17 Mar 2013

Transfer Fail: €26m La Liga star 'El Niño Maravilla' to reject LFC move. Loss...?

In February, reports in Italy and France, claimed that Brendan Rodgers had his eye on Barcelona star Alexis Sanchez as a possible replacement for Reds star Luis Suarez. If the Uruguayan leaves, Liverpool will obviously need a top-class replacement, but it looks like Chilean international is no longer an option.

According to a report today in Italian newspaper La Gazetta dello Sport:

* Sanchez has agreed a summer move to Inter Milan.

* His representatives are currently negotiation terms.

* Sanchez is willing to take a pay cut to push through the move.

In December 2012, Spanish newspaper Mundo Deportivo claimed that Liverpool coach Brendan Rodgers had 'ordered his scouts' to 'collect information' about Sanchez, who recently acknowledged his problems in front of goal. he told Marca:

"The fact that I can't score makes me nervous. At any rate, the hard thing is to create chances, and this is something I'm doing."

Liverpool were linked with Sánchez in the run up to the 2011 summer transfer window, and around that time, Udinese Chairman Franco Soldati made the following statement:

“Sánchez of interest to both English and Italian teams. A team has already offered a figure close to 30-35 million euros but I cannot say where it came from"

It was speculated that Liverpool had made the bid, and considering the club went on to spend over £50m during the catastrophic summer of 2011, it's definitely possible.

Barcelona signed Sánchez - nicknamed 'El Niño Maravilla' (The Wonder Boy) - for €26m 2011, but despite his struggles in front of goal, Barcelona caretaker boss Jordi Roura insists the club is happy with Sanchez. He told Fox Sports recently:

"We are very pleased with the work and his attitude. He's been a bit unlucky and I'm sure he will go on to score goals, and that will give him a lot of confidence"

Rodgers recently admitted that he expects to spend the summer batting away bids for Suarez, and with Sanchez apparently no longer an option, what other strikers out there could Liverpool realistically target if Suarez ends up leaving?

The Uruguayan has repeatedly stated that he's happy at Liverpool, but the decision may ultimately be out of his hands. The Reds reported another financial loss recently, and if some club came in with a ridiculous offer, you can bet your bottom dollar that FSG would seriously consider it.

They are, after all, businessmen, with no personal connection to LFC, and in their world, money talks. Does anyone really believe the group would reject a £50-£60m bid for Suarez? No chance (IMO).



Jaimie Kanwar


22 comments:

  1. Never thought it was likely that Sanchez would join us in our current state (since 2010 or so).

    You make an interesting point there concerning our losses, Jaimie. I wanted to ask you about it anyway. The club has changed the reporting period for our books. If I am understanding things correctly, the losses recently reported are basically down to sponsorship and price moneys being paid by the end of a certain period, which wasn't considered in the recently published accounts. As I know that you usually take a deeper look into our books, do you plan to write an article about it and how do you interpret the published figures right now.

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  2. Oh well, if they're not fully committed to LFC then I don't want to see them picking up a fat salary and mincing around the pitch in a red shirt, Joe Cole style.

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  3. Sanchez is too wasteful. If he isn't giving the ball away he's offside. If he isn't offside he's giving the ball away. Very overated, especially for that price.

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  4. I do think we need to plan for life without Suarez as we are no where near meeting his ambitions and I really now think that BR will not achieve what I thought he may. I said last year, if BR he does better than KD then I will support him further, he has not so far and it looks like he will not by the end of the season. We were promised tika taka and a football revolution, but all I see is Rafa Benitez wonder kids and KD's signings teaching some of BR pass masters a lesson. People lambasted KD last year for only winning a cup and doing poor in the league, well this year we have been very poor on all fronts and the only records broken are for being the worst not the best. I only wonder how KD would of prospered if Suarez and co where finishing like they are this year bt done it for him, i think the situation would of been very different.
    I now watch as I see us struggling against teams who press us high up the pitch and with no alternative plan B, when it happens; we instantly loose our bottle, shape and situational awareness and end up playing Hodgson hoof ball.
    People say we are in transition? but transition can go one or two ways and we were supposedly in transition under KD and Steve Clarke. At least last year we were so unlucky in games due to poor finishing, the ideas and tactics deployed where right it was just people were not firing. This year however has been a roller coaster ride of inconsistency and it started with tika taka and now developed into a hoof, run around headless chicken football, hoping Suarez gets us out the poo. when he does go, this is when BR will have to use all his limited tactical awareness to get us going and I now think it will be transition to failure not success. I did buy into this young progressive manager and we have done it before, KD was winning leagues at the age of forty and so was Rafa, but did we need it this time?? When we are in supposed turmoil?? we needed an experienced manager who had won things to come in and implement a proven strategy not a person who suggests his strategy is amazing without proving it over a sustained period. Yes Swansea played good football but like all new arrivals to the prem, you have second season syndrome, look at Newcastle ! for all his hard work and money spent we are currently 1 point above a club with no funds but they do have our old assistant who was young progressive, tactically astute and would no doubt of taken over from KD in the future, when he had experience under his belt!!!

