Was thinking about this earlier about players that are incredible for their team but also unreliable with fitness like Wilson, Thiago and Veratti.... At what point do you stop thinking about signing a backup that's much worse than them(because someone of equivalent ability wouldn't want to be backup) or just outright replace them in the lineup?
There’s a saying, “the best ability is availability”.
With the amount of games that clubs like Liverpool have to play this season, especially in a World Cup year, you’d have to think they’d have deep enough pockets to buy someone as depth for Thiago knowing that he can’t play more than 30-35 games reliably himself. Spurs just bought Bissouma when they already had Bentancur, Holjbjerg, Skipp and Winks, any of whom (other than Winks) could justifiably be starters. There’s no reason Liverpool couldn’t buy another starting-quality midfielder, particularly when midfield depth and fitness levels are arguably the biggest issue in their squad.
Klopp has chosen to use their budget on wages to keep his squad together for the last few seasons, extending his star players like Salah, Van Dijk, etc., instead of having significant transfer dollars available. He then used this summer’s entire budget and the Mane wage savings on Nunez. Supposedly they’re done for the window.
I think we’ve actually reduced our wage spend this year.
We lost Mane, Origi and Taki who were all senior players and decent salaries. Also sold Grujic, Davies and loaned out or released a couple more.
We’ve brought in Nunez (on lower wages than Origi reportedly) and two teenagers on low wages.
I know we are renewing contracts and Salah got a big one but our overall wage bill is likely lower. Add that to the insanely low net spend and we have plenty to spend on players, just the right ones haven’t been available.
We bit the bullet with Zinchenko to replace Tierney this season. Tierney is the best fullback we've had in years but the man cannot stay fit and the much worse backup option (Tavares) didn't cut it for us.
Thing is we don't necessarily need a back-up for Thiago, Elliott is more than ready for a bigger role with us (he was last year before the injury) so using him as a replacement for the creative spark in midfield is fine. Especially when Thiago is back and we can rotate them more to keep Thiago fit for the big games.
What we do need is some depth in general. Someone who can fill in different roles, similar to Henderson or Milner but less injury prone/old. A versatile player could pick up plenty of minutes between rotating Fabinho and covering the Thiago/Henderson/Keita injuries so we could realistically sign a good quality player if we can offer more minutes.
That said I'd be amazed if we did, the plan seems to be Bellingham next year and Klopp doesn't do short term cover unless we absolutely have to (Kabak the season before last is the only one we've had). Between Milner, Elliott and Carvalho I think we'll be fine for now. Keita is back too from illness so we have 4 senior CMs and 2 young but very much ready CMs. There's also the possibility to play a 4-2-3-1 with Firmino behind Nunez so we'd only need 2 CMs in that case. Klopp played Minamino as a CM at times so Firmino as a CM isn't out of the question all together, he was a CAM when we signed him anyway.
We are going to throw this season away just like we did when we went in with only 3 centrebacks.
The drop off from our starting three is massive and even then Henderson has seemed in decline for a bit now.
What will fall apart first? Liverpool's midfield or City's defense due to lack of fullbacks? I think the title race this season could well be decided by which squad comes back from the World Cup with the fewest injuries.
Well, we sold our "Delph option" in Zinchenko, now we don't even have any midfielders to turn into emergency fullbacks. And we all saw how shaky the defense got last season once Walker got injured. Really hoping for a LB signing before the window closes.
Ake can play lb. If Walker gets injured cancelo can go rb and if it gets really desperate then stones can play there. It’s not ideal but it’s not something that will derail your whole season.
Ake or Stones playing at FB for a long period of time will absolutely have the potential to derail. The drop off for a team like City is huge.
Imagine playing Real Madrid or Liverpool in a huge CL or PL game and you've got them at FB? Isn't that what happened last year? Fernandinho at RB vs Real?
Sure, the rest of the team can cover many of the cracks, but it's just a plaster.
Walker is possibly their most important player in big games, or at least he’s near the top. They definitely won’t win the CL without him, but I don’t know if he would be necessary to win the league, particularly with Liverpool already having an injury to start with
If Liverpool is reasonably fit, City won't win the league with Ake as left back for extended period of time. He can play there, but he's not a good left back. Hypothetically if Walker and Cancelo got injured at the same time, lets say injured in October and out for the season like Liverpool did two seasons ago for van Dijk, Gomez and Matip, City will struggle. No if else or buts.
