parklane1
Tony Galvin
" Up in Smoke" .
Saw an article by a Liverpool fan talking up Kane as an example of a young player putting pen to paper. One reason I can think of for Kane doing so is because he is a Tottenham lad, brought up through the academy and with deep ties to the club. The same cannot be said for Sterling, who moved there from QPR for a chance at moving on to bigger things. IIRC he was even linked with a move away when he was 17 because of a lack of first team opportunities. This is a lad who despite what is being said has a one track mind on becoming a better player and if he thinks he needs to move elsewhere I think he will without any emotion. I don't think money is his #1 interest.
I think Kane is probably earning a fair amount for his role in the squad and the new contract probably includes staggered increases, Sterling is the worst paid player in the liverpool squad by the sounds of it and doesn't feel appreciated
it reminds me of the Ashley Cole situation in some ways, it will be seen as ludicrous but actually it's completely logical
For a first choice striker (usually goal scorers are the highest paid players) I doubt it, at least if the numbers being reported around the time he signed his new contract are right.
For a squad player, which he was at the start of the season he's earning a fair amount. But that's kind of my point, Liverpool are being forced into paying top money at a very early stage to Sterling, that can very easily give them problems later on.
Im with galeforce here. sterling is way more established than kane is at the moment. i would guess that if they were to be transferred, sterling would command a significantly higher transfer fee as well as salary. sterling is quite clearly one of liverpool's best players, if not the best. on the other hand, everyone is wondering when kane's form will take a dip and level out. i dont think anyone would offer kane anything close to 100k pw at this moment. but if we're honest, theres probably a few teams who would offer that kind of amount to sterling.
Liverpool also have a much higher wage bill than us generally, equivalent players at Liverpool earn a lot more than at Spurs
all Sterling wants is parity imo, which is more than fair
It's not about what he wants, it's about what he can reasonably request and get. He has all the power in the situation, whereas our negotiating position with Kane was much stronger.
so...
you...
agree with me?
I think Sterling getting £120k+ p/w at this point could cause problems for Liverpool down the line
I think Levy is very good with contract stuff and rarely gets us into the situations Liverpool currently finds themselves in with Sterling. And that's part of why we were in a much stronger situation with Kane when we renegotiated a couple of months back
I think they have to pay him that, he's worth that to them, you keep losing your best player every year and a message gets out there that you are not serious
we are under tighter financial control, they are getting a massive wage off the books in the summer, they can easily afford this
there's 4 other PL clubs who pay more than that on average, he won't be short of suitors
Sterling has a lot more PL games than Kane (about 3 times as many), but there's often been questions asked about his end product. People are wondering if Kane will push on, level out or perhaps dip. But it's not like Sterling is a proven superstar either, and people are wondering if he will push on or not too. Sterling's 6 goals and 7 assists is a decent return in 27 games, but not much more. According to whoscored he's gotten 3 goals and 2 assists out of those while playing 9 games as a striker. Leaving 3 and 5 in 20 league games in more supporting role. Again, it's decent, but not much more. He has to perform better and more consistently to fulfill his potential. Kane has at least been delivering like a true top player this season. A better run in terms of end product and consistency than Sterling has ever produced so far.
Neither would be automatic starters at top clubs unless they kept delivering at close to their best over time.
If Kane went to a top club right now he would get 100k p/w quite easily I think. And I think you underestimate how much clubs would be willing to pay for Kane at this point.
i think most people will quite comfortably agree that sterling is a top 3 liverpool player. in contrast, i dont think the same can be said about kane as comfortably (yet). he has been our best performer in the past few months, but i dont think we can definitively say hes one of our best players. signing the 40/50k pw contract is probably a recognition of this. both on his part as well as the club's.
sterling has been rumoured to be offered around 100k pw. this shows that liverpool acknowledge that he is probably one of their best players. i suspect they dont have too many players on any more than 100k.
if liverpool and us put sterling and kane on the market for 25m (and the players were asking for 100k), im very confident that there would be a lot more interest in sterling. i wouldnt be surprised if there no no interest in kane from abroad. and also wouldnt be that surprised if none of the top 4 wanted kane.
I think you could be right here. but it ultimately depends on whether the club perceives this to be a problem or not. if liverpool want to push on and start getting into the top 4 places on a more regular basis, they will have to give players like sterling 100k+. and the problem arises because if you start paying players this much, you cant balance the books. for some clubs ie. Emirates Marketing Project, this isnt a problem. but for fsg its probably a big problem. and thats basically why they will struggle to push on from last seasons performances. suarez and sterling were probably their two players in that season. and 12 months later, its not too unrealistic to suggest that neither of them will be at liverpool. in short, they dont really have the financial capacity(/will) to hold onto "top 4" calibre players.
if a player has been a genuinely key player for almost two seasons in a top 4 (competing) side, i dont think the kind of wages he is rumoured to have asked for are that outrageous given what others are being paid in the elite football industry. its up to liverpool to pay this calibre of player what others would, or accept that finishing in the top 4 will be a rarity for them in the next few years.
I agree that levy is relatively good in this regard. but i think you're giving him too much credit here re harry kane. i think kane's acceptance of his new contract has more to do with him beleiving that playing regularly in our first team under the current setup is the next step in his development. and also i think theres a variety of other factors ranging from kane not being as good as sterling , to kane's wage demands being well within our salary cap/structre, that made his contract negotiations simpler for us. if we had a player who had acheived as much as sterling, i think we'd be struggling to hold onto him. levy would probably be attempting to offload him to the highest bidder this summer imo.