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  5. i agree chief....i was giving rogers the benefit of the doubt but his favoritism and lack of tactical knowledge ..especially playing away leads me to believe hes not the man for the job .....its never his fault always the players ...yet he picks and buys them and is meant to motivate and coach them..strange that...the guy is out of his depth...sick off him picking allen over hendo its a disgrace...sick of him underestimating lower teams playing 4 2 4 .........if villa beat us next week he should be sacked

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  6. You raise a few fair and a few maybe not so fair points and questions that make me think. On our former assistant, though, I clearly disagree. He offered his resignation just after Kenny was sacked, so there clearly is some doubt that he would have taken over. Not that I was against that idea.

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  7. Jaimie,


    Don't be so sure that they would accept a bid of £50 million.
    Yes FSG are businessmen but they are not stupid either, they would the reaction to Hicks and Gillet .
    Any whiff of that from them and they would find it extremely difficult.
    Also Torres when he left put in a transfer request,Suarez was bought to play with Torres.
    We are NOT going to be able to attract players of Sanchez's ILK unless we are in the Champions league.
    After yesterdays performance that's at least two seasons away.

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  8. What is so bad about LS leaving? No one is indispensable in this case. It will be a super good deal if LFC can get 60 mil pounds for him. Also, we must sell those fringe players in the club in the coming summer.

    In order for us to compete for the top in the league, we only have 2 solutions, one is to get a new owner, which is highly unlikely at the moment. Anyway, imo, I think they have been very supportive in terms of releasing money for players except they did not hire people that know how to spend their money wisely. Another is to build a bigger stadium so that we can bring in more revenue to the club. This is a big project that needs huge amount of money. Without the help of player sales, this is highly unachievable.

    Bottom line is the whosoever manager in charge must have good business acumen, never commit stupid act of buy high sell low, which happens to LFC too frequently in the past.

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  9. Sanchez could never replace Suarez, very few similarities between the 2

    Money talks alright, but if the real aim is to move Liverpool on and make the club a financial success, we need to get into the top 4 again to earn CL money, and possibly get into the new Qatari league being mooted recently.

    Cashing in on the best player in PL this season would be very short sighted in my opinion.



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  10. lets not set our hopes to high for the summer or next season then we will be less dissoppointed i think they will cash in on suarez but still think we will surive next season we mite even get in the top ten ,

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  11. didn't he only put resignation in due to loyalty to Kenny and to be fair, i wouldn't think BR and Clarke would of had the same partnership, BR has an air of invincibility but without the knowledge to back it up. People are saying time but why are we giving BR time and did not give it to Kenny? He has spent more, isolated KD's signings and then done a full U turn and is playing KD's and not his??? he has not done better than KD and so should be removed i my mind. to put it into perspective, BR needs to win the next 6 out of 8 games to draw level with Rafa's sacking not good enough season!! but if he did win the next 6 out of 8 people will be clapping and saying, look we are going forward but statistically we have not moved since Rafa left. people keep on saying we don't want to be a Chelsea and i agree to an extent, but if Suarez does leave we will not be getting your falco's and the like we will be getting at best the likes of Fletcher from Sunderland!!! Face it people, BR has no credibility, he is proving it on a weekly basis so how is he gonna turn the head of the best players???

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  12. ChampsWinnerTraore4:22 pm, March 17, 2013

    Sanchez is overrated and for the money there talking about we can get a specialised Anchor man i.e Strootman a centre back like Sakho and a decent striker alternative to Sturridge and Suarez

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  13. ChampsWinnerTraore4:29 pm, March 17, 2013

    Im sure we will lose to Villa next game there on a high and have a big powerful centre forward who will run at the defence and its something our defenders cant handle they seem to get scared like a rabit in headlights and back off See Skrtel and Rodriguez goal on saturday or Benteke vs Agger at anfiled 2-1 villa IMO

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  14. Yes, he offered to resign due to Kenny being sacked.



    Well, I may have misunderstood you there. I thought you were talking about Clarke becoming our manager, not assistant manager to Rodgers.


    I respect your opinion, but I don't see us getting further if we argue about certain things. You put across your opinion very clear and reasoned, and it's clear to see where you're coming from.


