Sub Genius

I think we’ll have a figure in mind that we’ll accept for Morelos and Gerrard will be aware of it.
Robertson previously suggested we’d be looking for upwards of £18m because that’s roughly how much Dembele went for at the Yahoos and we rate Morelos just as highly.
Which is all well and good, but in reality, if someone like Palace comes in next week offering the player £70k a week and us £15m, are we really going to turn that down?
Alfie really wants to go. He has his dream move and is going to be paid a life changing amount for it, but we say no because it doesn’t quite meet our evaluation then run the risk of being stuck with a disgruntled player?
It’s a tough one to get right and you probably can’t please everyone, but I think Gerrard will be aware of the variables.
 

Could it be that in order to bring in new faces Gerrard has been told he must offload first, and with time beginning to run out - prospective loans to Doncaster and Breda falling through - we couldn’t afford to be too picky?
It’s not a club I particularly want to see any of our players end up at, but as others have said, it does allow us to gauge his ability in the league we play in.
On the wider question of patience I agree there.
Gerrard really needed to hit the ground running this season otherwise the knives will be out for him, and after that the board will inevitably come under greater scrutiny.
 

It did rely on Kent being an out ball though, a player we don’t appear to have replaced in terms of what he brought to the team.
I’d like to see Davis and Kamara in the same midfield though - I thought they complemented each other really well.
It would then allow Aribo to play in the more advanced role.
I’d also go with Arfield playing off Defoe and stick Jones out left to see how balanced that looks.

Helander really only made sense to me if we were aiming to add a couple other players of similar quality to the midfield and  attack.
Perhaps we still will, but if we don’t it does seem a rather odd even unnecessary use of scant resources.
I think we have to hope that Ojo will come good in the same way Kent did. I think it’s far too soon to be writing him off, but I still felt we needed to bring in a straight out of the box player for that role, not another youngster on loan that we’re left hoping we can repeat the Kent trick with.
Overall I still think we look a bit scattershot in our strategy.

It's a winning start and we’re all thankful of that at least, but it’s difficult to ignore the similarities with last season, something an injury time winner doesn’t entirely mask.
What I wanted to see was evidence that we’d added new players capable of adding that creativity and danger we often lacked last term, but on the evidence of the past week or so, I’m not really seeing it.
Far too early to be ripping up the knitting though, but there are definitely a few concerns in the last three competitive games.

We're a team who get it wide constantly and ask our full backs to bomb forward
Yet somehow in this window we've ended up weaker out wide, Kent/Candeias replaced with Jones/Ojo. We ended up having to play Arfield out left yesterday just to fit him in as when hes fit he needs to be on that park 
Been said a million times but Tav played much better with Candeias aswell, the 2 linked up well, wasnt a surprise that when Ojo has a bad game that Tav looked suspect yesterday again.
Alot of warning signs but really don't see us doing much more this window & think we're still 2/3 quality players short of the league, same as we were before the window started 

Ojo was worse than garbage yesterday.  If that's the level of performance he thinks he can turn in every week we would be as well sending him back down the road. 
 
We need more quality in that final third,if it's not addressed we are winning fuck all.

SG appears to be building a squad capable of playing 60 games a season and that's what his transfer philosophy looks to be based on.
Is our squad better? I would say it remains to be seen but on paper then yes.
Is our quality of starting 11 better? again remains to be seen but I would say on paper no.
Still believe that a couple of more quality signing are required if we are to seriously challenge for the league this season.

Window doesn’t close for 4 weeks yet! 
So far a good if not stunning start. No need to panic yet. 
 

From what I recall the only thing that stopped ojo being a Liverpool regular a couple of years ago was his inconsistency. I'm sure klopp regularly praised ojo as a wonderful player but needed to add consistency to his game. 
Ofc he's never going to make it at Liverpool but he is by far and away a better footballer than Candeias whether he offers more over a season is another thing tho 

I think people are too quick to write off Ojo and Jones...Kent seems to get better in people's minds the longer he is away - there were lots of games he was posted missing and her didn't score enough goals or have many assists. 
The Helander signing was a strange one imo, when we are crying out for another striker.

