01 Sep 2026 18:09:12
Chema Andres going to Brighton for €23m. Was he not a name mentioned a lot on here during the summer? Really just took for granted when we sold Jones we would replace him in the squad. Baffled.
01 Sep 2026 18:48:51
I agree, Flo, but we have too many non homegrown players. Should have gone for Wharton and Scott. Yes, both overpriced, but two English players in midfield who are 22/23. So sorted for years.
01 Sep 2026 18:50:42
They’ve signed the Baleba and Minteh replacements now. Question is, will they bend on the price?
01 Sep 2026 18:59:12
VV, you must be quite annoyed with Andres going for €23m. Seems like he'd been a great option for us.
As for homegrown, drop the players we don't want or who wouldn't take a move. Club and results come first.
01 Sep 2026 19:03:31
Wharton is flyweight and our problem was we have too many vanilla
players like
Grav. We need some grit. Wharton isn't it.
01 Sep 2026 19:06:25
At 23 million it's such a safe bet at his age. Even if he didn't take off and ended up only as a rotation option we could still get 50-60 million in a couple of years with inflation.
01 Sep 2026 19:17:24
Swamp, I agree with you. Wharton may have the qualities we need in deep midfield to possess the ball.
However, like you, his issue is that he is not mobile enough to cover the ground required in transition/when we lose the ball.
01 Sep 2026 19:25:59
Alisson
Mamadasvilli
Kerkez
Tsimikas
Virg
Leoni
Araujo
Jaquet
Dom
Macca
Endo
Gravenberch
Wirtz
Barcola
Isak
Ekitike
Munoz
Chiesa
Gakpo
17 spots available in a 25 man squad. Can have more but size of squad shrinks.
Who's dropping out McGov?
01 Sep 2026 19:28:54
Oli, who do we have that gets the crowd going these days? Araujo and Munoz are a type we’ve been missing and it’s no surprise that Andoni has gone for them.
Wharton would slice open defences and get Isak pumping, but if we get him it would have to be instead of Grav.
01 Sep 2026 19:34:54
Obviously Chiesa or Endo drop out. How on earth are they still at the club?
01 Sep 2026 19:35:51
Not one English homegrown player. Shocking.
01 Sep 2026 19:36:18
Wharton would have been a red on June 2nd if Slot hadn't been sacked. It was as close to being a 'done deal' as it could have been. Things seem to cool off in May, so I suspect Richard Hughes knew that Slot was on his way out. Wharton is not an Iraola midfielder and he pretty much made that clear when he said, "We had to change some plans" in reply to transfer questions about Wharton.
This is the problem with sacking a heavily-backed coach halfway through a rebuild. Square pegs, round holes. The advantage, though, is that these are not Iraola's players (except Munoz and Barcola). So Isak's record transfer price tag doesn't really matter any more.
He had to play last year when he could because of his fee. But now, if Hugo comes back firing, he'll be first choice number 9. I had hoped we could find a way of them playing together, but the Barcola signing kills that idea. That's where everyone wants to play. If Liverpool was the Titanic, we would just capsize (Sliiiide to the left! One hop this time!)
Maybe we should just put nine outfield players on the left flank and give the whole of the right side to Endo. Give that lad a gumshield and no one is getting through alive. 👊🥊 God help 'em.
01 Sep 2026 19:49:27
Ape, Jacquet and Leoni count as U21 for EPL, but not the UCL.
For the UCL we can drop either Endo or Chiesa, and Ekitike can be added in Jan when the list is refreshed.
01 Sep 2026 19:58:48
Chiesa, Endo and Eki are out until sometime into next year, plus he then needs to get match fit etc. Do you really think we'll see him this season after that terrible injury?
01 Sep 2026 20:12:19
Whose rebuild was it though? Slot's for R Edwards. Slot was the frontman, nothing more.
01 Sep 2026 20:17:45
Eli may never be the same. Isak is the elephant in the room. The incumbent leftovers of a previous regime, unsuited to our new style.
