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Back during the World Cup I was thinking Liverpool should sign Mac Allister and now it might actually happen but hey at least we waited until the summer to pay a slightly less inflated post-WC price.
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Jun 2, 2023 12:17
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Slotducks posted:does the savings from the less inflated post-wc price make up for the lost champions league spot though????? wow big assumption that signing an alive midfielder in January would have meant finishing top 4!!!
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Jun 2, 2023 15:20
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nawilo_420 posted:has anyone said return of the mac yet the americans will inevitably start calling him Big Mac and make me want to die
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Jun 2, 2023 15:20
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lmao Spurs
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Jun 4, 2023 18:09
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the Guardian are reporting that Liverpool have signed Mac Allister, subject to a medical, with contract agreed until 2028 and the fee set by a release clause in the contract he signed not long before the World Cup. The fee is unspecified in the article but is reportedly "significantly less than the £60m that has been mentioned"
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Jun 5, 2023 13:55
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cagliostr0 posted:It's sports washing. They are paying for celebrities people respect and listen to to tell them Saudi Arabia is a futuristic cool metropolis and neom definitely isn't a crime against humanity I think it's a combo of this and this: harperdc posted:MBS is playing Pro Evo in real life. Saudi Arabia has unlimited money and a bad reputation and they're into football now so of course they're going to spend billions bringing 40-year-old superstars to play in their Mickey Mouse league and cut promos about how much they love it, that's just what new money does in the world of football.
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Jun 7, 2023 11:52
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TheRat posted:This is much funnier. David Beckham is now Lionel Messi's boss, the Galacticos win again
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Jun 7, 2023 17:36
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lmao at this Barca statement about the whole thingquote:In a statement, Barcelona wished Messi good luck in the next stage of his career.
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Jun 8, 2023 02:02
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https://twitter.com/LFC/status/1666747008311328769?cxt=HHwWgoC8jdjkvKEuAAAA Guardian is saying we paid a £35m release clause which if true is way cheaper than I was expecting for him.
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Jun 8, 2023 11:44
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deletebeepbeepbeep posted:Who knows but it seems like Brighton where desperate for him to sign a new deal before the World Cup, at which point he was only a bit part player for Argentina and wasn't looking like he would be a major part of their tournament. I didn't know this but apparently he was out of contract this summer, so I guess he had a lot of leverage in the negotiations last fall. Without the 35m release clause he might have left on a free.
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Jun 8, 2023 12:45
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Thanks Ants posted:RIP football it was good while it lasted I'll save my serious worries for if they ever manage to sign a top player younger than 35
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Jun 11, 2023 13:11
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Madrid have a hell of a young core now. Vini Jr., Rodrygo, Camavinga, Valverde, Tchouameni, and Bellingham are all 24 or younger, and if they sign Mbappe he's also in that category. I guess "sign all the world's best teenagers for ridiculous money" is one way to deal with the problem of Kroos, Modric, Benzema, etc., all aging together.
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Jun 14, 2023 13:50
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blue footed boobie posted:It’s been kind of in the back of my mind that the current crop of players in their prime late 20’s- early 30’s haven’t really produced as many top, top players as other generations*, so I wonder if we’ll see other top clubs invest in youth. I think there's a bunch, like Mo Salah or, regrettably, Neymar, they've just been overshadowed by being in the footballing generation immediately after all-time greats like Ronaldo and Messi. (for this purpose I'm defining a generation as like 5-10 years)
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Jun 14, 2023 14:58
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okay West Ham how about we give you a fiver now and then one hundred million pounds when Declan wins the Ballon d'Or?