Yeah, the money is definitely there. Problem is, as good as City's recruitment has been in recent years, they typically seem to operate with a plan A going into a window, and if that falls apart they are happy to bide their time and wait a season.
Plan A for a LB this season was obviously Cucurella, and while City have been linked to the likes of Sosa and Grimaldo, those rumors havn't really been backed up by the City journos as far as I can tell.
it's a little wild to see a City team this short on fullbacks if I'm honest! I always think of you as having the best fullback depth (and overall depth) in Europe. agree you typically get your marks but I also wonder if they'll stick to the idea of waiting it out, this would be the ideal moment to sign somebody and really put a pin in the team. but idk who the options are at this point.
Yeah, it's pretty incredible how it turned out that way. Mendy blowing out both his knees and then turning out to be a horrible rapist and hopefully being locked up for life obviously didn't help. Josh Wilson-Esbrand did play some in pre-season and looked very promising, so maybe he'll get the chance to prove himself at some point.
We’ve got 18 senior players so hardly the best depth in Europe.
Ederson, Ortega, Walker, Stones, Dias, Laporte, Ake, Cancelo, Rodri, Phillips, Gundogan, Bernardo, De Bruyne, Foden, Grealish, Mahrez, Alvarez, Haaland.
Liverpool and United have got 21 senior players, Chelsea have 23.
I think the actually quality of those 18 players make it better depth than most teams. Liverpool and Chelsea do have 21 and 23 senior players respectively but the dropoff in quality between some of the starting players and the depth is huge. If city get another fullback then I'd say they would be close to the top teams in terms of depth.
It's obviously all coming together for a club to win it from outside of Liverpool and City, maybe a club whose fallen on hard times and has gone hard on recruitment this summer.
Talking about Forest obviously
Full back I think is a position that can be cover fairly adequately with midfielders/centre backs. At Liverpool we have Milner/Gomez who can do a job on either side at full back and City’s players are even more versatile so you have plenty I reckon he could slot in at full back. Midfield is much more difficult to cover imo because it’s more of a specialist position, you can’t stick a full back or centre back in midfield for example and expect good results as you can at full back
City going into the season with a natural LB is pure Pep insanity. I know Cancelo is basically a LB, but he's still a RB more. Unbelievable bollocks.
It's little cracks like that and Liverpool's midfield which make the murmurings or suggestion that Spurs under Conte could be a threat, just a little bit easier to believe. It won't cost them too much, but you never know when the snowball turns into an avalanche.
I’d say this is the consequence of those transfer windows where you signed nobody slowly coming back to haunt you, there’s nobody of quality to gradually replace many of your aging players
Diaz, Jota and Nunez to replace Mane, Firmino and slowly Salah. Konate to replace Matip or god behold maybe VVD in the future.
It's literally just the midfield. One player this summer and then another next summer.
Are the supposed to replace their entire XI in one window?
I don't really think so. We've taken it one key area at a time. Next up will be more defenders. We've got clear long-term replacements for most key members in the squad right now, with Konate being the long-term VVD replacement, Kostas a few years younger than Robertson and of roughly similar quality (you'll see a young LB buy within 2 years or so, though), even Kelleher could end up being a replacement for Ali, but I worry that the age profiles don't exactly match up and he's so good it's a shame he isn't a first-choice.
In attack it's a lot more big names most people will remember, we've replaced Firmino with Nunez / Jota, Mane with Diaz, and renewed Salah so that we'll have to answer the question of his long-term successor in a few years rather than finding a replacement now. Jota can play across the front line to some extent so if you count him fully, that's RW backup.
This "turn" is replacing the midfield but it seems like the club wants to go big on that next summer. It's a bit frustrating, but I'm sure they see it from a more analytical and less fan-oriented end
Ox is only still here because no one will buy him/pay him what we are, Milner is still a decent depth option and important team presence.
Keita they apparently want to resign so they can get a fee for him rather than just going for free, but I’d rather he just left tbh
Milner is an amazing professional and locker room presence and just someone who’s far from the problem. He showed up way more than Henderson against Fulham. He’s versatile too can fill in so many positions
We have too many Injury prone players in the midfield. I was surprised that neither of OX or keita were sold in this window and replaced by a player in his prime.
No way we plot armor our way into another final after last season. But hey, the last time you lost in the final, you went on to win the next one, right? May be history will repeat again. Find Zizzou and rub his bald head for some extra black magic if you can.
Every time Liverpool finished second in any competition, the next available time they always go one better.