I’d rather Wirtz play as false 9 with Barcola and Munoz either side.
01 Sep 2026 19:41:59
Big Hairy Ape, Ekitike can be left off the list until January, which would give us a space
01 Sep 2026 19:54:17
MK did a very good write up of Wharton's limitations. He's a dead weight out of possession. I don't see that Wharton offers anything different to Nyoni in possession.
Flyweight is a very fair assessment of Wharton too, just watch his defensive displays against Everton & City, soft as volcanic diarrhoea, as for Scott? Just another middle of the road number 8 and we're very well equipped for those.
Mcgoveb, at that price he was well worth a punt. He's the modern defensive midfielder in the Rodri mould, he is physically dominant, something lacking in all our midfielders, reads the game well defensively and understands his responsibilities, something our midfielders don't. He also offers a threat in the box at set pieces and a strong presence in his own box.
Someone is going to end up paying Brighton at least 4 or 5 times that amount in a few years if he carries on in his development.
01 Sep 2026 20:30:30
Should have just let Endo go on a free or pay up his last year's wages and release him and brought someone who actually adds something to the squad.
01 Sep 2026 20:24:28
Chiesa and Endo are out till next year? when did that happen?
01 Sep 2026 20:35:08
Wharton is not our guy. He's slow, tackle shy and cries on the floor more than Mac Allister.
I don't think I've ever seen Andres play. If I have, he never stood out.
01 Sep 2026 20:37:41
I hear you, SwampDonkey. But that's just as bad because Hughes is also outta here. I think we'll all find out that Slot had more say in *some* transfers than we currently think he did.
I thought it was FSG/Liverpool propaganda at the time, but Wirtz also confirmed in one of those mind-numbingly tedious giggly-female-presenter-asking-dumb-questions-about-food-and-music interviews that Slot "sold him the dream".
After Wirtz spoke with City, Bayern and us, Slot called him via zoom and they spoke for a long time about his role at Liverpool. By the time Vincent Kompany tried the same thing, it was too late. Slot's shiny head had hypnotised Wirtz into living, dying and being reincarnated at Anfield.
Slot clearly had a vision, then either realised he couldn't do it or was given square pegs. But he wanted Wirtz and Isak.
Einstein once said: "Everybody is a genius. But if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will spend its whole life believing that it is stupid." Kerkez inverting to midfield was worse than a fish trying to climb a tree. It was ridiculous. He looked even more like Theo Von. Which would back up your point that Slot didn't want or choose him.
Slot also fell out with the hierarchy for selling Diaz, which was a ridiculous thing to do. He was the beating heart of our League title. Like the assister to the assister 9 times out of 10. He ruined Man United with his intensity and work rate.
I know he was 28, but the fact that we've turned down £85m for Gakpo and took £65m Diaz is so dumb. Diaz was favoured by both Slot and Klopp on the left wing. Then when Nunez completely fell off a cliff and started missing open goals, Slot still preferred Diaz over Gakpo as a striker.
The Dutch connection and how much he stuck with Gakpo last season made me wonder if Slot had something to do with his new pay rise/contract extension. He's on £1, 000, 000 a month now and won't be an automatic starter. He'll play 20 mins, twice a week on the left and fill in for Isak before Hugo returns. And if he plays full-time on the right, God help us.
Make it make sense!!!
01 Sep 2026 20:42:13
Totally shattered seeing Chema Andres going to Brighton for €23m. Could have sat Chiesa out the whole season. They are spending 35M on GK who is not even going to play but couldn't spend 23M on an upcoming young strong DM. I really hope LFC hijacks this one.
01 Sep 2026 20:44:15
I wonder if Endo gets a game as DM? He was excellent under Jurgen, although that seems like a decade ago now and Endo is 45z.
01 Sep 2026 20:44:49
Florian Musiala,
Don't know where you got that from, Florian? Newspaper articles talking earlier today said Chiesa just had a minor muscle injury. I've not heard anything about Endo.
