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Official - Siggi

elltrev said:
Quotes being chopped up and isolated to change their meaning in order to be more sensationalist - shock horror!
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The one about 'important financially' looked worse than it was in isolation, but him 'knowing the market' is pretty arrogant either way. For supposedly a key player that would have had a wonderful opportunity to perform under a manager that knows him, they thought that would be enough. Clearly wasn't.
 
Joesh said:
:lol: After reading the BR quotes, I have to ask are you Sigi in disguise?
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That convo was dressed up a bit but essentially that is what happened. Yes he's said Sig is a nice boy and there's no hard feelings, but he can't in one breath say that he would give him a wonderful opportunity to perform at a 'footballing institution' and in another say he wasn't prepared to pay for it. It doesn't compute.

He says he knew the market, but the market changed.
 
BrainOfLevy said:
The one about 'important financially' looked worse than it was in isolation, but him 'knowing the market' is pretty arrogant either way. For supposedly a key player that would have had a wonderful opportunity to perform under a manager that knows him, they thought that would be enough. Clearly wasn't.
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he/Liverpool put a value on Siggy's head and have stuck by it.

It is clear by the full interview, not just that snippet about Siggy, that Rodgers will do things his way and that is the kind of control he wanted at the club. Whether he succeeds is another thing but time will give us all the answers
 
indianspur said:
he/Liverpool put a value on Siggy's head and have stuck by it.

It is clear by the full interview, not just that snippet about Siggy, that Rodgers will do things his way and that is the kind of control he wanted at the club. Whether he succeeds is another thing but time will give us all the answers
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Yeah fair enough, he can do what he wants, and he can do things his way. If that's how he does it, then that's great.

Missing out on your number 1 signing because you 'knew the market' when another club came in and changed the market - I can deal with that as a Spurs fan. I'll have that all day long. If they want to put that value on Sig's head and stick by it when it's clear they won't get him for it, then by all means.

We don't pay massive wages. I'd be surprised if we offered him ridiculous money relative to what he is. But we offered a fair amount for someone that seems capable of getting 12-15 goals a season from midfield and a fair amount of assists. If Liverpool didn't want to adjust to the new market then it's all the better for us.
 
BrainOfLevy said:
Yeah fair enough, he can do what he wants, and he can do things his way. If that's how he does it, then that's great.

Missing out on your number 1 signing because you 'knew the market' when another club came in and changed the market - I can deal with that as a Spurs fan. I'll have that all day long. If they want to put that value on Sig's head and stick by it when it's clear they won't get him for it, then by all means.

We don't pay massive wages. I'd be surprised if we offered him ridiculous money relative to what he is. But we offered a fair amount for someone that seems capable of getting 12-15 goals a season from midfield and a fair amount of assists. If Liverpool didn't want to adjust to the new market then it's all the better for us.
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we dont know how desperately he wanted Siggy. As has been pointed out, Liverpool are loaded in midfield in terms of numbers, and there is some quality there as well as trash, but to bring in Siggy as well would have been nice but not essential.

There was a time limit for the Siggy transfer, Hoffenheim wanted him to leave by the end of June, so thats why whoever was interested had to get things done quite quickly. However Rodgers has also said that ideally he wants to take his time and really assess his squad before deciding what needs to be improved upon

he is taking a real measured approach to the task of rebuilding Liverpool and imo its the sensible way to go about it. He is a young manager and he cant just go into Anfield and start selling and replacing players who he hasnt even given a chance to impress him first
 
indianspur said:
we dont know how desperately he wanted Siggy. As has been pointed out, Liverpool are loaded in midfield in terms of numbers, and there is some quality there as well as trash, but to bring in Siggy as well would have been nice but not essential.

There was a time limit for the Siggy transfer, Hoffenheim wanted him to leave by the end of June, so thats why whoever was interested had to get things done quite quickly. However Rodgers has also said that ideally he wants to take his time and really assess his squad before deciding what needs to be improved upon

he is taking a real measured approach to the task of rebuilding Liverpool and imo its the sensible way to go about it. He is a young manager and he cant just go into Anfield and start selling and replacing players who he hasnt even given a chance to impress him first
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All of which may be true and perfectly valid. But it still doesn't make Rodgers' public statements any less unprofessional. Essentially accusing Sigurdsson of being a mercenary, when Rodgers himself presumably got a hefty pay bump to ditch Swansea and move to Liverpool, has done him no favours in my eyes - and I'm sure in the eyes of many.
 
