The walters step over

Nothing will be learnt. They keep on making the same mistakes again and again. Moreno has cost us goals in the same ways since he got here, Mignolet isn't consistent enough to play for a team that wants to challenge. Henderson, Allen and Lucas will not get any more creative or threatening around the box and Lallana needs to be in a team that is playing well to look effective. No matter how good Klopp is the fact remains that in a lot of our players it just isn't in them. There's a lot of work that needs doing in the summer.

I would imagine that BR has been told that this season will be his last if we don't look like we can compete regularly under his management - It looks as though he's decided that if he's going down then it'll be with the players HE wanted at the club.

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There's part of me that thinks that it's pathetically obvious how this is all going to end up.

Moneyball works (to a point) in baseball because it's really an individual game. You can be pretty certain that if a player has a high batting average over the last 5 years at one team there's no real reason why he won't be able to do exactly the same at a new one. Football is the ultimate team game, statistics mean next to nothing when it comes to evaluating players or teams - that FSG still haven't seemed to work that out yet is a bit concerning.

By that logic, it was completely down to FSG that we came so close last year. I'm not saying the Sun shines out of their ar*es but they HAVE given managers money to spend - it's mostly been wasted but even though you've had hundreds of posts saying the same thing (something about you don't like the owners, I'm not really sure, you haven't been clear..) you haven't once given a credible alternative. Unless there's a billionare that fancies having us as a plaything/status symbol what do you expect? If we can't afford to pay wages at the level of City, United etc then we have to do it another way. There's a hell of a lot of examples of teams that have gambled their futures for short term success, I can think of quite a few that have gone t*** up but I honestly can't think of a single one that has taken that gamble and it's paid off. Name one person or company that you want to take over. And what levels of investment you expect to be made in terms of player wages and transfer fees.

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OK. It's not a factor then. When the like of Mascherano, Tevez have given interviewas about how "there's nothing to do" when living in the North, or when various "x's girlfriend only wants to live in London/doesn't like living in Manchester,Liverpool" reports, these are all baseless lies. No players have ever refused to join Utd or City and any that decide not to come to us is entirely FSG or Ayres fault.

It does, and has done plenty of times. A load of players have turned them down. Off the top of my head - Kaka, Fabregas, Ronaldinho, Ronaldo, Robben, Zidane and plenty of others over the years even when they were winning everything. It's been said so many times by so many players (and their wives/girlfriends - De Geas missus just the other week for example) that the only place they want to live in in the UK is London that it can't just be dismissed as though it isn't a huge factor.

Thing with Origi though is that he knows he's leaving, most players interest dips when they know they're off in a couple of months. If we don't get CL then imo I can't see us signing any "big name" established players - we can't pay the huge wages needed, it'll be three or four could be good/may just be average younger types.

It'd be interesting to know how Ayre tries to sell "performance linked pay" to prospective signings. Personally, I think it'd be easy enough for an agent to say to his player "they don't believe in you - x have offered twenty grand a week more, go there instead." If we lose Henderson and Sterling because we're trying to be clever then we might as well just fecking give up.

Or we could just win the Europa league and watch Van Gaals head explode when we're put in the CL instead of them..

Agents don't seem to care about the development of their players. Look at the young(ish) players that join Chelsea or City, everyone knows those clubs aren't going to allow players to develop and learn from their mistakes, they will just go out and spend millions on the finished article but year after year the likes of Salah,,Rodwell,Jovetic etc,etc move to these clubs because the agents are after short term gain. Trying to appeal to players and agents sense of loyalty and common sense is a completely f*cking naive strategy on the clubs part and it looks as though Gerrard is trying to light a fire under their arses to get these contracts sorted. For what it's worth, I'd say Henderson will certainly sign, with Raheem, I think that unless we give him a Suarez type deal I can see him moving to Madrid, failing, then back at Chelsea or Utd within 2 years.