Alexander Isak

[ZenI]

Whatever is clever, but this dude is not a 150M player. I like him, no doubt - but for 150M his statistics are way way off. Let the EPL clubs fight over him, Deco needs to be smarter than being on the outlook for players like Isak. Also, it's not like Newcastle needs the cash - Isak just decided to transfer to a club with a bigger chance at EPL/CL - no fault in that. I can only see Pool' and Chelsea having a go...

 

[DonAK]

Newcastle have told Liverpool they want 150m pounds for him.

Not euros.

Great British pound.

Big fan of what Isak has turned into after being sceptical of him years ago, but he's not worth anywhere near close to that.

 

[ZenI]

Newcastle have told Liverpool they want 150m pounds for him.

Not euros.

Great British pound.

Big fan of what Isak has turned into after being sceptical of him years ago, but he's not worth anywhere near close to that.

I agree, not close - maybe 80ish million. But #9's are scarce, Isaak though is not going to live up to the transfer sum if it ends up a bit over 100M.

 

[ZenI]

It's going to be interesting which 9's will become "hot" this season - they won't be that expensive though.

 

[DonAK]

I agree, not close - maybe 80ish million. But #9's are scarce, Isaak though is not going to live up to the transfer sum if it ends up a bit over 100M.

They are which is why players such as Ekitike went for 90m euros and Sesko might go for 80m.

Multiple teams need a #9 and there's few guaranteed options out there. It's wild though.

 

[Birdy]

My friend what I’m saying is without those signings I doubt Flick would do such a great job in the first place. When he had an alright set of players like in Germany 2022, he failed very miserably. I doubt Flick would do anything big without Lewandowski, Raphinha and Kounde.

LMAOL

So you haven't understood Flick at all....

 

[Birdy]

Not true though.

Laporta was interested in Hansi Flick and Nagelsmann during his election candidacy after he spoke with Ralf Rangnick.

Both were unavailable back then.

Yes, that's true.
RAgnick informed him and namedropped several people, and Laporta bought into the German school of coaches.

So we have to thank Ragnick and not Fatporta for Flick, because he had no plan or idea himself.
He is constantly hopping from one idea to another

 

[Birdy]

That’s exactly what I’m saying. Birdy is doing anything to discredit Laporta and Xavi. People acting like Flick is a genie…

Flick ist ein genie, das ist richtig!

 

[DonAK]

Yes, that's true.
RAgnick informed him and namedropped several people, and Laporta bought into the German school of coaches.

So we have to thank Ragnick and not Fatporta for Flick, because he had no plan or idea himself.
He is constantly hopping from one idea to another

I think you have confused his role a bit.

He's not necessarily supposed to be an expert. Do you think John Henry is? Or Sheikh Mansour? Or Florentino Perez?

These guys have other people for those jobs. I'm not sure how Laporta listening to people like Ragnick or Cruyff/Txiki in his first term is supposed to count against him.

Even for Xavi he had to be convinced by Jordi Cruyff and Alemany. You can look up all the reports from when we traveled to Qatar to hire him. Laporta was not convinced.

There are legitimate things you can criticize Laporta for, but this is not it.

 

[Birdy]

I'm already starting to suspect that you have problems with perceiving information.

I'll repeat it again - with the exception of the big salaries of Fati and Lewandowski, all of Laporta's decisions were adequate.

But you're reasoning as if more than 65-70% of the club management's decisions are idiotic. And that's an obvious lie.

You can't say 'except' when it comes to Lewa wages, which is a big % of the whole wage structure, and 10m more in gross than the next.

You absolutely cANNOT exclude that from any consideration.

Besides, I gave you tons of other examples. Ansu, Kounde (14m gross is out of the market for a right back. 'Cry'' all you want, that is the truth), Gundo.
Even the supposedly 'fine' contracts he handed to Raphina, Christensen and Inigo are super-inflated given the market.

Listen: one time is accident, second time is accident, there can't be a third time.
This is on purpose, because he bends down to his agent-buddies (like Zahavi and Mendes) demands

Open your eyes to see it

 

[Birdy]

I think you have confused his role a bit.