He formed a great partnership with Tav, gave tav the chance to put crosses in.  He done a lot of the tracking back, interceptions that go unnoticed.  He put in some amazing crosses.  
We are going to miss him this season, his workrate was up there with the best at the club.   You obviously don't agree.  We will have to agree to disagree.

It did rely on Kent being an out ball though, a player we don’t appear to have replaced in terms of what he brought to the team.
I’d like to see Davis and Kamara in the same midfield though - I thought they complemented each other really well.
It would then allow Aribo to play in the more advanced role.
I’d also go with Arfield playing off Defoe and stick Jones out left to see how balanced that looks.

It did rely on Kent being an out ball though, a player we don’t appear to have replaced in terms of what he brought to the team.
I’d like to see Davis and Kamara in the same midfield though - I thought they complemented each other really well.
It would then allow Aribo to play in the more advanced role.
I’d also go with Arfield playing off Defoe and stick Jones out left to see how balanced that looks.

Seems to play well with Davis and gives us balance 

It did rely on Kent being an out ball though, a player we don’t appear to have replaced in terms of what he brought to the team.
I’d like to see Davis and Kamara in the same midfield though - I thought they complemented each other really well.
It would then allow Aribo to play in the more advanced role.
I’d also go with Arfield playing off Defoe and stick Jones out left to see how balanced that looks.

Good post and adds some perspective.
It was a good result today but we were terrible most of the game.
I wanted to see us winning with confidence and we were anything but confident today.

I think we’ll have a figure in mind that we’ll accept for Morelos and Gerrard will be aware of it.
Robertson previously suggested we’d be looking for upwards of £18m because that’s roughly how much Dembele went for at the Yahoos and we rate Morelos just as highly.
Which is all well and good, but in reality, if someone like Palace comes in next week offering the player £70k a week and us £15m, are we really going to turn that down?
Alfie really wants to go. He has his dream move and is going to be paid a life changing amount for it, but we say no because it doesn’t quite meet our evaluation then run the risk of being stuck with a disgruntled player?
It’s a tough one to get right and you probably can’t please everyone, but I think Gerrard will be aware of the variables.
 

Yup, agree with that.
If an EPL sides comes in with a circa £14-15m bid in the next week, I think he’ll be off, partly because I think we’ll be confident of securing a replacement before Sept 2nd (I’m sure we have at least two or three options on our radar, Roofe being one), but if it drags on then someone like Milan offer a similar amount in the last week of August, I hope we have the resolve to turn it down.

Don’t get the hate for Defoe, he’s been outstanding every game he’s played, gels well with the midfield. Agreed Morelos is more of an attacker but fuck me did he cost us last season with his red cards. 

Fair enough.
I was using the EPL sides he’s been linked with as the most pertinent examples because we know that’s his preferred destination, but if the likes of Milan, Frankfurt or Betis make a move - three European sides he’s also been linked with - there’s still a good chance he’ll accept, presuming the personal terms he’s being offered are agreeable.
I don’t think we can fully relax where Morelos is concerned until 2nd Sept.
If he’s still here after that, great.

I don’t think Rangers will accept £12m either, but we do run the risk of being lumbered with an unhappy player and that will be a factor in any decision no matter how bullish Gerrard or the club appear on the surface.
McBurnie’s price tag has no bearing to what we can expect for Morelos though - he plays in a completely different and more lucrative league.
It’s like bemoaning why a four bed house in Govan costs less than a studio apartment in Chelsea.

There's certainly no way Morelos’s agent is working wholly independently of his client’s wishes.
If he’s trying to drum up interest in him it’s because he and Alfie have agreed that’s the best course of action, and if that’s the case then it would suggest he’s looking for a move.
I still think we’ll be susceptible to a bid of around £12m at the fag end of the window from an EPL side - West Ham, Newcastle, Palace or whoever - at which point Morelos will say he wants to accept the offer.