have made such an agreement though, we still had him on a 4 year deal and, having come from Celtic, on relatively low wages. A significant wage increase would probably alone have been enough of an incentive for him to sign. And there is the fact that between Cortese leaving and about a year ago, not a single one of our more valuable players signed an extension. Surely if signing a new contract was free money with no further obligations on the player's part, someone would have signed?

By telling him he isn't going anywhere and if he doesn't like it then he shouldn't have signed a new contract. As far as I'm concerned key players only leave in the final two years of their contract, no exceptions. Don't like it, don't sign an extension and don't get the higher salary that comes with it.

It is efinitely a scouse "we want to sell Sakho" briefing. Another scouse mouthpiece using Van Dijk as an angle to say we are interested. https://www.theguardian.com/football/2017/mar/27/liverpool-hire-jet-return-phiippe-countinho-roberto-firmino

Looks like scouse media team bullsh!t trying to drum up interest in Sakho and flog him to the highest bidder.

Here is a picture: This is a 4-3-3. There is no one playing behind the striker. You can draw it with Firmino dropping deep with Lallana and Coutinho narrow and call it a diamond or you can draw Lucas in the back line, push Touré and Lovren wider covering the space left by Clyne and Moreno as they push forward and call it a 3-4-3. In practice it is all the same, regardless of how it is drawn on paper, as these movements all happen in the different phases of play during the match. 4-2-3-1 is not the same, it is just a 4-4-2 with one of the 2 described as a no. 10, even though Tadic is often in a more advanced position than Gabbiadini. Our samey midfielders are all more comfortable in the Can/Allen role.

Is this the same Begovic that was close to moving to Bournemouth? And Heaton will want a bigger club? Which of the bigger clubs will want him?

Oops! Fraser would have saved that, it was hit more or less at him. Or maybe not, it was a low shot.

Huh? What are you talking about?

Well I will make fun of Koeman's comments because he is deflecting. Lukaku not honouring his current contract isn't the point at all, he has never suggested anything of the sort. The fact that he is unwilling to sign a new one because Everton are unlikely to ever achieve anything, despite their bluster about they are going to take the world by storm is the issue here, and Koeman responds to it by offering a strawman argument.

Wait, wait, it gets better. He said they are living in the past! "Everton as a football club has a great history. But the future has to be written. You get me? Because we always talk about the teams of the 80s and 70s, and if you look it was great. But we as players, we want the fans talking about us instead of us talking about them." :lol:

That ship has sailed, actually I'd say it had sailed even when we were first linked to him. Honestly think we would have a better chance getting someone like Tielemans than Bakayoko at this point.