Is Phil Wang Negotiating the Roméo Lavia Deal for Liverpool?

A slightly confusing summer 😜

The Reds’ negotiating strategy for Roméo Lavia?

Joking aside – albeit it's disturbing how the Phil Wang meme sprang to my mind – everything I say here is based on my belief that Jörg Schmadtke is a proven identifier of talent, and that appointing a German as Director of Football for the summer made sense – in that it needed to be someone aligned with Jürgen Klopp's thinking; there's no point bringing in someone, no matter how visionary, who wants to sign totally different players.

But it's also said on the back of a loss of a ton of institutional knowledge, from Michael Edwards, Julian Ward and Ian Graham; and the fact that Schmadtke, in a challenging summer, may not be aware of the smart processes the club previously employed, nor the errors made in the past – mostly the mess of last summer, when deals were drawn out and abandoned (often for good reasons), and alternatives could not be agreed upon, that led to some of the backroom changes.

It's made on the assumption that FSG hand out an overall budget and don't micro-manage deals or determine what players are ‘worth’, and that Klopp does not get involved in club-to-club negotiations or transfer fees (but just speaks to players to see if they're interested, and sells his vision, as is the norm these days).

It's all written from the perspective that I don't know what Schmadtke is like when it comes to fully knowing the value of players in the inflated 2023 English market, at a huge club, given his background of dealing in much lower sums.

That doesn't mean he doesn't know; just that we're entering the unknown as to what he knows.

As such, I shall cut him some slack, but also assess his work so far, with all the caveats that he's much more likely to know what he's doing than I am (or that I know of what he’s doing), and he has more information to hand. But it’s a key job he has this summer, and it’s worth assessing as best as possible.

My skill is more in following football inflation closely, and assessing how Liverpool have operated successfully in the recent past.

So far, it's one deal done via a buyout clause (after Julian "Ashley" Ward sealed the other deal, also for a very smart buyout) and some time-wasting over Romeo Lavia, whether he eventually arrives or not; a saga which I find unusually baffling, hence this article, and which brought to mind Phil Wang's haggling.

(And to be honest, I feel like “just pay the £50m”, or at least get close to the asking price.)

It's also written, without knowledge of overall numbers, from the assumption that there appeared to be a budget for multiple midfielders this summer, with a no.6 the long-standing priority, and as such, the late, bumper-priced sale of a no.6 and a no.6/8 (and the big-game experience lost in the process), surely added unexpectedly to the pot, that included shifting seven or eight of the higher earners off the books (with less income from a lack of Champions League football covered by wage clauses for existing and new players).

The key caveat is that if Klopp is happy with everything I see as questionable (and he is 'cool' if certain targets are not procured), then anything I see as questionable is rendered moot.

Again, I'm trying to provide an analysis of the situation from the public information, and it may be wrong.

I don’t think signings totally make or break seasons; and the squad is talented and young, and most players will improve. Klopp will make a good team, regardless.

But this is clearly a pivotal summer – that’s not just hype. The mass exodus of players makes that clear; and there was a mass exodus before the Saudi ship-jumpers.

If a compromise on Lavia is reached in the next few days, all this is mostly moot; you then just have to evaluate the opportunity cost of not tying up the deal sooner. But that will be fine, and we draw a line under it. Player signed, job done. Yet it continues to drag on; all the while, alternative targets join other clubs or sign new deals at their existing clubs.

So this is all just my opinion on the way things appear, and no transfer window can be judged before it is complete; but then again, not even when it is complete, either – lest Everton be the champions of England every year since 2017.

All I can go on is what, to me, appears to be a fair market value for a player; what Liverpool's stated needs are (via Klopp's public statements); and give reasons as to why I'm confused, when usually transfer sagas make at least reasonable sense to me, whether they happen or not – failing with the mega-complicated pursuit of Jude Bellingham as an example – or whether I'm excited by the player or not (see the end of the article for further examples).

FIFTY MILLION REASONS

Whatever Liverpool think Lavia is worth, there's good evidence that £50m is a fair market price that the club would have been aware of. This includes other clubs having previously bid £50m for him at a lesser stage of his development, in a time before Mass Midfielder Inflation.

Liverpool don't have to offer that, of course. But it's not like the £50m hasn't been public knowledge. It’s been fairly firmly stated in every press-release rejection of the Reds offers, so Southampton have made it clear; and I’m sure it was made publicly clear before then, too.

With anchoring bias, people can get stuck with what things used to cost, retaining it as a strong sense of what they should still cost. Every rise in player values each season sees people go “how much?!”, but as an example of the power and speed of football inflation, Andy Carroll cost £35m 12 years ago, which is a fee that wouldn’t make eyelids bat right now. But with Premier League inflation it’s closer to £150m.

On the point that Lavia is too young to be worth £50m, or is too unproven, I have made the point about how many games it took for people to think Michael Owen, aged 17, was worth a fortune? Five at most? Plus, I also noted that Ian Rush had less than a full season in the Chester first team in the late 1970s, in the third tier, when Liverpool made him Britain’s most expensive teenager, in a deal (£300,000) that would be worth well over £50m today. You buy talent and future potential, and it often proves better value than buying someone’s past. Rush had proven little or nothing; but Geoff Twentyman and Bob Paisley could spot talent.