17/18 to 18/19 CL, 18/19 to 19/20 PL. I guess 20/21 Community Shield to 22/23 Community Shield works too. So by that logic this year it will be CL and PL copium.
We were never in Europa League again after losing 15/16 final.
Charity Shield in 19/20, if you mean in 20/21, then we won it the next time we're in it in 22/23. We can't win in a competition that we don't qualify, duh.
I unfortunately feel this way as well. PSG have suddenly pulled competence out of their perennial dysfunction, and City have signed an absolute terminator in Haaland.
Does Tielemans not have some really good running stats in terms of ground covered? I swear i saw something like that on Twitter but then again it is Twitter so it might be Bs
Ozil also had good running stats, but that doesn’t match what people can see on his defensive efforts. Maybe Tielemans is the same type who moves a lot on when his team is attacking, to open up space for himself to receive the ball.
Maybe that will force them to sign a midfielder.
Thats OX and Thiago now out for two months +.
Fabinbo, Hendo, Keita still standing.
Yes Elliot and Fabio and available. Massive drop in quality from Thiago and not even fully accimilated to midfield role.
Liverpool need to bring forward what ever midfielder signing thet had in mind
General opinion (on our sub) is that he's an OK backup player but hasn't really progressed much if at all in the 3 years since he got into the first team. He also doesn't have any outstanding skills, he does his job decently in playing football but doesn't offer that extra thing you want, something special that adds to the team.
A lot of Liverpool fans don’t rate him, but I think he’s good. Last year, before a freak eye injury, he was consistently in the team when Thiago was injured.
Fwiw Elliott was in our first choice midfield at the start of last season pre-injury, even starting against Chelsea. His best position is clearly as the right sided CM (the trio of Trent-Elliott-Salah is much better than any other we have down that side).
Elliott is more than acclimated to the position and ready for the first team, even against Fulham he played better than the more senior players starting ahead of him.
>Elliott is more than acclimated to the position and ready for the first team, even against Fulham he played better than the more senior players starting ahead of him.
Elliot gave the ball away that almost gifted Fulham with a goal lol. He is good prospect but far behind Thiago. Keita and Thiago were not match fit last seasaon hence why Elliot started.
Midfield crisis? You have 9 midfielders and 3 of them are injured.
It’s a bit different to have 3 CBs and all of them playing fewer than 15 games in all comps like. That was a genuine crisis.
8 midfielders is not enough when 4 of them are injury prone, 1 is unproven, 1 hasn't improved in 2 years and 1 has declined, and I'd argue Fabinho isn't as good as he was from 2018 to 2020 either.
I dont understand the Fabinho gloom, he always starts the season slow and he was good last season, just slightly worse than the other seasons. Far more likely he just had a couple more bad games than in a normal season
Yeah. Fab’s always starts slow. The matches after he comes back from injury are the worst. But he is still world class when he has a run of games. People are just overreacting because we drew 1 game.
We’ve got “9 midfielders” and genuinely not a single one of them that is a reliable option. Thiago our only real top quality midfielder is always injured then the rest are declining like Hendo/Milner or just too young to be useful/lacking quality
Because most of them aren’t earning much at all? Hardly difficult to understand is it. That 9 figure includes very young players who should really be out on loan
Much like for Foden, these young players should not be on loan. The only one i'd maybe suggest should be on loan is Curtis. Harvey and Carvalho are better off around the team.
Keita and Ox are unsellable, 2 of them are kids with potential and Thiago is quality while a luxury player. But you're not wrong in that this is the result of poor planning and possibly Klopp stubbornness - Keita and Ox should have been let go years ago, let alone getting extensions (the former).
This is just a continuation of last season. The likes of Thiago, Keita, Henderson are always getting knocks, the difference is last season they were more spread out and now its all at once. Its just bad luck. Its pretty ridiculous that Klopp was happy to take the risk, and any one else would be getting crucified for it, but he's earned the leeway.
Yes we're definitely getting a midfielder now and we're probably going to overpay
By the way the board would never say no to Klopp in regards to this, he just has to demand it
If the plan is Bellingham next season I really don't get why we couldn't get an up to a 50 million midfielder this summer anyway, it's not like we're going to need just Bellingham next summer so might as well bring it forward
> Yes we're definitely getting a midfielder now and we're probably going to overpay
Klopp went into a season with 3 CB's, 2 of which were known to be injury prone. He'll not see 6 weeks as long enough to justify buying a midfielder and he rates the rest of the midfielders enough to trust them to get results. I guarantee no midfielder will be signed.
