Ozan Kabak

[Chocolate Teapot]

1 minute ago, Muzzy_Larsson said:

20m is reasonable though, it'd be a far better move than spending 15m on Kabak. Luckily the club don't think this way but when the most attractive thing about a signing is the fee itself it's usually a sign to stay away. The club has been burned in the past with being unable to shift players that no one else can pay them similar wages.

Kabak is 15m euros, so £12m. And the difference is they need to sell. We could be really clever and pay a 3m loan fee, all of the wages with a view to a permanent. It's a no brained for me - I don't agree he was awful for Liverpool at all and my Liverpool supporting mates said he did okay.

 

That way it's win win for all. Tarkowski will cost a fortune and then want 80k a week. It's just not a sensible deal and not one we do. The last player we signed over the age of 26 was perez and look how that's turning out.....

[Muzzy_Larsson]

21 minutes ago, Finnegan said:

 

If we sign Tarkowski, his value will only diminish. 

 

If we sign Kabak for 15, I guarantee we could make a decent profit within a couple of years. 

 

A bit ridiculous to claim he's absolutely garbage just because he didn't hit the ground running when Liverpool fans expected him to be the saviour of their season. When we signed Cags, he got a whole year being integrated in to the club and being allowed to settle before he ever got near the first team. 

The other way of looking at it is you need a player who can make a meaningful contribution now. At the stage the club is at now, especially at the back where there is an abundance of youth already in little Wes and Soyuncu I'd rather a player who'll strengthen things there now and that in turn leads to maybe a European final than signing someone who your not going to be able to trust fully until a year or two down the line. The latter is no use now and will lead to a similar situation as last season where the squad was stretched beyond it's limits come the latter stages in Europe, the aim of the window this season has to be to avoid that happening again or the progression will falter.

 

It's all subjective right but I've seen a fair bit of Kabak at both Schalke and Liverpool and based on what I've saw he's not good enough and wouldn't be someone I'd be comfortable with at the heart of defence with any sort of regularity.

[An Sionnach]

We could offer Tarkowski a four year contract which would ease Jonny's gradual exit and by which time Cags would be at the top of his game. A natural progression and no sudden changes.

[Muzzy_Larsson]

1 minute ago, Chocolate Teapot said:

Kabak is 15m euros, so £12m. And the difference is they need to sell. We could be really clever and pay a 3m loan fee, all of the wages with a view to a permanent. It's a no brained for me - I don't agree he was awful for Liverpool at all and my Liverpool supporting mates said he did okay.

 

That way it's win win for all. Tarkowski will cost a fortune and then want 80k a week. It's just not a sensible deal and not one we do. The last player we signed over the age of 26 was perez and look how that's turning out.....

If Tarkowski is indeed too expensive at £20m then fair enough. With players still to go out though and a relaxing of FFP this smmer I'm not so sure he will be too expensive, we'll just need to wait and see in that sense.

 

Finances aside though Kabak at whatever price just isn't a good enough player for me and I reckon there is far better value out there in Europe than him, even if it's a loan with an option to buy or something like that.

[Finnegan]

3 minutes ago, Muzzy_Larsson said:

The other way of looking at it is you need a player who can make a meaningful contribution now.  

 

21 minutes ago, Finnegan said:

As an aside regards Tarkowski, I appreciate the attraction a couple years ago - he was a ready made, established Premier league defender that represented nearly no risk. We knew he cut it at this level and was a smart signing. 

 

Thing is, we don't actually need a sure thing now. Unless Cags is leaving this summer, we have three of our own tried and tested centre backs. This gives us a great opportunity to take a risk on another young player that could be another big win. 

 

[Muzzy_Larsson]

1 minute ago, An Sionnach said:

We could offer Tarkowski a four year contract which would ease Jonny's gradual exit and by which time Cags would be at the top of his game. A natural progression and no sudden changes.

Yup, succession planning essentially. Someone like Tarkowski could be a handy, composed, experienced head in the squad a year or two down the line, particularly if Evans' eventual decline were to coincide with one of Soyuncu or Fofana moving on.

[Muzzy_Larsson]

1 minute ago, Finnegan said:

 

 

That's where I disagree of course, I think you do need more experience at the back.

[Chocolate Teapot]

3 minutes ago, Muzzy_Larsson said:

If Tarkowski is indeed too expensive at £20m then fair enough. With players still to go out though and a relaxing of FFP this smmer I'm not so sure he will be too expensive, we'll just need to wait and see in that sense.

 

Finances aside though Kabak at whatever price just isn't a good enough player for me and I reckon there is far better value out there in Europe than him, even if it's a loan with an option to buy or something like that.