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Jun 20, 2023 17:25
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I have a feeling a lot of these Chelsea players are gonna look really good at new clubs away from the bloated squad and incredible mismanagement of Stamford Bridge
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Jun 21, 2023 15:57
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mila kunis posted:Surprised no one's in for Firmino yet there's rumours he's heading to Saudi Arabia
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Jun 21, 2023 16:52
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sebzilla posted:United back in for Mason Mount at £55M The thing I've seen about Mason Mount in online football nerd analysis is that basically he's somebody who does everything pretty well, works hard, and is good at following managers' instructions, so he's not likely to win a game on his own but he'll make the players around him better and help the manager get their tactics working by doing what he's told, which is why every manager loves him and wants him on their team.
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Jun 23, 2023 12:50
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Supposedly Rice likes living in London with his family and since he can get a big money move to the #2 team in the league while staying in London and not changing much else about his life, the move to Man City is less appealing. I still wouldn't be surprised if he picks them though because they can just double his salary or whatever, fly him in on a private helicopter from London for training every day, who knows.
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Jun 25, 2023 15:37
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With the Saudi stuff I feel like we're just at the beginning of another cycle of a league getting big money injections and trying to raise its profile by signing big names. It happened with MLS, it happened with China, it happened with the smaller Gulf states like Qatar on a smaller scale, I even remember it happening with the Russian league when it was flush with oil cash. Every time what's happened is some older players go to pick up big paychecks at the end of their career, a few younger players go there to waste some years of their career from some combination of sketchy agent shenanigans, wanting the big payouts, or falling for the hype that this is the league of the future, and after a few years it all dies down again when everybody remembers that the best players want to be playing for prestige clubs in the Champions League instead of competing for nothing in a Mickey Mouse league, and eventually the people injecting all the money get impatient, stop throwing their money in a big hole, and discover that actually the league isn't sustainable or popular without huge ongoing cash injections. Maybe this is the time that finally breaks the trend and Saudi Arabia becomes the new heart of world football, but I doubt it.
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Jun 26, 2023 15:30
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blue footed boobie posted:The Saudis seem to have more money than the past groups of oligarchs who have dumped money into football. They also seem to think that sportswashing is actually something that confers a benefit on them, so they may actually have the determination to Lee going with this. I just don’t see how a bunch of stars playing in the desert for teams with no known history outside of Saudi Arabia will ever be interesting viewing. Seems like their money would be better spent hosting events and sponsoring/buying teams. They definitely have more money and more motivation when it comes to sportswashing, that's why they're making moves in so many areas at once like taking over golf and trying to get the World Cup and so on. That could be different. But I don't think shoveling billions of dollars into the Saudi league is going to accomplish what they think it will, and after a few years they'll realize that and it will die like the rest of the oligarch money projects outside big leagues have in the past. Anzhi Makhachkala didn't stop because the owner ran out of money, it stopped because they didn't win the champions league within two years and he got bored and decided to stop lighting his money on fire. The fact that the Saudis have even more money than that guy doesn't mean they won't come to the same conclusion when signing 38-year-old Ballon d'Or winners on nine-figure contracts doesn't make the Saudi Pro League more popular than the Premier League overnight.
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Jun 27, 2023 13:17
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Shrapnig posted:I haven't even seen a Saudi League highlight outside of things posted here to lol at Ronald. I don't think the world sees this as anything more than idle curiosity and oogling the money being bandied about. In five years we'll be probably be going "whatever happened to Ruben Neves" much like we have every once in a while with Oscar. Yeah the real legacy will be people who have a favourite player that ended up in Saudi Arabia grumbling about it forever, the way I'm still annoyed that Hulk wasted his prime footballing years in Russia and China.
