During the summer transfer window, Brendan Rodgers bolstered the club's midfield options with the signings of Joe Allen, Nuri Sahin and Oussama Assaidi. All three will hopefully go on to have a significant positive impact at Anfield, but reports in Spain claims that Liverpool and Tottenham Hotspur both made early-window bids for Athletic Bilbao midfielder Ander Herrera.
According to AS:
"Liverpool and Tottenham approached Herrera at the end of last season and made offers between €15 and €20 million.
"Herrera did not want to transfer the interest ended. Although both clubs knew about his physical problems, they were still willing to invest a large sum in his signing".
Herrera - who has a €36m buyout clause in his current contract - is a player with great potential, and he would've been an interesting signing for the Reds. However, if the deal had gone through, it seems unlikely that the club would've pursued Joe Allen (due to the seemingly finite budget), and that would've been a big miss for the club IMO.
In any event, if Herrera actually wanted a move to the Premier League, Spurs - with their finely honed gazumping expertise - probably would've won the race anyway (!)
Given the choice, who would you rather have at the club?
NOTE: I'm trying out a slightly different version of the commenting system. If you have any feedback, positive or negative, about the user experience, please leave a comment below. If people prefer the old style, I'll revert back to that. Cheers, JK
Jaimie Kanwar
According to AS:
"Liverpool and Tottenham approached Herrera at the end of last season and made offers between €15 and €20 million.
"Herrera did not want to transfer the interest ended. Although both clubs knew about his physical problems, they were still willing to invest a large sum in his signing".
Herrera - who has a €36m buyout clause in his current contract - is a player with great potential, and he would've been an interesting signing for the Reds. However, if the deal had gone through, it seems unlikely that the club would've pursued Joe Allen (due to the seemingly finite budget), and that would've been a big miss for the club IMO.
In any event, if Herrera actually wanted a move to the Premier League, Spurs - with their finely honed gazumping expertise - probably would've won the race anyway (!)
Given the choice, who would you rather have at the club?
NOTE: I'm trying out a slightly different version of the commenting system. If you have any feedback, positive or negative, about the user experience, please leave a comment below. If people prefer the old style, I'll revert back to that. Cheers, JK
Jaimie Kanwar
What are his physical problems?
ReplyDeletePersistent groin injury I believe. He's having surgery this month to address the issue.
ReplyDeletePersistent groin injury. He's having surgery this month to try and resolve it.
ReplyDeleteAquilani Mk. II
ReplyDeleteClass Act.
ReplyDeleteJaimie this new comment layout is a bit tinier then previous one.
ReplyDeleteWhen you say 'tinier', do you mean smaller?
ReplyDelete"Seemingly finite budget" - what does that even mean?
ReplyDeleteJoe Allen is an expensive version of Charlie Adam....all game pass side ways or backwards...sick of it...bet if you got Emil Heskey to do Joe Allens job ..he'd pass with flying colours...
ReplyDeleteShould have just kept Charlie "better than Alonso " and saved 15 mill.
Would rather have a injury prone Herrera than a useless Allen value.
It means that there seems to have been a set budget for the summer (i.e. 30m), though that's not a certainty. It's possible that more money was available, but FSG did not think the targets selected were worth it.
ReplyDeleteTest
ReplyDeleteI bet if it was down to you you'd probably change the Real Xabi Alonso with Charlie Adam and save the profits, wouldn't you?
ReplyDeleteSpurs might have beaten Liverpool to Dempsey & Sigurdsson, but at least you won the battle for Charlie Adam
ReplyDeleteIndeed. Every cloud has a silver lining...
ReplyDeleteP.S Just wait till people discover the 'vote down' feature - most of my comments will be -15/20, I'm sure :-)
ReplyDeleteIf we have learnt one thing from history:
ReplyDeleteDont buy an injury prone player no matter how good he is:
Additionally, at the moment I have no regrets about buying allen
He Is very good at what he does ( passing) , he has the ambition of Liverpool, and more importantly he has brought stability and calmness for the club-one thing that we hugely miss at the moment-
get real mate joe allen is a class act, anyone who knows football can see that. yeah we've had a poor start to the season but u could see that happening before the season started and with utd next week it might be no wins out 5 but look at the team and how there playing. ie positives sterlin and allen have both been class. i think suso will break through soon and then yesil within a couple of months if not sooner. ibe will be a couple of years away but another class player. future now looks bright again dont it ynwa
ReplyDeletelol bet ya
ReplyDeleteOne demerit is you don't know who voted you up or down unlike previous layout.
ReplyDeleteA Sterling silver one!
ReplyDeleteAgree mate , would love to see someone instead of Shelvey
ReplyDeleteHi Jaimie will be interesting to see what happens if FSG
ReplyDeletesell Red Sox for the 600 m .
Quality young player. Probably one of the best, if not the best, young technical players in Spain at the moment. Technically and his vision combined, he is a classy young player. Kinda in the Iniesta mould. Possibly my fave Bilbao player, along with Munian. Different kind of player to Allen. Allen plays deeper. Can play depper but Herrera is best at the tip of a three-man central midfield or basically behind the front man. Links up the play well in the last third and provides that certain something to elevate a team's play in the last third, whereas Allen is more of a recycler of possession from deep (which can be just as important). Two players who play very different roles. Despite my rating of him, I wouldn't want us to buy a injured player. If fit, I'd love to see him at Anfield. If I were to choose out of the two on who to spend that amount of money on, it would be Herrera.
ReplyDeleteWhile the likes of the top 6 teams in PL having 1 0r 2 backup player for each position, We have to resort to either this or that player in every position. FSG's moneyball policy is going to bring this club down. Sad state of affairs. Really
ReplyDeleteHmm? I think it's more likely the racing team and/or LFC would be sold before the Red Sox.
ReplyDeleteallen passes are all 10 -15 yard passes ,i dont think he creats any thing ,steve g was 100 times better against safc when played in same position,his passes were far more penitrative than allen
ReplyDeleteSame was said about Lucas, and it wasn't true then nor now. Allen is passing the ball right, left and center to keep the game flowing for us.
ReplyDeleteAn ability we have sorely lacked since Alonso handed in his transfer request.
ALAN SHEARER highlights 5 passes JOE ALLEN made out of 100 plus and people think all he does is play the ball sideways and backwards watch the full game and not 5 minutes on match of the day!
ReplyDeletejust found this post iwas looking to find out something about the comments system imo the old one is miles better but you should have a vote on it i will go with the flow
ReplyDeleteThanks for your input, John. What do you prefer about the old comment system? Cheers.
ReplyDeleteit just seems easier to find my own post and who as replyed to other posts
ReplyDeletegetting hand of it now thanks to you nd other posters just some of us are less internet savy than others obviously the majority seem to prefere the new one so crack on
ReplyDelete