    Anyway, I find it harsh to blame Rodgers for playing players Kenny has signed. Is that the benchmark now? A new manager shall not field players signed by the previous manager but only the ones he's signed himself?
    If you were to ask me, I'd say players should play on merit. And with merit I mean current form, application in training and so on, not what they did five years ago. Rafa, whom I am not a big fan of, probably was our last manager to pick his squad like that, though back in the day many have asked for, e.g. Babel getting a bit more playing time.


    I don't think Rafa left us in a particular healthy state. Most of this is down to the owners at the time, but some of the "blame" has to go to Rafa. Anyway, I would find it unfair to expect of a new, young manager to do what the guy who was in charge four years ago did in his first season. One has to keep in mind that the wages structure was much better back then, and I probably don't have to tell you that, in theory, higher wages attract better players.

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  15. I agree that ideally I would not want Rafa to return and the first team did have a few bums in it but he did restructure the youth set up and we now have fruits of his work in sterling, suso, shelvey, Kelly and co. The thing is last year I was blaming the players for not being able to finish a dinner which led to us loosing games we should of won, but KD got blamed form all angles of supporters; with some calling him fooglish!!! He was sacked by the board and labelled a complete disaster and rightly so as the run in was bad. BR was brought in to change the philosophy and bring a better passing style to the Liverpool set up. this seems to have been abandoned due to a lack of tactical awareness and teams knowing our plan, especially against the bottom sides where we struggle to deal with anyone physical or a team that press and counter as a unit who then counter with a physical and pacey striker. I see this all of the time. I will give BR one more season, as i do believe people should be given time, but I am far from happy as a fan and will be expect a massive improvement next season.

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  16. Well, first of all I have to admit that I didn't see where you were coming from.

    Yes, credit has to go to Rafa for overhauling our youth set up (and Houllier for setting up the Academy in the first place, too).

    The name-giving some people exerted on Dalglish was absolutely uncalled for and I understand that some people still fight his corner because of that. I actually wouldn't label Kenny's second spell as a complete disaster, but, as much us our bad run in (or second half of the league season) was down to poor finishing, I personally wasn't convinced that he was about to build a squad for the future. A much younger manager to do that was a good idea. Whether or not Rodgers is the right one I can't tell, but I am optimistic. Others had to do that, too. Klopp at Dortmund, Shankly hadn't won anything before he came to us either, the unnameable manager at the unnameable club (though he had won something before). These or some examples of risks paying off and patience being required. There are, obviously, many examples to be found where it didn't work.


    I agree with you assessment on the change of style, that didn't quite work, leading to another change of style, that doesn't seem to be right. Horses for courses probably, but we didn't play very well in our past few games, albeit we still won a few.


    Agree on giving Rodgers (at least) one more season. It also depends on what kind of players we can afford and attract, but there should be more improvement next season. More consistency wouldn't hurt us at all.

    Not sure about massive improvement, though. It's not as if we can go out and buy 5 new players of real class. He has to get more of his signings right, though, more players who perform and go into the first team instantly.

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  17. i mean seriously guys you all can't be that flimsy. Last week when we won against tottenham everyone was talking about BR and how much potential his new side has. Now, BR is shite and we need a new manager after one loss. Tottenham lost against fulham today, does that make AVB a bad manager. WE are going to loose matches, y'all should learn to deal with. IMO this team has made progress as the season has gone on.

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  18. if last year was a disaster what is this year....

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  19. Don't know, gilstrap. You would have to ask someone who labels last season as a complete disaster. You may have not read that sentence, but above I wrote "I actually wouldn't label Kenny's second spell as a complete disaster". Therefore, I am not qualified to give you an answer to that particular question.

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  20. I believe u guys r taking a critical look at Johnson.IMO in almost every game we had lost dis season leaks from his side.a Johnson's bad day is a lose for Liverpool.

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  21. LFC NO NEED TO SIGN HIM.HE IS TOO EXPENSIVE AND NOT VERY WORTH.....LFC must start keep focus to priority winning BPL tittle first next season.FA or Carling Cup will be the bonus if we can get (reach to final will a great achivement).LFC squad to young and defend record are to fragile.It is need to be improve and must improve next season if if they seriously want to be real contender clubs. In the same times we all hope the owner and FSG will give full support with provide good budget to B.Rodgers shopping his target players.No point if we playing with good system but don't having quality players into squad. The same result and script will be repeat season by season and LFC fail to get up to fight the tittle.

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  22. Sanchez is one of the few types who is close to world class that the club can afford some of the rubbish linked with Liverpool makes me sick, Sanchez only needs to get his confidence back.

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