jeffschlupp

I don't understand where and why people are managing to make some sort of judgment about Top and Vichai. Susan Whelan is chief executive, and has been for a decade. The club's greatest ever decade, on and off the pitch. Does Top ultimately call the big shots, yes of course he does. But is the day-to-day running, the actual business, transfer planning, recruitment of football staff (minus manager), renewal of contracts down to him? Absolutely not. For what it's worth though, Rodgers has openly admitted he had a meeting with Top the other day. So for all the 'his heart's not in it', I'm not sure where that comes from, either. This is not some sort of major crisis, in which the club needs to completely light itself on fire and rise like a phoenix. Look at Southampton, West Ham, Everton - any team that has ever fought with or broke into the top 7. They all regressed, some managed to get back with steady investment, shrewd deals, good management. It is financially implausible and in fact impossible to compete with the giants indefinitely. The only seven football clubs in England who are not two poor managers or two 5/10 summer transfer windows away from relegation are Arsenal, Chelsea, Liverpool, Manchester City, Manchester United, Newcastle United and Tottenham Hotspur. And that's because they have the money to ensure no matter how poor their managers or signings are, they'll drag them to no worse than mid-table. We need to carefully get through the next 6-12 months. Assess the manager situation, make a decent overhaul of the squad, and move forward. We might not be in a battle for Europe for the next few years. But then, Southampton, Wolves, Everton and West Ham aren't either, and they were in recent memory too. The club is in safe hands. Let's trust in that

Iversen deserves half a season in this case. Buy a decent, experienced backup who can do a job in case Ward is long-term out and Iversen is crap/out of confidence. Evans club captain?

Ndidi back in training for this one but I think Fofana may have picked up a knock, not in any of the pictures. I imagine it's another 60-75 minutes for a first team and then there will be some sort of behind closed doors action for those that only get half an hour or less, ahead of the split on Saturday.

I have said before, I think the club have realised their mistake in giving Rodgers a little too much freedom and responsibility in dictating our entire direction, and are now arresting it back for the good of the long-term. Rodgers won't be here in 10 years, but King Power will. They are not skint, they are just wary of making huge losses and saddling themselves with an unmanageable wage bill and squad bloat. I'm still convinced BR will, by and large, get what he's after, and we will bring in 4-5 players by the end of the window.

Assume 22 players get 45 minutes each, and none of this week's returnees are involved. Which probably leaves two mixed XIs from roughly: Iversen / Stolarczyk Ricardo / Wormleighton Ndidi / Wilson-Brown Choudhury / Flynn Marcal-Madivadua / Hughes Leshabela / Ewing Dewsbury-Hall / Wright Albrighton / Pérez Maddison / Cover Barnes / Maswanhise Vardy / Hirst Very short on CBs and defenders in general. Wouldn't imagine Soumaré is risked given the Monaco situation. Think Eppiah, Suengchitthawon and Javaid are among others to have dipped in and out of first team training, so they could be involved too.

Clubs yet to have made a permanent, senior signing for a fee: AFC Bournemouth - only signed Rothwell, Fredericks on free transfers Brentford - only signed young players Brighton - only signed young players Chelsea - only signed an academy GK Palace - only signed Johnstone and Ebiowei on frees Everton - only signed Tarkowski on a free Wolves - haven't signed anyone If the club have not seen value in any free transfers, it's not exactly surprising we are yet to make a move with 8 weeks to go. Still need to preach patience here, we have plenty of time to make 5-6 signings still, and we will

Yes please

Can play CM and RW comfortably, good set piece taker, puts up good numbers, high workrate. Likes a trick or two. All of those things you can say about Maddison. This would be a solid if unspectacular signing to improve competition in an area of the field we lack it. At €8-10m it's a no brainer. Buy this lad, another wide man with pace and replace Tielemans (if necessary) and we are looking pretty good going forwards and in midfield.

The only other one is Bayli Spencer-Adams, who had an option to extend by a further year triggered by the club.

Most of the contracts the club announced in the big press release in Feb 2022 were done some time before then - Russ came to the end of his scholarship in June 2021 and signed a one year pro deal that summer. McAteer signed on until 2025 in February himself and hasn't been pictured in training with the first team as of yet this summer, so I would be surprised if it isn't a loan pending announcement following a trial somewhere.

Agreed, but I assume it is just the legacy of this long-term relationship we have with Buriram that we've let a few come over for the experience. Chidchob is an old mate of Vichai's as I recall. Mueanta is surely the only one they might seriously look at taking

The club have got three players from Buriram United training with/on trial with the U23s at the moment - I believe they are Supachai Chaided, Suphanat Mueant and Ratthanakorn Maikama. Their club president Newin Chidchob (ex Thai cabinet minister) also appears to be over here.

Those that are not established senior players are: - Lewis Brunt - Jakub Stolarczyk - Callum Wright - Khanya Leshabela - Thanawat Suengchitthawon - Josh Eppiah - George Hirst McAteer, Flynn, T. Pennant and Spencer-Adams remain eligible for one more season (all 2001 born).