If our net spend is more than 40m I'd be suprised.

[HighPeakFox]

3 minutes ago, Muzzy_Larsson said:

Yup, succession planning essentially. Someone like Tarkowski could be a handy, composed, experienced head in the squad a year or two down the line, particularly if Evans' eventual decline were to coincide with one of Soyuncu or Fofana moving on.

This is an important point. Avoiding the impact of a sudden loss of players is paramount. 

[RowlattsFox]

If we were in for Tarkowski, i'd imagine there would have been some movement by now, or at the very least some concrete links. It might be a case of us pursuing other options and falling back to him if needed or we may have just moved on. 

 

Tarkowski isn't going to come here and be 4th choice at this stage of his career I wouldn't think. I would prefer him if Evans back/hips are going to be a worry. Otherwise I'd go down the talented youngster route. 

 

 

Edited 9 July 2021 by RowlattsFox

[lcfc_forever]

I think Rodgers acknowledges we need more experience in the squad, especially following the retirement of Morgan and departure of Fuchs. 

 

Bertrand will help, and for the same reason, I'm not surprised by the links with Coutinho. Goes against our usual MO but he said he wanted more players who have a record of winning trophies. The big barrier to Coutinho is the wage - he'd have to take a big decrease to join us so it's in line with other players, or Barca would have to agree to still fund some of his wages.. 

 

I'd be keen for Tarkowski but I don't think we have the budget to bring him in currently. Kabak is a far cheaper option, but makes more sense if we're thinking of succession planning for Soyuncu. 

 

Even the 'you can't win anything with kids' Man U side of the mid-90s had a spine of Schmeichel, Pallister, Bruce and Cantona. 

Edited 9 July 2021 by lcfc_forever

[Ric Flair]

Kabak, bar his debut vs us was steady for Liverpool. He was also very good at Schalke when he first burst on to the scene. If we could get him on loan with an option to buy then I'd be content with him as a 4th choice option. He's not the calamity that he is being made out to be at all.

[sacreblueits442]

21 minutes ago, Muzzy_Larsson said:

The other way of looking at it is you need a player who can make a meaningful contribution now. At the stage the club is at now, especially at the back where there is an abundance of youth already in little Wes and Soyuncu I'd rather a player who'll strengthen things there now and that in turn leads to maybe a European final than signing someone who your not going to be able to trust fully until a year or two down the line. The latter is no use now and will lead to a similar situation as last season where the squad was stretched beyond it's limits come the latter stages in Europe, the aim of the window this season has to be to avoid that happening again or the progression will falter.

 

It's all subjective right but I've seen a fair bit of Kabak at both Schalke and Liverpool and based on what I've saw he's not good enough and wouldn't be someone I'd be comfortable with at the heart of defence with any sort of regularity.

....the squad was stretched because of injuries, not because we lacked the relevant experience in that position!!!

I understand where you are coming from and you are correct in the assertion that we need an experience head in the back line to go with Caglar and Wes. The games at the back end of the season, where we dropped points, required some form of leadership and fortitude, but we did not falter due to the lack of a presence at the back, just lack of available bodies at the time.

[mozartfox]

On 27/06/2021 at 05:28, Heymister2015 said:

What about the Austrian hoeterigger who we were linked with a few years ago. Looks quality, big and strong 

Never heard of him...  However,  Martin Hinteregger (of Eintracht Frankfurt ) would suit the EPL.  He was very impressive whenever I saw playing for RBS.  29 in September.

Edited 9 July 2021 by mozartfox

[Muzzy_Larsson]

I'm not saying that was the prime reason for faltering but more experience in that position would help, someone like Tarkowski or of that ilk would help and would solve the problem of resorting to folk like Amartey at CB which happened last season. The more games you play the more injuries will become an issue and next season will be a demanding one again in that sense.

 

People are saying go for someone like Kabak who may take a year to settle a la Soyuncu and if so then you run the risk of being back to square one again and still short of the quality and depth you need at CB in the immediate term.

[Xen]

16 hours ago, moore_94 said:

 

If that's the case then imagine this is one of those transfers that doesn't materialise until very late in the window when Schalke are getting desperate and need to offload him. Whether thats to us or not, I don't know, but the 15m they're after now could drop even further.

 

46 minutes ago, Finnegan said:

As an aside regards Tarkowski, I appreciate the attraction a couple years ago - he was a ready made, established Premier league defender that represented nearly no risk. We knew he cut it at this level and was a smart signing. 

 

Thing is, we don't actually need a sure thing now. Unless Cags is leaving this summer, we have three of our own tried and tested centre backs. This gives us a great opportunity to take a risk on another young player that could be another big win. 