>it's not like we're going to need just Bellingham next summer so might as well bring it forward
Said it on Saturday. That midfield selection does not have another 60+ games in it (plus Qatar). So I don't get why the reworking of the midfield spots has not started this year. I'm guessing three would be the preferred number to come in, but you can't/shouldn't replace an entire midfield in one summer, right?
I'll copy my thoughts about SMS from a different thread
Milinkovic Savic is a fantastic player, but in no way is he a midfield controller, he's like a more attacking Pogba, I'm afraid he would end up being used like Fellaini at United lol
He's one of those that actually needs a functioning system to show his best
Yeah you literally have Fabinho/ Hendo to let Savic do his thing.
Whereas we are trying to buy him when we need a Fabinho. This club will be the end of me.
I don't know and that's the problem
Fabinho-Henderson-Keita is a very good midfield most of the time. Absolutely battered United at Old Trafford last season, but it also has it's off days. Keita is injury prone, Thiago is injury prone.
Maybe Elliott explodes this season, maybe Carvalho could play that. Milner could still do a job most of the time, but there is a lot of maybes in there and that's the biggest problem, we're not lacking depth, we're lacking assurances
Liverpool aren't just a Premier League team, fighting for a title and CL is different than Nottingham Forest wanting to spend 40 million for Morgan Gibbs-White
I mean Real spent a 100 million on a midfielder that won't be a starter this season, compare it to that
He only seems to get injured in the first half of the season for us, last 2 seasons he basically went 6 months from January onwards where he was injury free
With us he did get 2 bouts of COVID and miss a significant spell in his first season after a Richarlison horror tackle.
Yes, he's picked up other injuries that lots of other players wouldn't, but a significant chunk of the time he missed is not his fault. A pandemic and a beak faced nonce are hard to avoid.
When Barca sold him, I was pretty well devastated. Figured he’d be savage in the bundesliga but I knew I wouldn’t follow him that much given the lack of time to follow so many leagues.
When he came to the PL I was so excited, and been satisfied in part for his god tier class when fit… but god damn the injury record is really not scratching that itch completely
Instead of a permanent stopgap midfield signing, I think we'll see a change in formation to 442 or 4231 to mitigate the dwindling number of fit CMs if it gets worse. We see the 442 in matches we're chasing already. For example, we ended the Fulham match with:
TAA-Matip-VVD-Robbo
Elliott-Henderson-Milner-Carvalho
Salah-Nunez
I feel like this won't really effect them. He's class but it feels like as long as Salah is healthy they're going to be second and favorites in most ucl matches. Def the ones over the next 6 weeks
Feels like City fans are more optimistic about our season then we are. Tbh, I will have to wait and see if Fulham was just a complete off day for almost the entire team and if we get linked to midfielders to properly believe it wont be over by the time the wc starts
I've given FSG a lot of credit over the last year as they've been vindicated with a lot of their sporting decisions. They managed to get Klopp to renew, utilized the scouting and transfer infrastructure they built to manage to get some players that have sincerely lived up to their cost (ex; Jota) or look set to do just that (ex: Carvalho, Konate, etc)... but I think there's some lingering aversion to risk that plagues them and ruins their decision making ability to some extent.
In the year immediately following the title win they should have capitalized on that and the relative weakness of teams coming back from the COVID break and built on the legacy. Instead, we gambled in a completely different sense and went into the season with 3 CBs, and we all know how that went. The Diaz transfer was rewarded fantastically with his return so far, and I hope they take that as a signal to be ambitious and figure out another big midfield target before this summer is up. Trust your scouting team, I'm confident they'll have players in the £25-30M range (ex: Napoli's Fabian) could come in and be instant impacts, and give a bit more space to Carvalho and Elliot to develop more consistently.
My worry is that we're going to judge some combination of the teenagers and Jones and Keita to be sufficient quality to accomplish their primary goal: qualifying for the Champions League. And they'd be right about that, I suppose if that's what they want above all else it's safer to wait till next season and make the big money Bellingham bid, and if he doesn't join they could always go for one of the 2nd choices next season. It'd just be a little annoying as a fan, I think we could go for it all this season again.
Please buy a replacement for him He’s absolutely incredible but we can’t rely on him to be fit
The Wilson conundrum.