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Jun 27, 2023 13:30
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sue them for breach of contract David
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Jun 27, 2023 14:38
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TheRat posted:So they haven't agreed fee? I've seen other sources saying basically that West Ham are happy with the size of the fee so they've got an agreement in principle but there are still a few things to work out with how the fee will be structured
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Jun 28, 2023 20:00
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sticksy posted:He's like the perfect Simeone player He really is
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Jun 29, 2023 14:27
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every team needs a guy who will run around the field tripping people and then getting mad at them
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Jun 29, 2023 19:17
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kri kri posted:Have Arsenal signed anyone yet Kai Havertz
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Jun 30, 2023 11:45
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Eric Cantonese posted:Is he good? I've never seen him play. he's the best midfielder in the history of football OP
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Jun 30, 2023 17:12
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Brendan Rodgers posted:He literally is the best midfielder in the history of football, and definitely better than Jude. Don't even need youtube highlights these days, I'm all about the graphs. youtube highlights are old hat, these days it's all about youtube videos of nerds standing over tactics boards telling me about xA vs. PP per 90
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Jul 1, 2023 13:15
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Bea Nanner posted:list of free agents: go back in time five or ten years and this squad wins the Champions League
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Jul 1, 2023 16:05
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Pleased to see Liverpool getting transfer business done nice and early in the window, also Spike Brits lmao
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Jul 3, 2023 00:57
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I assume there's also a strong desire to build on last season and push for the title again which means spending big money to build squad depth since that really bit Arsenal when it mattered and this year they've got the CL to contend with as well
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Jul 5, 2023 14:12
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Dudley posted:Nothing says ambition like selling anyone who showed any life at all last season to direct rivals. From what I read Mount was always on the chopping block because he's homegrown which from an FFP standpoint means a sale is pure profit
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Jul 5, 2023 14:13
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seems like it is in fact very possible
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Jul 5, 2023 19:17
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tarbrush posted:All the other Liverpool players talk about him as this incredibly chill, slightly spacy guy. Which probably doesn't lend itself to doing it on a cold Tuesday in Stoke. A scorer of big goals but not a big goalscorer.
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Jul 6, 2023 17:54
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Xhaka can play for whatever club he wants as long as he never retires from international football
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Jul 6, 2023 19:34
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every part of this photoshop somehow looks more fake than every other part, it's baffling
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Jul 7, 2023 22:03
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sticksy posted:What I’ll remember most about de Gea is that he looks like a llama and also the kid from Jumanji that's right
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Jul 9, 2023 02:59
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Fabinho wasn't very good last year but he's only 29 so I don't think he's washed and it would be dumb to sell him, get some form back in the team overall and he could be back up among the best defensive midfielders in the world
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Jul 13, 2023 13:00
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I've been assuming that Mac Allister and Szoboszlai were both signed as immediate starters, with Fabinho sitting behind them. Supposedly, Szoboszlai likes to press but he also likes to play high up the pitch, which means when the press does break down it'll be helpful to have someone good behind him to cover the space he leaves behind. Mac Allister isn't a defensive midfielder but is good at keeping possession, which will overall be helpful defensively but again doesn't do much during transition counterattacks which is where we looked so vulnerable last season. If Fabinho can get back to his best he's perfect for that third spot and if the plan really is for both the new guys to be starting then it'd be stupid to replace the one veteran left in that midfield three.Ulio posted:I think Fabinho was low key very good. Van Dijk was by far the biggest problem Liverpool had, just putting that as an off split for now but he looked horrid for the Netherlands in Nations League as well. Fabinho isn't Busquet or Veratti level with the ball but he is quite good defensively. I actually think they could get rid of Jordan Henderson but both him and Fabinho would be too much imo. None of their signings have the defensive output of those two and Jones/Elliot also are more attacked minded. Hendo also was quite bad last year, he still has the energy and physicality to play in a top league but his end product is below average but now he has some crucial defending mistakes compared to the past. Yeah Fabinho is really good defensively but I don't think he was good last season. It's not all his fault, because the press was breaking down in front of him and leaving him in more exposed positions than in the seasons where he looked godlike, but there were way too many games where his response was to just run around kicking people, he was very lucky not to get a second yellow in like half a dozen different games.
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Jul 13, 2023 15:27
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 Shitshow posted:Liverpool played a 3-box-3 last year, too? I guess that’s the hot new tactic. it's the fancy name for Alexander-Arnold tucking into midfield in possession
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Jul 14, 2023 14:14
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