Yep. Born 2000. 2001 is the cut-off this year.

They'll go to Évian in the second week of pre-season, which should be from 4-10 July

The club have been in talks with him for the best part of 3 years over a new contract, he doesn't want to sign one (or, more specifically, his agent has convinced him he can do better elsewhere). LCFC are not naive in that respect. And if you think Fofana, who we know for a fact was on approx 55k per week when he signed for us as a teenager and has since signed a 5.5 yr deal, is on 60-70k (likewise the ex-Man United regular Evans), I'd think again

Amazed people hate it more than last season's. We looked like Ipswich or Birmingham last season - the shirt should be solid blue, not some wishy washy crap pattern Looks good to me

The club's summer recruitment, in the absence of Martyn Glover, is being led by its Head of Technical Scouting, Callum Smithson. The club has not lost any other member of its senior scouting team this year apart from Lee Congerton, to my knowledge - the rest of the setup remains intact. Jose Fontes was replaced as Senior Scout by Viktor Bezhani last summer. It is my (slightly ITK) understanding that Sormaz's role in recruitment was rather limited in comparison to his work on player performance, so this is not the damning loss you appear to think it is in recruitment terms. The club sticks to its processes, not individual people. Smithson has been here since we won the league. Trust in those processes is needed

Transfers are going to seem slower than the last few years because we are back to 31 August deadline days. We did have two years on the spin of the window being reduced to before the start of the season, then a COVID window extended into October, and then deals were done quickly around tournaments last summer. It's rare teams do much in June at all. I still cannot believe people continue to criticise LCFC for the speed at which they do their business - would you rather us sign 6 players at £10m extra each now, or perhaps rush through some medicals and miss a major problem, or agree to obscene contract demands from agents just to get them in? We don't need to have players signed now, pre-season doesn't even start for another fortnight and the season for 6 weeks after that. The kits are a manufacturer delay. We usually release the home kit before the final day and the away kits before the start of pre-season. They will come. 'We don't make decisions on players quick enough' - are you partial to the inner workings of the club, then? Players will know whether they are on the market or definitely sticking around, by now. It's a market. Buyers, sellers, third party agents, everyone trying to get a good deal. These things take time, on the whole. And just in general (friendlies in particular) - what the club announces is not the same as what the club has done or is doing. They can have gentlemen's agreements on friendlies that aren't quite rubber stamped - perhaps it's venues, or training camps, or flights, or anything mundane like that. They are businesses making business decisions, it's not like you click 'Arrange Friendly' on Football Manager and 10 minutes later you've got an email saying accepted or rejected. Judge the summer when it is over. Anything sooner is pointless.

It's not necessarily a given that Rodgers likes to have 3 senior keepers... 12/13 Liverpool: Reina, Jones and then 23 yr old Gulacsi who made no apps 13/14 Liverpool: Mignolet, Jones and then 20 yr old Ward who made no apps. Not in Europe 14/15 Liverpool: Mignolet, Jones and then 21 yr old Ward who made no apps 15/16 Liverpool: Mignolet, Bogdan and then 22 yr old Ward who made no apps 16/17 Celtic: Gordon, de Vries and Bailly 17/18 Celtic: Gordon, Bain and de Vries. But Bain only arrived in January so they spent the first half of the season with just the two senior keepers 18/19 Celtic: Gordon and Bain I would suggest it is probably more a Stowell thing - he likes to bring three keepers out to warm up pre-match. Not only do we have three senior keepers (Schmeichel/Ward/Iversen) to choose from but we are overflowing at youth level - Stolarczyk, Young, Odunze, Doherty, Chibueze, Weeks and Addai are all 17 or older.

Scholarships are signed when players leave the under-16s (and school) - you get a two-year scholarship to play in the under-18s with the option of a third year extension. So for example last year Will Alves started his two-year scholarship, at the age of 16. I believe the scholarships are a fixed wage across all clubs, at something like £150 a week. Once a player turns 17, they can be offered professional terms, but that is usually only done for players that are highly sought after by other clubs. Generally, clubs make decisions on whether to offer a pro deal at the end of scholarships when they turn 18.

Extensions offered to Odunze, Terell Pennant and Ewing. I thought Leshabela was also out of contract but appears not. Kian Pennant is the only second year scholar to have signed pro at this stage, but worth noting this list was submitted by 26 May, so things may have happened since. Offers in for Brandon Cover, Joe Wormleighton, Harvey Godsmark-Ford and Arlo Doherty.

Given they don't feature on the retained list, I make that the scholars departing are: - Bailey Aisthorpe (was a third year who made no appearances at any level in 2021-22) - Jack Butterfill (signing for Barnsley) - Kartell Dawkins - Jesper Kutshienza - Cody Read

Alves is only moving into his second year of scholarship so that won't be announced here

The quota is all but irrelevant to us in the Premier League - we only need 8 home-grown association-trained players, and Vardy/Barnes/Maddison/Albrighton/KDH/Justin/Evans are all nailed on to stay, plus take your pick from Schmeichel/Ward/Bertrand/Lookman/Iheanacho/Choudhury/Iversen etc.