Liverpool transfer ‘pointless’? There’s a 50/50 chance it’s a bargain…

Liverpool fans leap to the defence of their club on Federico Chiesa, but first we have some views on Chelsea and more…

Watch before judging Chelsea…

Andrew M, from Tuesday afternoon’s mailbox clearly didn’t watch the Chelsea game either in highlights form or on a dodgy stream.

Firstly, Madueke was not ‘a sub’, he played the full 90 minutes. He was booed throughout for comments he made about Wolverhampton as a town.

Secondly, anyone who watched even the highlights knows how that Chelsea performance made a complete mockery of xG and left its devotees red faced.

If there’s anything worse than an armchair fan, it’s a spreadsheet fan.

Peter B

…Andrew raises some interesting points on Chelsea it’s a shame they are all wrong.

Where to start, “a hattrick scored by a substitute” Madueke started the game… I’ll give you if you look at the stats that scoring 6 on a 1.5XG seems crazy but I think. It in fact shows XG is deeply flawed – Jackson is 5 yards out free header at the backpost, Palmer’s is far out but with the keeper way off his line first time hit is excellent but it is a big chance, all 3 of Madueke’s goals were right on the edge of the 6 yard box again if he misses those he gets pelters, albeit one of the 3 i give you is a deflection.

Lastly Joao Felix is free at the penalty spot unmarked from a cutback, how those only add to 1.5XG is beyond me. It is however a nice change from last season where we won the vast majority of our games on XG but not in reality.

Chelsea are not going to score 6 each week, but offense is not our issue and hasn’t been for over a year it’s the defense that will let us down. The hat-trick is the epitome of replicable – go and watch the goals they are almost exactly the same Cole Palmer gets it slots in Madueke on the right takes his man on the outside and shoots from just outside the 6 yard box.

The transfer policy is absolutely bizarre but the team has a lot of talent in it and a year of playing together the front 3 are clearly starting to gel and find patterns.

Stuart Gurney

Do Chelsea HAVE to do this?

I seem to recall reading a while back that the Clearwater people got Chelsea for a lot less money but with a caveat that they needed to invest a similar amount within the first two years in terms of players as part of the sale. If this is true and thus RA’s last gift to the fans it would make good sense if they legally need to spend aggressively to speculate on lots of young players in the hope that 3 out of 10 work.

In order to comply with FFP contracts need to be long contracts and home grown sold to balance the books.

What will be interesting is when the money is spent will they continue to invest and how many Winston Bogardes they will be carrying into the 2030s.

Ted Bythesea

What the (PI) F?

One of my pet peeves in transfer gossip has always been ‘and now club x can turn their attention to player Y’…cough… Manchester United. It’s always used as an excuse for lack of, or rushed transfer activity. Pursued Frenkie De Jong all summer? Of course you couldn’t possibly analyse any alternatives at the same time, even if they’re a player in a totally different price point and position. Gotta turn that attention…

Say what you like about the hilarity of the Chelsea transfer ‘strategy’ but it’s very much proving that as suspected, that was all nonsense. Or Boehly & Co do genuinely have a wheel of fortune with a list of players’ faces on they spin every 24 hours and make a bid.

Which brings me to my team. While I recognise the Newcastle ownership is outside of the control of mere mortals as I, we didn’t sell our soul to a fund totally unrelated to the bloodthirsty, journalist chopping, war crime engaging murderers who run Saudi Arabia to buy Lloyd Kelly & 37 different backup Goalkeepers.

With recent sales FFP excuses seem suspect too, as we hear Eddie Howe now saying it’s unlikely we will buy both a CB & a RW (yes…Murphy & Almiron are still our two RWs) before deadline day. Granted Lil’ Dan Ashworth has scuppered off to Man United, but this is reaching Mike Ashley levels of ‘couldn’t get the deal over the line’. What is happening at The Toon?

Tarqs NUFC, Woolwich

Stop your chat about Chiesa

‘From a position of ignorance, having watched very little of Chiesa over the last couple of seasons…’

Will Ford should have just left it there. Or not bothered with the article. Or undertaken some proper research rather than just scratching beneath the surface. If you’re going to write an opinion piece at least try and have an informed one. Lazy click bait journalism.

Damiano

…I think Chiesa would actually be a very good deal for Liverpool and Juventus.

Firstly, from a bianconeri perspective, I don’t think selling a player for £12.6 million who earns almost £8 million a year is bad economics, given he would leave for free next summer. Using the rationale that other teams don’t want him is a really basic stick to beat the parties involved with.

Chelsea?! They do happen to have a good number of attacking midfielders. Equally, other teams have other priorities and, while Arsenal could benefit most from finding someone to be Saka’s little helper, their priorities are signings that will immediately enhance their title chances and therefore money will be designated accordingly. (On that note, Merino is a hugely capable athlete and he is similar to Onana in his ability to cover masses of ground and dominate duels. I would love the Nketiah transfer to finance the purchase of Gyokeres, too. Then, it will certainly be another exciting title race.)

Back to Liverpool, who perhaps aren’t quite strong enough to make it a fascinating three-horse race.