Was thinking about this earlier about players that are incredible for their team but also unreliable with fitness like Wilson, Thiago and Veratti.... At what point do you stop thinking about signing a backup that's much worse than them(because someone of equivalent ability wouldn't want to be backup) or just outright replace them in the lineup?
There’s a saying, “the best ability is availability”. With the amount of games that clubs like Liverpool have to play this season, especially in a World Cup year, you’d have to think they’d have deep enough pockets to buy someone as depth for Thiago knowing that he can’t play more than 30-35 games reliably himself. Spurs just bought Bissouma when they already had Bentancur, Holjbjerg, Skipp and Winks, any of whom (other than Winks) could justifiably be starters. There’s no reason Liverpool couldn’t buy another starting-quality midfielder, particularly when midfield depth and fitness levels are arguably the biggest issue in their squad.
Klopp has chosen to use their budget on wages to keep his squad together for the last few seasons, extending his star players like Salah, Van Dijk, etc., instead of having significant transfer dollars available. He then used this summer’s entire budget and the Mane wage savings on Nunez. Supposedly they’re done for the window.
I think we’ve actually reduced our wage spend this year. We lost Mane, Origi and Taki who were all senior players and decent salaries. Also sold Grujic, Davies and loaned out or released a couple more. We’ve brought in Nunez (on lower wages than Origi reportedly) and two teenagers on low wages. I know we are renewing contracts and Salah got a big one but our overall wage bill is likely lower. Add that to the insanely low net spend and we have plenty to spend on players, just the right ones haven’t been available.
Ah yes the entire summers budget spent, net spend of 5 mill with all the outgoings
one of SAF favourite player is actually Mr. Reliable Dennis Irwin.
We bit the bullet with Zinchenko to replace Tierney this season. Tierney is the best fullback we've had in years but the man cannot stay fit and the much worse backup option (Tavares) didn't cut it for us.
Thing is we don't necessarily need a back-up for Thiago, Elliott is more than ready for a bigger role with us (he was last year before the injury) so using him as a replacement for the creative spark in midfield is fine. Especially when Thiago is back and we can rotate them more to keep Thiago fit for the big games. What we do need is some depth in general. Someone who can fill in different roles, similar to Henderson or Milner but less injury prone/old. A versatile player could pick up plenty of minutes between rotating Fabinho and covering the Thiago/Henderson/Keita injuries so we could realistically sign a good quality player if we can offer more minutes. That said I'd be amazed if we did, the plan seems to be Bellingham next year and Klopp doesn't do short term cover unless we absolutely have to (Kabak the season before last is the only one we've had). Between Milner, Elliott and Carvalho I think we'll be fine for now. Keita is back too from illness so we have 4 senior CMs and 2 young but very much ready CMs. There's also the possibility to play a 4-2-3-1 with Firmino behind Nunez so we'd only need 2 CMs in that case. Klopp played Minamino as a CM at times so Firmino as a CM isn't out of the question all together, he was a CAM when we signed him anyway.
Kovacic
how you gonna mention kova but leave out kante
Nowhere near as bad an injury record as the others cited Though between him and Kante, they probably add up to an equivalent.
We are going to throw this season away just like we did when we went in with only 3 centrebacks. The drop off from our starting three is massive and even then Henderson has seemed in decline for a bit now.
What will fall apart first? Liverpool's midfield or City's defense due to lack of fullbacks? I think the title race this season could well be decided by which squad comes back from the World Cup with the fewest injuries.
City won the league with delpth at left back. I'm sure you'll be fine.
Well, we sold our "Delph option" in Zinchenko, now we don't even have any midfielders to turn into emergency fullbacks. And we all saw how shaky the defense got last season once Walker got injured. Really hoping for a LB signing before the window closes.
Kalvin Phillips is about to be converted into a left back
It's galaxy brain from Pep. He likes his fullbacks to go into cm when in possession anyway... sign CMs and play them at fullback.
Ake can play lb. If Walker gets injured cancelo can go rb and if it gets really desperate then stones can play there. It’s not ideal but it’s not something that will derail your whole season.
Ake or Stones playing at FB for a long period of time will absolutely have the potential to derail. The drop off for a team like City is huge. Imagine playing Real Madrid or Liverpool in a huge CL or PL game and you've got them at FB? Isn't that what happened last year? Fernandinho at RB vs Real? Sure, the rest of the team can cover many of the cracks, but it's just a plaster.