Leoni is the one closest to returning out of himself, Ekitike and Conor Bradley.
That lad is going to be special. I just hope an ACL hasn't ruined him, but he's young enough to recover. In a few years, Jacquet and Leoni will look like the exceptional pieces of business that they were/are. Powerful, quick, decent on the ball and up for a fight. Love it.
01 Sep 2026 20:46:21
VV and MKS, I agree re: Wharton. He can pass a ball and progress it up the pitch but he lacks any type of mobility or physicality in transition and that is of no advantage to us esp. with the PL we are currently in.
01 Sep 2026 20:47:01
Endo does not have to be registered if there was someone
better available.
01 Sep 2026 20:47:24
I’d rather Isak and Wirtz weren’t at the club at all, but what can we do?
01 Sep 2026 20:53:36
Kaka009, McConnell (DM, 21) and Nyoni (CM, 19) are up-and-coming talents. Forest bid £30m for Nyoni.
If we’d paid £30m for someone else’s 19-year-old, you’d probably be happy based on your Chema Andres comment. But you don’t want us to trust our own academy?
The only logical reason to sign a midfielder would’ve been if Macca, Grav, Endo or Szoboszlai left.
We only sold Jones, and Iraola had literally said publicly how impressed he’s been with Nyoni. It’s logical to assume Nyoni replaces Jones.
01 Sep 2026 20:54:32
Chema Andres is a phenomenal signing. Brighton will be selling him in 12-15 months for 100m+ for sure.
01 Sep 2026 20:59:44
So confused as to why people keep discussing the homegrown non-issue.
01 Sep 2026 21:00:47
Wharton scores highly for the league last season in tackles, recoveries and possession won in the final third of the pitch when compared to similar players. He’s better defensively than what we have, he’s not a physically imposing monster, his talent is in his in-game intelligence.
And the lad's only 22.
On top of that, the vision we lack since Trent left, he possesses the closest thing we’d find.
Would have made a great addition, and the lad's English, and seems to like the club.
01 Sep 2026 20:58:10
Mattytman1980 - Your Theo von Kerkez reference is hilarious. Pair of red neck
Forest gumps.
01 Sep 2026 21:07:45
We don’t ever play Chiesa or Endo so why do they need to be listed or registered? Better to loan them out, surely, even if we had to pay half of their wages.
01 Sep 2026 21:21:26
Probably because it is an issue, Chewy. You're the only one who seems to think it isn't. Only being able to sign players by selling others, or paying them their full salary while not being able to play them is quite clearly an issue.
01 Sep 2026 21:33:29
inbeta1989, Do you mean that? Like, really? 👀
The root cause of Wirtz's bad start last season was Salah. He wouldn't have been 007 if Salah hadn't missed half a dozen chances created by Wirtz. His whole season could have played out differently then. Newcastle keeper had a wonder save last week. Then he scored a goal against Forest but Frimpong was doing Frimpong things, so it was chalked off. Then another cracking save from his header. He *could* be 3 for 2 this season already and then it's a different conversation.
Watch him on Player Cam. That lad currently thinks too fast for the rest of our squad and gets frustrated. He finds so much space and no one risks finding him. Especially Dom.
Three times in the first half against Forest, Wirtz ran into acres of space with nothing but glorious green grass in front of him. Isak started sprinting as soon as Wirtz did. Perfect. Pass. Pass. Tap in.
What did Dom do? Passed it back 40 yards to Alisson. Both Wirtz and Isak threw their arms in the air in frustration and Iraola turned his back on the field.
So they must be practicing these passes in training to react like that. It's just a confidence issue and a lack of trust in our defence. That's where we miss Trent. He wasn't scared to play that diagonal and usually pulled it off.