He's not necessarily supposed to be an expert. Do you think John Henry is? Or Sheikh Mansour? Or Florentino Perez?

These guys have other people for those jobs. I'm not sure how Laporta listening to people like Ragnick or Cruyff/Txiki in his first term is supposed to count against him.

Even for Xavi he had to be convinced by Jordi Cruyff and Alemany. You can look up all the reports from when we traveled to Qatar to hire him. Laporta was not convinced.

There are legitimate things you can criticize Laporta for, but this is not it.

These guys do NOT decide themselves who to buy mate.
They have PROFESSIONALS and top notch SDepartments to take these decisions.
They do not CASAULLY chat with a random football person (like Laporta with Ragninck) to base decisions on the future of their club on that

President 'listening to people' around him is not just outdated model in 2025, it's outright UNACCEPTABLE
Others are building spacecrafts, and we are still in the stone age

 

[DonAK]

These guys do NOT decide themselves who to buy mate.
They have PROFESSIONALS and top notch SDepartments to take these decisions.
They do not CASAULLY chat with a random football person (like Laporta with Ragninck) to base decisions on the future of their club on that

President 'listening to people' around him is not just outdated model in 2025, it's outright UNACCEPTABLE
Others are building spacecrafts, and we are still in the stone age

You say all that, but then vouch for Victor Font whose model was based around Xavi being the de-facto CEO of Football and Jordi Cruyff being Xavi's right hand man.

 

[Birdy]

You say all that, but then vouch for Victor Font whose model was based around Xavi being the de-facto CEO of Football and Jordi Cruyff being Xavi's right hand man.

I have been super-critical of his insistence on Xavi.
I get that this was because Xavi was closely cooperated with and promised to be the face of 'Si al Futur' project.

Of course, after Xavi backstabbing him (that's telling of the moral quality of the man) to be open to being hired by Laporta, Font knows his true face and has, since then, totally eliminated his name from every conversation.

thankfully, other than the Xavi obsession which is now gone, Font's project is solid, and the only modern project presented for this club

 

[M3ls]

You can't say 'except' when it comes to Lewa wages, which is a big % of the whole wage structure, and 10m more in gross than the next.

You absolutely cANNOT exclude that from any consideration.

Besides, I gave you tons of other examples. Ansu, Kounde (14m gross is out of the market for a right back. 'Cry'' all you want, that is the truth), Gundo.
Even the supposedly 'fine' contracts he handed to Raphina, Christensen and Inigo are super-inflated given the market.

Listen: one time is accident, second time is accident, there can't be a third time.
This is on purpose, because he bends down to his agent-buddies (like Zahavi and Mendes) demands

Open your eyes to see it

There are no problems with the contracts of Kounde and Gundogan (he came as a free agent with the status of one of the key players of the team that made the treble). The fact that you see these contracts as inflated is exclusively your problem.

Kounde arrived as one of the most talented central defenders in world football. He had already played for the French national team and had experience playing in the Champions League.

This is a player who was wanted by several top clubs together with us.


Let's take LIVERPOOL as an example, which you praise so much for their policy when working with players' contracts. SO, in the summer of 2017 (!!!) Van Dijk moved from Sunderland to Liverpool and received a contract with a salary of 10.6 million euros gross. In England, this is 5.6 million euros net.

Kounde in the summer of 2022 (!!!) received a contract of 13.5 million euros. In Catalonia, this is 6.5 million euros net.

So the difference is 900 thousand euros net. And I don’t take inflation into account - Van Dijk came to Liverpool in 2017, and Kounde came to Barcelona 5 years later.

Did you complain on the Liverpool forum that Van Dijk's contract was too high?

 

[M3ls]

These guys do NOT decide themselves who to buy mate.
They have PROFESSIONALS and top notch SDepartments to take these decisions.
They do not CASAULLY chat with a random football person (like Laporta with Ragninck) to base decisions on the future of their club on that

President 'listening to people' around him is not just outdated model in 2025, it's outright UNACCEPTABLE
Others are building spacecrafts, and we are still in the stone age

We have one of the strongest and largest analytical departments in world football. Representatives from various clubs come to our conferences. Enough whining.