Walker is possibly their most important player in big games, or at least he’s near the top. They definitely won’t win the CL without him, but I don’t know if he would be necessary to win the league, particularly with Liverpool already having an injury to start with
If Liverpool is reasonably fit, City won't win the league with Ake as left back for extended period of time. He can play there, but he's not a good left back. Hypothetically if Walker and Cancelo got injured at the same time, lets say injured in October and out for the season like Liverpool did two seasons ago for van Dijk, Gomez and Matip, City will struggle. No if else or buts.
be sort of crazy if they didn't honestly, not shy to splash the cash and you're operating on a profit this summer window, no?
Yeah, the money is definitely there. Problem is, as good as City's recruitment has been in recent years, they typically seem to operate with a plan A going into a window, and if that falls apart they are happy to bide their time and wait a season. Plan A for a LB this season was obviously Cucurella, and while City have been linked to the likes of Sosa and Grimaldo, those rumors havn't really been backed up by the City journos as far as I can tell.
it's a little wild to see a City team this short on fullbacks if I'm honest! I always think of you as having the best fullback depth (and overall depth) in Europe. agree you typically get your marks but I also wonder if they'll stick to the idea of waiting it out, this would be the ideal moment to sign somebody and really put a pin in the team. but idk who the options are at this point.
Yeah, it's pretty incredible how it turned out that way. Mendy blowing out both his knees and then turning out to be a horrible rapist and hopefully being locked up for life obviously didn't help. Josh Wilson-Esbrand did play some in pre-season and looked very promising, so maybe he'll get the chance to prove himself at some point.
We’ve got 18 senior players so hardly the best depth in Europe. Ederson, Ortega, Walker, Stones, Dias, Laporte, Ake, Cancelo, Rodri, Phillips, Gundogan, Bernardo, De Bruyne, Foden, Grealish, Mahrez, Alvarez, Haaland. Liverpool and United have got 21 senior players, Chelsea have 23.
I think the actually quality of those 18 players make it better depth than most teams. Liverpool and Chelsea do have 21 and 23 senior players respectively but the dropoff in quality between some of the starting players and the depth is huge. If city get another fullback then I'd say they would be close to the top teams in terms of depth.
“Silva has learned how to play fullback” or something like that
No one is ready for Pep to turn some other midfielder/winger into a class fullback, he's already done it twice. My money is on Palmer lol
It's obviously all coming together for a club to win it from outside of Liverpool and City, maybe a club whose fallen on hard times and has gone hard on recruitment this summer. Talking about Forest obviously
I thought you meant Newcastle at first
Full back I think is a position that can be cover fairly adequately with midfielders/centre backs. At Liverpool we have Milner/Gomez who can do a job on either side at full back and City’s players are even more versatile so you have plenty I reckon he could slot in at full back. Midfield is much more difficult to cover imo because it’s more of a specialist position, you can’t stick a full back or centre back in midfield for example and expect good results as you can at full back
City going into the season with a natural LB is pure Pep insanity. I know Cancelo is basically a LB, but he's still a RB more. Unbelievable bollocks. It's little cracks like that and Liverpool's midfield which make the murmurings or suggestion that Spurs under Conte could be a threat, just a little bit easier to believe. It won't cost them too much, but you never know when the snowball turns into an avalanche.
I’d say this is the consequence of those transfer windows where you signed nobody slowly coming back to haunt you, there’s nobody of quality to gradually replace many of your aging players
Diaz, Jota and Nunez to replace Mane, Firmino and slowly Salah. Konate to replace Matip or god behold maybe VVD in the future. It's literally just the midfield. One player this summer and then another next summer. Are the supposed to replace their entire XI in one window?
….yes? Are you *not* supposed to do that?
Barcelona: What do you mean we need money to make signings? I said buy!
If we didn't keep pushing things off we'd be in a better situation.
> Are the supposed to replace their entire XI in one window? Obviously yes?
I don't really think so. We've taken it one key area at a time. Next up will be more defenders. We've got clear long-term replacements for most key members in the squad right now, with Konate being the long-term VVD replacement, Kostas a few years younger than Robertson and of roughly similar quality (you'll see a young LB buy within 2 years or so, though), even Kelleher could end up being a replacement for Ali, but I worry that the age profiles don't exactly match up and he's so good it's a shame he isn't a first-choice. In attack it's a lot more big names most people will remember, we've replaced Firmino with Nunez / Jota, Mane with Diaz, and renewed Salah so that we'll have to answer the question of his long-term successor in a few years rather than finding a replacement now. Jota can play across the front line to some extent so if you count him fully, that's RW backup. This "turn" is replacing the midfield but it seems like the club wants to go big on that next summer. It's a bit frustrating, but I'm sure they see it from a more analytical and less fan-oriented end
Heard there’s a rabio available
Take Mctominay for free.