DublinSpur said:
All of which may be true and perfectly valid. But it still doesn't make Rodgers' public statements any less unprofessional. Essentially accusing Sigurdsson of being a mercenary, when Rodgers himself presumably got a hefty pay bump to ditch Swansea and move to Liverpool, has done him no favours in my eyes - and I'm sure in the eyes of many.
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I don't think anyone gives a flying fudge. Rodgers is doing what he has to do - placate the baying red mob who, despite not having won the league for 20some years and who finished 15 or so points behind Spurs last season, still cannot grasp the fact that they are not the draw they once were.
 
indianspur said:
we dont know how desperately he wanted Siggy. As has been pointed out, Liverpool are loaded in midfield in terms of numbers, and there is some quality there as well as trash, but to bring in Siggy as well would have been nice but not essential.

There was a time limit for the Siggy transfer, Hoffenheim wanted him to leave by the end of June, so thats why whoever was interested had to get things done quite quickly. However Rodgers has also said that ideally he wants to take his time and really assess his squad before deciding what needs to be improved upon

he is taking a real measured approach to the task of rebuilding Liverpool and imo its the sensible way to go about it. He is a young manager and he cant just go into Anfield and start selling and replacing players who he hasnt even given a chance to impress him first
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Just don't buy it to be honest mate, he clearly wanted Siggy. His 'measured approach' led to him hijacking the move to Swansea, so again he clearly wanted him. He thought he could get him on the cheap, because the pull of playing for him and Liverpool was supposedly so great, but that just wasn't the case.

I wouldn't think investments worth millions of pounds are made in football on the back of 'I kind of want him...but not that much' kind of thoughts. He did want him. He made a bid. They discussed personal terms. He thought the draw of himself and Liverpool was enough. It wasn't. He talks about giving Siggy a 'wonderful opportunity to perform' so it's clear he would have been playing games and wasn't a 'nice but not essential' player.

They missed out due to arrogance, and an over-inflated sense of their standing IMO. Don't want this to sound offensive but you honestly read like a RAWK member here, making excuses for their failure. He's not going in like a bull in a china shop, casting Gerrard to the reserves to make way for Siggy. He would have been bringing in a player that he had worked with before and who he knows could perform, and the current squad would have understood that. He would have most likely taken Aquilani, Henderson, Shelvey or Adam's space on the team so it's not as if he'd be removing a key player and risking the wrath of the dressing room. Just a failure by them if you ask me.
 
indianspur said:
his comments on Gylfi in full.....

..........................

One player who will not be making his way to Anfield is midfielder Gylfi Sigurdsson, who featured for Rodgers at Swansea during the second half of last season and completed a move to Tottenham Hotspur earlier this week.

"Gylfi did fantastic for me at Swansea last season," said the boss. "He wasn't playing at Hoffenheim, I brought him to Swansea and he did very well for me there, scored seven goals in 19 games and was very, very good.

"He and I both sat and spoke and believed that playing football was going to be the most important aspect for him. But obviously it was important financially so we agreed a deal for him to go to Swansea and that was wrapped up.

"I then became the Liverpool manager, and that then wasn't something that was going to happen at Swansea. So he then had a choice of where he wanted to go. I knew what the market was and I wasn't prepared to pay anything over what I had known was agreed before.

"Liverpool would have provided Gylfi with a wonderful opportunity to perform with a manager that he knows and at a club which is a real footballing institution.

"But he's decided to go to Tottenham, for whatever reason. I wish him the best, he's a good kid and there's no ill feeling. We've got other targets and we'll move on."
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That comes across very, very differently to the originally quoted comments. I don't see anything wrong here to be honest. Shows you how mischievous people can be in misquoting, mis-translating or quoting out of context.
 
chancer said:
That comes across very, very differently to the originally quoted comments. I don't see anything wrong here to be honest. Shows you how mischievous people can be in misquoting, mis-translating or quoting out of context.
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Agreed. The original quotes (which I confess I took at face value) made him seem very unprofessional in my view. The full thing, in context, is far less contentious.
 
BrainOfLevy said:
Just don't buy it to be honest mate, he clearly wanted Siggy. His 'measured approach' led to him hijacking the move to Swansea, so again he clearly wanted him. He thought he could get him on the cheap, because the pull of playing for him and Liverpool was supposedly so great, but that just wasn't the case.

I wouldn't think investments worth millions of pounds are made in football on the back of 'I kind of want him...but not that much' kind of thoughts. He did want him. He made a bid. They discussed personal terms. He thought the draw of himself and Liverpool was enough. It wasn't. He talks about giving Siggy a 'wonderful opportunity to perform' so it's clear he would have been playing games and wasn't a 'nice but not essential' player.