The whole team know how defensively frail we are right now. So when Dom has his foot on the ball and the pass to Wirtz risks being intercepted, he doesn't want us to get caught on the counter after losing the ball. He'd already done it twice himself with dopey, sloppy, misplaced passes. You can see it in their play. Everything is so... safe. Everyone except Munoz, who has that touch of madness in him. I love him already. Gives me Jota vibes.
Hugo also thinks quickly, which is why he said he loves it when Wirtz is on the pitch with him. So if Isak doesn't shine before January, Hugo will have his chance to be a starter and then we'll probably have to sell Isak next summer. He knows he has to up his game within the next few months.
Have faith, mate. They will both come good this season and then we'll all see their value. Because no one available has ceilings as high as those two. Now that potential has to become reality.
01 Sep 2026 21:56:50
"He was the beating heart of our League title."
This literally never happened with Salah having the greatest individual season in PL history and cleaning up all individual awards including Golden Boot, POTY awards, the works.
But Diaz was the heartbeat of our blah, blah, blah.
The revisional history is heavy on this one, mate.
01 Sep 2026 21:57:20
We can't waste money paying players and not registering them, but if the manager doesn't want Chiesa and Endo he should have been harsh and frozen them out early doors and told them and their agents to find moves away to free up non HG spots. There's always a solution.
01 Sep 2026 21:58:03
Florian Musiala,
It was me. I got his potential after meeting some Stuttgart fans on holiday in Benidorm. They also said RM gets a percentage of any future deal. They said Rodri 2.0.
01 Sep 2026 21:57:21
SimpleSoul,
Who do we sell them to? Who would want them in their current state? Chiesa's wage is a joke. £160k a week for nothing.
I'm most definitely NOT an ITK, but I do have one contact at Anfield who has worked there for years in & around the medical and physio department.
BOTH Chiesa and Juventus lied to us (*allegedly before his lawyers come after me!). He has a 'condition' that wouldn't show up on a standard medical or fitness test. A condition that is quite the problem for top athletes.
What do athletes need to recover? Probably even more than nutrition? Sleep!
The dude has chronic insomnia that supposedly started when he moved to the UK. My arse. Juventus sold him on the cheap to us because he was useless to them in that state. We only recover in certain phases of a sleep cycle, and even sleeping tablets mean we don't enter that phase for long. For us normal folk, we'll probably be okay with 6 hours of poor quality sleep. But athletes? Not a chance.
FSG wanted to sue both Chiesa and Juve, but it never happened. I don't know how you prove they knew about this beforehand?!
Anyway, that's the Chiesa issue in a nutshell. Maybe he should read some of my posts on here. They're long enough to make anyone sleep. 😄
01 Sep 2026 22:21:47
Now that the window is over, I will comment on what I think. So glad that Barcola signed, but I am very concerned about the midfield and fullback positions. Now I was thinking, either the club does not recognise the gaping holes in the squad, or they are not able to fill them. I don’t like either of these options, and I am not sure which it is.
The longer the window went on, I have started to believe that FSG are on their way out and do not want to invest more money. I also think the data driven stuff needs to be stopped and we need to start scouting and buying players like other clubs.
Our performances on the pitch tell you everything you need to know about the team and what it is lacking. A decent DM could have been picked up for 50-60 million, but the fact that they seem to insist on sticking with this terrible midfield completely bewilders me. Then the fullback situation: we have gone from having the 2 best in the world to having the worst in the PL and being a complete laughing stock. Gonna be a long hard season. Kind of reminds me of Hicks and Gilets' final season.
01 Sep 2026 22:32:56
Trey I can see making it here. McConnell I don’t. He’s 22 in two weeks and a decent player but I doubt he has a Premier League career.
01 Sep 2026 22:46:48
Florin Musiala, I do apologise my sentence generation wasn't correct. I forget we are so grammatically correct on here. I meant Endo and Chiesa to the question who do you drop, and then Eki is injured. Knowing grammar is becoming more important on the site. I'll work harder to make sure my phone and I do better.