A lot of this article centres around the fact that it makes better since to pay a bit more earlier in the transfer window than leave it later. We're not in late August yet, but the season starts next week.

The trolly-dashes of Andy Carroll, Ben Davies, Ozan Kabak and Arthur Melo suggest leaving it late is a really bad idea, on average, no matter the price. (Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain was also a late deal, and he duly took time to settle, before exploding into form, and then doing his ACL.)

As I pointed out on the site the other day, the vast majority of Liverpool's best signings of the Klopp era occurred in June/July, or early January (two Dutchmen were agreed in late December).

Let’s look back:

2016, Sadio Mané, Loris Karius, Joël Matip, Ragnar Klavan, Gini Wijnaldum: all done by 22nd July, some done late June/early July.

In 2017, as noted, Oxlade-Chamberlain arrived at the end of the window and settled slowly. Andy Robertson was signed mid-July (and took his time to break into the side). But Mo Salah was done by July 1st, and started the season on fire. Virgil van Dijk was signed before the January window opened. (Albeit it did come after pissing off … Southampton.)

In 2018, Naby Keïta, Fabinho, Alisson and Xherdan Shaqiri were done by 19th July. (Keïta a year earlier, indeed.)

No first-team signings in the summer of 2019, which at that point showed the team was ready as it was to go and win the league.

Thiago and Jota were admittedly later in the 2020 summer window, but that was a difficult time to buy players, after the pandemic, when everything, including payments from TV companies and whether fans would be able to attend games, was still up in the air. Without doubt, 2020 was an outlier summer. (Kostas Tsimikas, a cheap, reserve left-back, was signed earlier in the summer.) It didn’t lead to a good season, in part as the preseason was truncated too, along with injuries.

Ibrahima Konaté was signed early in the summer of 2021. Kabak and Ben Davies were late signings in the window of January 2021.

Luis Díaz was a late winter-window signing, but he was a deal brought forward six months; he arrived in top shape and top form, midseason. Cody Gakpo was signed before the January window, and was in a similar vein of form to Díaz; and arguably, another brought in early rather than waiting for the summer.

Darwin Núñez was signed in June 2022. He half-settled, but also didn't help himself with a failure to learn English and an early sending off. But if anything, aside from missing big chances, he started quite brightly.

Arthur Melo was the late signing last summer.

So clearly, the vast majority of successful signings were made before the August of each season.

Right now, Liverpool have made two signings (both seem like smart business), but there are probably three more to arrive, meaning the majority will arrive late or very late, if at all.

Perhaps Schmadtke arriving as a temporary deal-maker in the summer didn't help. That was not really avoidable, albeit the difficulties during the summer of 2022 led to this situation. (I had assumed that Ward would see his work through to the end of the window, but he saw through the Alexis Mac Allister bargain and left.)

This is not trolly-dash time yet, but how do you quantify the benefits of signing early, having the players in preseason, and beginning the settling-in process sooner rather than later?

Again, a point of logic: we don't know how long it takes anyone to settle, but the sooner you start doing something, the sooner the process starts. Someone on the bench vs Bayern last week would be on the road to settling more quickly than someone who hasn't even joined the club, clearly. And players with experience of English football have a head-start when it comes to settling.

More importantly, the quicker the group is together, the earlier the shared understandings begin to develop, in addition to the interpersonal and off-field settling required (and learning the language if new to England). Fitness is built up; if you need a Kloppian preseason to play Kloppian football, what are you waiting for?

Indeed, the folly of Arthur Melo was that he had not had a preseason, then couldn't cope. In loan fee and wages he cost almost £10m, for 13 minutes of football.

And again, Klopp wanted players early this summer.

He didn't want the wrong players early, clearly; just the right players. And logically, if a lot of effort has been gone to in order to woo Lavia, he is seen as the right player.

(That doesn't mean he's the only 'right' player out there, but it does mean he's the one being prioritised.)

As long as within the overall budget, individual player fees are less important than the value gained by early recruitment. I don't mean overpaying madly, but it's possibly a false economy to leave signings late, for whatever reason. It doesn’t mean you’ll start the season badly, but to have your business done early (even if the new buys are only as subs for the first few games) helps the chances of starting the season better; and starting the season badly is costly, financially and in sporting terms.

(I’m not going to obsess about Liverpool winning the league or winning every game, but obviously I want to see good preparation for the season ahead.)

Liverpool have offloaded six midfielders, and also have three who will miss the start of the season; in return, just two have arrived.

And leaving signings late, as well as costing time, can cost more money in a direct sense. (See Carroll, Andy; and what it’s like to be had over a barrel.)

So this list of points below is not really about whether or not the Reds sign Lavia per se (or if he would transform the team, albeit I think he could); just about looking at the known facts, and if the person leading the negotiations is doing the best job possible.

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