Life without Liverpool: Rumour mongers control the narrative

While we’re all adjusting to life with football and life without Liverpool, one thing remains clear: The rumour mongers control the narrative.

We should begin by saying categorically that all the wild unfounded speculation about Liverpool and the transfer window swiftly approaching is less about substance and more about bad gas and is nothing more than hot stinky air.

Case in point, it has been speculated this past week that Sadio Mané is so incensed by Jurgen Klopp’s backing of Virgil van Dijk for player of the year that Mané is now a wantaway and is seeking a transfer this summer.

Let us make it perfectly clear here and now: if Liverpool sell Mané, then they don’t deserve to win anything. Tantamount to shooting oneself in the foot such a boondoggle as this would be. The same goes for Mohamed Salah, Virgil van Dijk, Alisson, Andrew Robertson, Trent Alexander-Arnold, Gini Wijnaldum and Roberto Firmino.

f Liverpool cannot manage to keep this core group together and happy at the club then they do not deserve to win anything.

Why would it ever be in Liverpool’s interest to undo all the good done through hard work and team management over the past five seasons or so, only to squander that advantage by selling the geese that laid the golden egg. All the ridiculous speculation around this core group of players is just the wind in the reeds as they say.

Liverpool are not (and thank god for that) a turnstile revolving door hoovering up talent worldwide just to have the best players on the books; ala Barca and Los Blancos. These sides chew talented players up and spit them out by the lorry load. Just ask Philippe Coutinho.

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And there are so many others too numerous to mention here, Alexis Sanchez etc.; we all know who these players are and how they found that the grass wasn’t greener on the other side.

The Manchesters, Red Devils and Citizens have been guilty of the same type of transfer policies in the past decade. Indeed United spent nearly a billion dollars in the past decade and have very little to show for it. And City like Chelsea before them are in violation of the FFP rules laid down by UEFA.

This is one of the primary reasons why the Leicester City title under Claudio Ranieri (2016) was so sublime, so timely, and utterly inexplicable. And it was well deserved, well played, and it’s value as a lesson to the huge clubs cannot be overstated. Manchester United had more salary tied up on their bench than Leicester had in their entire side.

Let us just pray that the pundits and football talking heads and rumor mongers are having little to no impact on the Liverpool backroom discussions regarding transfers and holding on to players that have proven they are winners and belong at Liverpool. One can only hope.

Football cannot return soon enough for me. I miss the week in and week out play of matches that give these talented world class athletes the opportunity to shine, and tamps down to a large degree the incessant rumor mongering of where Neymar Jr. will end up, or whether some wealthy club will fork over 3/4 of a billion to acquire Kylian Mbappe.

Don’t make me laugh.

I want neither of these lads at Liverpool. Indeed, Liverpool do not need these kind of egos that make man management so difficult. No player should be larger than the club.

The latest edition of the rumor mill has Erling Haaland being courted by the Spanish giants. While he hasn’t completed a single season at Dortmund. And while this may sell football magazines and make for interesting dinner conversation, or a friendly chat up in the local pub.

It is so far removed from reality that it becomes ludicrous on its face.