01 Sep 2026 22:55:42
No issues with Nyoni getting his chance and would prefer him over Dom in the double pivot. Again, though, he is lightweight off the ball.
Stuttgart concede a boatload of chances even more than we do. Maybe not Andres's fault, but they get cut open far too often.
01 Sep 2026 23:17:26
Thanks ed1, ed25 and ed66, Carra, thefields, Robbo, Ned and VG. 4 decent signings. Still some problem areas but I guess that's what January is for. See you all then.
01 Sep 2026 23:05:02
OliRed,
Salah scored 3 goals and got 2 assists in his last 12 games of that season. 😂 That's why he was all set to annihilate the G/A record. Then he went missing, so Diaz and Gakpo turned up. I swear you Salah fan boys read what you want to. None of what I said was knocking Salah. It was an incredible season from him, up until those last 12 games. We wouldn't have won the league without him. But that precisely zero to do with what I actually said.
You think Salah pressed and dictated play? 😂 Because that's what I meant by 'beating heart of the team'. You know who else called him that? Jurgen Norbert Klopp.
Do you understand the difference between G/A and the engine of a team? Do you understand what I meant by the 'assister to the assister'? Go check the OPTA stats and see WHO started over 60% of our attacking phases. Spoiler Alert: His name rhymes with Ruis Liaz. I saw it with my own eyes sat right behind Slot, in the same block I've sat in since 1999. But yeah, you're right, that didn't happen.
Also, did you see what happened when Diaz left? Salah was still there. 😂 It's not rocket science, mush. Salah broke the 38-game goal scoring record in 2017. You know where we finished that season? FOURTH. Which clearly shows that goals alone don't win you titles. No one on that field had more energy, passion and progressive drive that Luis Diaz. No one. And boy did we find out quickly after he left. Boring, slow, methodical, risk-free football.
We didn't win a major trophy with Salah in the squad until Alisson and Van Dijk came in. So we've seen the team without all of them at some point. When Van Dijk was out with an ACL, we lost SIX home games in a row. Before his injury, Van Dijk had only lost ONE league game at Anfield. What does that tell you about who is more important?
In our league winning year under Slot, Salah didn't keep clean sheets and he didn't pass himself the ball from midfield. It takes a team to win a league, which is why Salah couldn't do that until Van Dijk and Alisson came to help him out. And the beating heart of that TEAM was Luis Diaz. When he was subbed on, the whole atmosphere and pace changed. That's what I'm talking about. Take Diaz out of tat team and 60%+ attacks break down or don't even start at all. And guess what that means? Salah does win all those personal accolades.
02 Sep 2026 02:13:30
@MKScouser I am not saying Nyoni or McConnell don’t deserve to play first team football, but we also play every 3rd day, we need depth, strong bench and most importantly an experienced first team player on DM which we never replaced after Hendo, Fabinho left. The reason DM and tracking back becomes so important is because our full backs are crap and weak at this point, so instead of replacing two full backs better to add a cover on DM to be able to do 2 vs 1
on the wing.
Sabo doesn’t want to play RB, he can’t be a DM, McCalister has no legs left and Grev won’t track back. I have no doubt Nyoni will come out great from this season but what if he gets injured? What cover do we have? If you are going to say Endo, you probably have no sense of what tier-1 football team quality standards demand these days. Just think about playing against RM or PSG, do you think we have a midfield ready for playing against those teams?
02 Sep 2026 06:54:55
@DK97. It’s really not an issue for the fans. The club owns the players, the club owns the money and the club decides who will be in the squad. You, me and all the other fans don’t have a say and don’t have anything to do with the finances.
It’s just an opinion some fans have that is, in practical terms, of no meaning with respect to what the club chooses to do.
02 Sep 2026 21:31:51
I don't think selling our 5th choice midfield option and our 7th choice attacking option was really going to help bring in any of the players we thought were going to come in.
{Ed001's Note - he is not good. Or even decent. Or average for that matter.}
{Ed666's Note - he’s a left winger we have 3 of them