They missed out due to arrogance, and an over-inflated sense of their standing IMO. Don't want this to sound offensive but you honestly read like a RAWK member here, making excuses for their failure. He's not going in like a bull in a china shop, casting Gerrard to the reserves to make way for Siggy. He would have been bringing in a player that he had worked with before and who he knows could perform, and the current squad would have understood that. He would have most likely taken Aquilani, Henderson, Shelvey or Adam's space on the team so it's not as if he'd be removing a key player and risking the wrath of the dressing room. Just a failure by them if you ask me.
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but wait, he knows Siggy better than most, he put a price on his head and wasnt prepared to pay anymore.Obviously Siggy wasnt that essential in the end, so Liverpool backed out ....Spurs nipped in, offered a better deal, Siggy came to us, thats business

Im glad Rodgers stuck to his principles:)
 
indianspur said:
but wait, he knows Siggy better than most, he put a price on his head and wasnt prepared to pay anymore.Obviously Siggy wasnt that essential in the end, so Liverpool backed out ....Spurs nipped in, offered a better deal, Siggy came to us, thats business

Im glad Rodgers stuck to his principles:)
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I'm glad he did too. :)

Just reading RAWK's response to his whole interview now (I don't have much to do with my days at the moment!) and Rodgers does seem like one of those annoying people that says all the right things. He knows exactly how to get everyone onside. I don't mean that in a negative way - I think he's an excellent communicator. Most of their fans seem to agree with him - and why wouldn't they? - although one does consider it a bizarre statement, wondering why what Swansea offer is relevant to what Liverpool should offer.

We'll see how they do with their other targets. But I'll be pretty surprised if they get someone as good as Siggy for 20k a week and for as low a fee. And that's why I think it was a poor piece of business by them. They did want him, maybe he wasn't massively important, but they went through the trouble of bidding for him, so they did want him. But you go into negotiations with Swansea, and they offer 20k, and it probably puts him among the top earners there. So you're offering someone who you consider to be a key player some of your top wages. Sounds fair. But if you go into negotiations with Liverpool, and still try and put him on 20k, you're putting him on probably not much more than Shelvey wages. For a guy that's proven he can score goals and get assists in this league, that's just not right. No way would he be happy with that. I assume he would get game time, given Rodgers' 'wonderful opportunity to perform' comment, so for a talented, proven player who will start a lot of games to be paid Siggynificantly less than the players he is starting with, it just isn't going to work.

I like that Levy has always rewarded players with new contracts if they become key players. He doesn't mess around. If someone like Sandro joined to learn for a year and then showed his worth, Levy won't scrimp and save, he will offer him the contract that reflects it straight away. But Siggy would have been earning barely a half/a third of some of his team-mates, and it isn't on.

If they are happy to see how Aquilani, Cole, Shelvey or Henderson will do in the role then good luck to them. Or if they can get someone for better value than Siggy then they've actually got the better end of this deal. But I'd say that is nigh on impossible. Siggy is better than all of them, cost a very reasonable fee and probably only wanted very reasonable wages. They do have a fair few midfielders, but none our proven to work in the way that Rodgers likes to play like Siggy is. I just think they messed up.
 
I was looking at RAWK yesterday and was amazed by how all of a sudden Aquilani is regarded as such a fantastic footballer - he flopped there - and he hasnt set the world alight in Italy since...
 
If it had been the other way around and Liverpool had signed him, I'm pretty sure I'd be saying so what? and big deal too.

Unlike the Liverpool fans though, I'd mean it.
 
I'd just add on this Rodgers statement, I'm not sure why he would actually mind an extra 20k a week given to Gylfi for example, if infact it brought him into the club. I don't see why he would suddenly be all principled over that, when he almost certainly got a wage rise from Liverpool himself.

I think what's more likely is that he told his board Siggy would come to them for the same wages he was getting at Swansea, and even though they still had plenty of midfielders on the wage bill, they said ok because it was a great deal. But then when competition is introduced, they can't get him on the cheap anymore. And they can't get into a bidding war because they already have Aquilani, Cole and Henderson on probably big wages and will need to know they can shift some players out before bringing them in.

I don't for a second believe that Rodgers wouldn't have offered another 20k a week if it was completely up to him, or that he'd really like losing out on a player who he knows can perform in the system he likes to play. But I think where Rodgers has done well is that he's making the best of a crap sandwich, he's making the players already at Liverpool feel like a million bucks by talking up their ability and acting like he isn't too worried about losing Gylfi. As I said, a very good communicator, and he's being clever by reacting to the situation well and not emotionally, but I don't believe for a second he's 'relaxed' about losing out on a player he knows can perform.

Rodgers needs to be successful, he needs to win games. He would want players who he knows he can trust and who can do the job he needs them to do.
 
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