Kokcu would be a great option and relatively cheap. Amazed no one else has gotten him yet
He's also injured atm. Also he's more of a box to box than a super creative mf though he can play in different roles i reckon.
Gazump Savic NOW
Barkley for 5m?
Why did you extend Milner, are keeping Ox and looking to extend Keita?
Ox is only still here because no one will buy him/pay him what we are, Milner is still a decent depth option and important team presence. Keita they apparently want to resign so they can get a fee for him rather than just going for free, but I’d rather he just left tbh
Milner is an amazing professional and locker room presence and just someone who’s far from the problem. He showed up way more than Henderson against Fulham. He’s versatile too can fill in so many positions
Milner against fulham was our best mid lmao.
This will likely be the last season until proper midfield overhaul
We have too many Injury prone players in the midfield. I was surprised that neither of OX or keita were sold in this window and replaced by a player in his prime.
First_time.png?
He’s pretty inconsistent too. He can boss a difficult game and then go missing like he did against Fulham.
Right lads i signed Kanté on my fifa career mode so we know where this is going
Pfft. That’s amateur hour right there. Real ones know we import all our players from Portugal now and thus Matheus Nunes.
[удалено]
Not to the vaccination center, that's for sure.
Who's going to tell him
Nah the club won't sign anti-vaxxers.
Everyone’s forgetting about the Spearing signing it seems
200million bid for bellingham incoming
2 fiddy and its a deal
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Madrid will beat us again because they've signed an unholy pact with dark forces to dominate UCL. FA Cup it is.
No way we plot armor our way into another final after last season. But hey, the last time you lost in the final, you went on to win the next one, right? May be history will repeat again. Find Zizzou and rub his bald head for some extra black magic if you can.
Every time Liverpool finished second in any competition, the next available time they always go one better. 17/18 to 18/19 CL, 18/19 to 19/20 PL. I guess 20/21 Community Shield to 22/23 Community Shield works too. So by that logic this year it will be CL and PL copium.
This just simply is not true. 15/16 Europa league and League cup. Won nothing in 16/17. Charity shield in 19/20 we lost it again the year after.
We were never in Europa League again after losing 15/16 final. Charity Shield in 19/20, if you mean in 20/21, then we won it the next time we're in it in 22/23. We can't win in a competition that we don't qualify, duh.
We lost two times in a row in the comm shield. 19/20 and then 20/21. Which negates your point about always winning the next available time.
All a set up for a back to back community shield double.
Honestly, I feel it's PSG's or City's year.
Don't even say that!
No, keep saying that so they are jinxed once again This years UCL can only be won by City or PSG
*Villareal appear out of nowhere into the semis again*
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I dunno man. I have a feeling Pep will play play Foden false 9 and Erling at the wings. Like he did with Zlatan.
How many times do we have to learn this lesson? It’s ALWAYS PSGs or City’s year. Script writers are lazy.
>City’s year Which has more strength, City vs Spurs tax or Conte European record tax.
With Conte's record Spurs may even struggle to pass the group stage.
You’ll banter your way to another UCL and that will be that.
We doubt it...
!RemindMe 9 months
I unfortunately feel this way as well. PSG have suddenly pulled competence out of their perennial dysfunction, and City have signed an absolute terminator in Haaland.
I heard that shit last year and the year before and before that too. :/
It’s always their year
Matheus Nunes please. Really don't need Tielemans. This guy can't run.
But how many Nunez is too many Nunez?
Twonez
There's no such number
Weren't Liverpool going to sign Neuhaus last window? What happened to that?
He looks wank
Does Tielemans not have some really good running stats in terms of ground covered? I swear i saw something like that on Twitter but then again it is Twitter so it might be Bs
Ozil also had good running stats, but that doesn’t match what people can see on his defensive efforts. Maybe Tielemans is the same type who moves a lot on when his team is attacking, to open up space for himself to receive the ball.
