406W30th

I have no problem holding off on what would be our second-biggest transfer fee ever if there are serious concerns from the medical team about his knee. Apparently we tried to restructure the payment based on his appearances per season, and Lyon said fuck off. Perfectly reasonable from both sides. I love Fekir's game, and I'm not sure there's a like-for-like plan B out there, but I also would hate to buy a crocked player.

Liverpool "make significant progress on Fekir and Shaqiri deals" Si Hughes claiming Liverpool should have at least one of them signed in the next 24 hours. Fekir has told Lyon he only wants to go to Liverpool. Shaqiri, well, he doesn't want to play in the Championship.

I'd love Shaqiri for £12M. He's still only 26 and has something to prove. With a chip on his shoulder and Klopp helping him develop, he could reach the potential that Bayern saw in him a few years ago. For attacking depth, we could do a lot worse. A known quantity, no adjustment to the league, and capable of some absolutely spectacular goals. Remember this one v. the Ev a few years ago?

Karius, Ramos, or both?

Alisson kept it from an absolute bloodbath. Before we scored our first he'd already made three or four saves that he had no business making. When we were first linked with him I watched a few Roma games. Dude is nails. I actually prefer him to Oblak but I think that's tainted by the few matches I watched of Atleti where he failed to impress. Roma is in rather dire financial straits and just like last year, they pretty much have to offload assets. While we'll likely have to pay the full asking price to ease the backlash they get from their fans for selling another player to us, I think a deal gets done after what looks like a protracted negotiation. Seems much likelier to land Alisson than Oblak, who ends up at Chelsea after they sell Courtois, possibly going the other direction.

Alisson or bust. £79M is crazy money for a keeper but it ain't my money. The club made £70M off getting to the CL final. Blow it all on a guy who will singlehandedly improve our defense leaps and bounds and would be our #1 for the next decade.

Fabinho was heavily linked with United last summer during the Monaco fire sale. I was pissed they were going to land him – he's a big, ball-winning bastard with a great range of passing. £40-£45M is a steal in the current market and we get him in on July 1. That's our #6 ticked off for the next decade or so. Ecstatic about this move.

Anyone claiming Madrid won it "going away" is either a troll or a fucking idiot. Karius gave away two goals; you won by two, with the opposition missing the best attacking player in Europe (based on 2017-18 form) for 60 minutes. Liverpool didn't deserve to win and hardly created any chances after Salah was forced off. And again, you're a complete fucking moron if you think that was any sort of impressive win. Madrid looked pedestrian.

According to L'Equipe we're in negotiations for Fekir at £53M. Feels like this one should get wrapped up pretty quick – Lyon isn't exactly known for holding onto its players and a move at this price makes sense for all parties. Ideally it's finalized before the World Cup, as he's part of the France squad. A keeper is a no-brainer at this point but I'm not sure we blow the lion's share of the transfer budget on Oblak or Alisson; Atleti are bastards to deal with and there's no way Roma do us any favors after basically embarrassing them on the Salah deal. I don't want to see them bring in a stop-gap option but Karius simply cannot be our first-choice keeper after Kiev. The silver lining in the CL loss was that it exposed our two greatest weaknesses – attacking depth and first-team GK. Hopefully we address those, replace Can, and upgrade VVD's partner at the back.

Poor Bayern. Just have to settle for Leon Goretzka I guess.

My business partner has had a room booked for 6+ months, and even at 5x the price it'd be about $30/night. We'll see how that plays out though. Given that Madrid have won the last two finals and Liverpool hasn't played in one in 10 years, I'm guessing Scousers will outnumber Madridistas at a good clip.

The Highbury in Milwaukee is my local – and I'd argue the best general soccer bar in the country – and they've changed their facade for the week:

JFC people, is nothing sacred?!?

double post

Some pretty dope World Cup apparel, in case anyone is interested: https://cleansheet.co/collections/2018-world-cup

South African accents in general are pretty hard to listen to but hers is basically nails on a chalkboard. Still listen to what she has to say though – she's pretty much the best journo when it comes to LFC these days.

Agreed that Duncan Castles is a doofus but that doesn't mean he's wrong about Pulisic becoming a Liverpool player. I just think the stated reason – basically saying solely because he's an American – is a bit exaggerated.

I think Pulisic is almost a certainty. Klopp has long been an admirer and only got one season to work with him at Dortmund. He provides quality depth in a position where we need badly need it, would give the American owners a young American player with superstar potential, probably wouldn't be too fussed about playing time, and wouldn't break the bank. Dortmund is still figuring things out from a managerial perspective and a move seems good for all parties. I wouldn't be shocked if he's the first deal of the summer, Naby's July 1 move notwithstanding.

Worth noting that away goals is not a tiebreaker in the promotion playoffs.

Arsenal is playing Huddersfield at Anfield? Boy am I confused.

Trent Alexander-Arnold is a very talented center mid who's been slotted in at RB more or less out of necessity. He's done extremely well there but he's 19 years old, so he's more or less been asked to stay at home and be a defend-first fullback, at least against good attacking teams. His delivery is a bit inconsistent but when he's on, he's got one of the better crosses on our team. Given the high stakes of the match and the quality of the opposition, I wouldn't expect him to get forward a ton, unless that's specifically something Klopp will try to exploit. I would think that with Salah ahead of him on the right flank, that will be enough of a threat to give Marcelo nightmares and that TAA will fill in the space but not do much in the overlap. Andrew Robertson, on the other side, is a very, very good attacking left back, however. Generally if one of our fullbacks gets in the attacking third, it's him. He's the Scottish Roberto Carlos.(Kidding. Sort of.)

Absolutely. He's a perfect fit for Klopp's system and would be a fantastic buy. A 3-in-2 scorer (135 min/goal) who averages 1.5 tackles per game (for comparison Firmino averages 1.8, which led the league for FWD's) and would immediately be the best FK taker in our squad. Obligatory YouTube comp for those who haven't seen him:

Your argument was that players we can't have quality backups because they won't be guaranteed playing time. That's simply not true.

We were complaining about depth in December. And I don't buy the argument that we can't have extremely talented backups on our bench because they're going to demand playing time. City bought Sané in the summer of 2016 and he played just a hair over 50% of City's minutes last season. This year, he was the 2nd-best winger in the league. Then they bought Bernardo Silva this year, who's hardly gotten a sniff of the pitch. Liverpool doesn't have the infinite resources of City but you don't shy away from stockpiling talent if you can get them to come. Sure, they want to play, but I would hope that the ego on most of these guys would dictate that they'll take their chances beating out whoever's ahead of them. Oxlade-Chamberlain wasn't guaranteed anything prior to his signing for us and he fought his way onto the pitch. With so the number of fixtures a club like Liverpool will play over the course of the season, plus potential injuries, etc., talented players will get playing time.