It is worth noting that Chiesa was sixth for expected assists and fourth for big chances created last season in Serie A and these statistics are superior to both Gakpo’s and Diaz’s efforts in their entire Liverpool careers. While his career trajectory may not have panned out as expected, a rehabilitation period under Salah’s wing and intermittently on Salah’s wing could see his form reignite.

Any £12.6 million purchase in the current market would represent a gamble and a proven international who has been valued at at least triple the stated value seems like a suitably calculated risk. A Salah replacement (Bryan Mbeumo very much fits the profile) will probably arrive next summer, deeming this deal to be a solid low-risk strengthening in preparation for a hectic schedule, even if Chiesa’s mere presence allows for a sharper, more rested Salah.

We have observed many failed transfers for much bigger fees and new players aren’t necessarily the quick fix we believe them to be. Look at some of the wingers signed in recent years. Sancho, Antony, Diaby, Sterling, Mudryk. Yikes.

I saw a diagram recently that listed various variables that determine success or failure of transfers and it really does show the high risk nature of big money deals.

As an example, you could optimistically designate a 90% chance on a foreign player settling in the new location, a 80% chance that he is equipped to handle the Premier League rigour and an 70% chance that he has the persona to deal with the pressure of a move to a big club in a foreign country. Simple math would therefore calculate a 50.4% chance of it being a success, before looking at other variables such as fitting the playing style and avoiding injury.

Manchester United have signed countless players without improving and Ten Hag’s constant desire for reinforcements smacks of a coach not confident in improving the players he is working with or finding a maximising system. Slot, however, seems to have already engendered a very solid iteration of the formidable squad he has inherited.

Ultimately, to label the potential signing of Chiesa as pointless seems almost egregious. Perhaps, we are so blinded by big money that, in the event of Liverpool paying £35 million for him earlier in the summer, it could have been labelled as a coup. Carvalho left for around £20 million, leaving Liverpool in a position where they have made a potential improvement to their squad and still have £8 million in their pocket.

AC in Milan

MORE ON LIVERPOOL AND CHIESA FROM F365:

👉 Chiesa next? Liverpool’s FSG era late-window signings ranked as Suarez, Coutinho prop up horror list

👉 Romano gives Chiesa to Liverpool update as Reds are ‘ready to pull the plug on three late deals’

👉 Federico Chiesa to Liverpool is a desperate transfer for everyone involved

…Ho hum, we have another writer at F365 questioning Liverpool’s transfer business and usually being made to eat their words later in the year, stand up Will Ford, whose specialty seems to be Liverpool fan baiting these days.

In Will’s eyes Liverpool’s interest in Chiesa is a desperate attempt to placate Liverpool’s rabid supporters with a cut-price signing for a player who either won’t get near the team due to Salah or whose injury record will see him miss out any opportunity to play.

Sounds logical enough right? It just ignores a few realities.

1. This management team and its directors really don’t seem to give a monkeys what fans and click hungry journos think, evidenced by the fact that we’re the last club in Europe to sign a player I believe.

2. They have a history of rolling the dice on cut-price players who may just come good but if they don’t are a shot to nothing due to their low transfer fee, e.g. Minamino, Shaqiri, Grujic, Klavan, Robertson, Tsimikas, Carvalho were all signed for similar prices in Klopp’s tenure. This is just a type of player Liverpool sign, on average once a year. It its not to placate fans, it’s a low cost roll of the dice that can pay off spectacularly but even if it isn’t fireworks they usually extract value by appearance and selling the player on for the same or more than they bought them.

3. Yes Salah can play most games for Liverpool but he is 32 now and is it wise to play him every game this season? No it is not. And there are a lot of games coming up this season as Liverpool compete on four fronts and the new expanded champions league format.

4. Arne Slot has said he wants two options for every position. He has this at the moment without any more signings for all positions (with room for improvement) except for Salah’s. Not counting Ben Doak or Kaide Gordon (who would benefit far more from loan moves than sitting on the bench) none of Liverpool’s other attackers play right wing. Liverpool do not need to splash 60m on a right winger with Salah still there but they do need to off load some of his workload and a player like Chiesa makes all kind of sense.

Dave LFC

Forest shenanigans

Dave (what happened to the comments?) PVFC’s letter led me to stumble down the wormiest of wormholes with his question about Nottingham Forest and the fact that they have loaned two players to Olympiacos this season.

Turns out it’s a little bit more eye-opening than just that….

The owner of Nottingham Forest is one Evangelos Marinakis, a Greek shipping magnate. Marinakis owns (or is at least on the board for) three football clubs:

Nottingham Forest (England)

Olympiacos (Greece)

Rio Ave (Portugal)

This season, Forest are loaning David Carmo and Marko Stamenic to Olympiacos, and they are also loaning both Jonathan Panzo and Omar Richards to Rio Ave. In fact out of the 5x players they have out on loan this season, only 1x of them is not on loan to a Marinakis-owned club.

There is also Brandon Aguilera, who this summer left Nottingham Forest to sign for Rio Ave for an undisclosed fee.

I’m not saying that anything illegal is happening, or anything dastardly, but yeah I do find this pretty interesting….

Dale May, Swindon Wengerite