I'd argue differently, that a solid, consistent CB with experience is exactly what we need. Evans is the glue that holds our back line together - Cags/Fofana are excellent individually but as a pairing they don't quite cut it at the moment - but he's getting on and has had a few small injuries lately. Given the number of games we'll be hoping to play next season across 4 competitions, having another experienced CB would be incredibly useful to take some of the pressure off of Evans who otherwise has no direct back-up. Sure, a high-risk-high-reward signing would be exciting and have a much higher ceiling but we need to balance that out with consistency and reliability, which someone like Tarkowski would definitely bring.

[Steve Earle]

1 hour ago, RowlattsFox said:

If we were in for Tarkowski, i'd imagine there would have been some movement by now, or at the very least some concrete links. It might be a case of us pursuing other options and falling back to him if needed or we may have just moved on. 

 

Tarkowski isn't going to come here and be 4th choice at this stage of his career I wouldn't think. I would prefer him if Evans back/hips are going to be a worry. Otherwise I'd go down the talented youngster route. 

 

 

It might not pan out that way. There would be plenty of game time for a 4th choice CB over the best part of 60 games anyway, but I suspect if we signed him he would play whenever Evans didn't, so we always played one experienced CB alongside one of Fofana or Soyuncu 

[UHDrive]

4 hours ago, An Sionnach said:

We could offer Tarkowski a four year contract which would ease Jonny's gradual exit and by which time Cags would be at the top of his game. A natural progression and no sudden changes.

I'm not so sure that Soyuncu will stick around too much longer. He has 2 years left on his contract and there hasn't been much movement as far as I'm aware on a new deal. In an ideal world it would be good to bring in Kabak and Tarkowski this summer. Tarks could take a bigger signing on fee and reduce his wages amd Kabak we could just manipulate his clubs predicament for a £12-15mil signing.

[Guest]

If I had a pound for every time someone mentions how experienced Tarkowski is, I'd be able to buy him myself. I think he's probably done enough at this point to inherit the title of "most wildly overrated opposition player" from Wilf Zaha. I remember seeing someone say he's the second best centre back in the league behind Van Dijk - he wouldn't even be second best here. 

[yorkie1999]

5 hours ago, Xen said:

If that's the case then imagine this is one of those transfers that doesn't materialise until very late in the window when Schalke are getting desperate and need to offload him. Whether thats to us or not, I don't know, but the 15m they're after now could drop even further.

 

I'd argue differently, that a solid, consistent CB with experience is exactly what we need. Evans is the glue that holds our back line together - Cags/Fofana are excellent individually but as a pairing they don't quite cut it at the moment - but he's getting on and has had a few small injuries lately. Given the number of games we'll be hoping to play next season across 4 competitions, having another experienced CB would be incredibly useful to take some of the pressure off of Evans who otherwise has no direct back-up. Sure, a high-risk-high-reward signing would be exciting and have a much higher ceiling but we need to balance that out with consistency and reliability, which someone like Tarkowski would definitely bring.

So, if we signed him, who you going to drop? he's not going to come here and sit on the bench, and i doubt we're going to pay 20 odd million and 80 grand a week for a bench warmer. It's not even as though it's one for the future is it.

[okie fox]

Kabak did OK at Liverpool considering the two fullbacks play far up the pitch and the other centre back was inexperienced as well.

[Iran]

Kabak would be a good investment for €15m in my opinion, then resell him for double (even triple).

[Bptiger]

Get vestergard in , he is solid at the back and can play out , as well as, hit those long passes , just not sure what he would cost .

[FoxinNotts]

21 minutes ago, Bptiger said:

Get vestergard in , he is solid at the back and can play out , as well as, hit those long passes , just not sure what he would cost .

Probably about £15-£18m. Quite expensive really, compared to Kabak, who would cost about £12m

[Xen]

3 hours ago, yorkie1999 said:

So, if we signed him, who you going to drop? he's not going to come here and sit on the bench, and i doubt we're going to pay 20 odd million and 80 grand a week for a bench warmer. It's not even as though it's one for the future is it.

50-60 games a season, often with less than 3 days between competitive fixtures and one of the players in front of him would be a 33 year old who has had some injury issues lately.

 

There'll be plenty of rotation for him to get minutes and besides, he'll fancy himself as able to earn a place in the starting XI. 

 

As for not being 'one for the future' maybe you're right in that he's not like a Soyuncu or fofana, but it's still future planning for when Evans moves on or starts to decline. Not every signing has to be an up-and-coming potential starlet.