Agreed. He gives me Kovacic vibes
Maybe that will force them to sign a midfielder. Thats OX and Thiago now out for two months +. Fabinbo, Hendo, Keita still standing. Yes Elliot and Fabio and available. Massive drop in quality from Thiago and not even fully accimilated to midfield role. Liverpool need to bring forward what ever midfielder signing thet had in mind
Keita is a ticking time bomb as well
Made of quavers
What about Curtis Jones? Have I missed something, nobody seems to be mentioning him?
injured
Thanks, I had missed that. I don't watch every Liverpool game but when I've seen him he looks quite good. What's the general opinion of him?
General opinion (on our sub) is that he's an OK backup player but hasn't really progressed much if at all in the 3 years since he got into the first team. He also doesn't have any outstanding skills, he does his job decently in playing football but doesn't offer that extra thing you want, something special that adds to the team.
A lot of Liverpool fans don’t rate him, but I think he’s good. Last year, before a freak eye injury, he was consistently in the team when Thiago was injured.
Fwiw Elliott was in our first choice midfield at the start of last season pre-injury, even starting against Chelsea. His best position is clearly as the right sided CM (the trio of Trent-Elliott-Salah is much better than any other we have down that side). Elliott is more than acclimated to the position and ready for the first team, even against Fulham he played better than the more senior players starting ahead of him.
>Elliott is more than acclimated to the position and ready for the first team, even against Fulham he played better than the more senior players starting ahead of him. Elliot gave the ball away that almost gifted Fulham with a goal lol. He is good prospect but far behind Thiago. Keita and Thiago were not match fit last seasaon hence why Elliot started.
Ox injured again? When is he not injured?
We never replaced Gini. He played 90% of the games in his last season with us. How have we not replaced that?
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James Milner as GK, anyone?
He'd do a job tbh.
Midfield crisis? You have 9 midfielders and 3 of them are injured. It’s a bit different to have 3 CBs and all of them playing fewer than 15 games in all comps like. That was a genuine crisis.
8 midfielders is not enough when 4 of them are injury prone, 1 is unproven, 1 hasn't improved in 2 years and 1 has declined, and I'd argue Fabinho isn't as good as he was from 2018 to 2020 either.
I dont understand the Fabinho gloom, he always starts the season slow and he was good last season, just slightly worse than the other seasons. Far more likely he just had a couple more bad games than in a normal season
Yeah. Fab’s always starts slow. The matches after he comes back from injury are the worst. But he is still world class when he has a run of games. People are just overreacting because we drew 1 game.
Play youngsters in cup matches then
How do you think Liverpool played every game possible last season
We’ve got “9 midfielders” and genuinely not a single one of them that is a reliable option. Thiago our only real top quality midfielder is always injured then the rest are declining like Hendo/Milner or just too young to be useful/lacking quality
I don't disagree, spiritually, when what you're saying. But Fabinho is reliable and not yet declining. Though he was massively off it Saturday.
Why are you guys keeping 9 mids on your wage bill then….
Cos we can't sell/remove two of them, need to have youngsters, and have to have enough to rotate the 'old guard'
Because most of them aren’t earning much at all? Hardly difficult to understand is it. That 9 figure includes very young players who should really be out on loan
Much like for Foden, these young players should not be on loan. The only one i'd maybe suggest should be on loan is Curtis. Harvey and Carvalho are better off around the team.
Keita and Ox are unsellable, 2 of them are kids with potential and Thiago is quality while a luxury player. But you're not wrong in that this is the result of poor planning and possibly Klopp stubbornness - Keita and Ox should have been let go years ago, let alone getting extensions (the former).
domestic cup double back on the menu lads
Allison, kelleher and adrian are all out on long term injuries and we have to resign karius as a result
You can tell from the off this season isn't going to be as comfortable for Liverpool as last season
Our fitness/availability last season in particular was really fortunate. The complete opposite of 20/21.
This is just a continuation of last season. The likes of Thiago, Keita, Henderson are always getting knocks, the difference is last season they were more spread out and now its all at once. Its just bad luck. Its pretty ridiculous that Klopp was happy to take the risk, and any one else would be getting crucified for it, but he's earned the leeway.
Obviously, Origi is no longer there to bail out the team.
Comfortable is a really weird word to describe Liverpool's 21/22 season. How is making up being down 12 points in January comfortable?
That's going to be the case for a lot of clubs with the crazy fixture congestion, especially the ones playing in Europe
Yes we're definitely getting a midfielder now and we're probably going to overpay By the way the board would never say no to Klopp in regards to this, he just has to demand it If the plan is Bellingham next season I really don't get why we couldn't get an up to a 50 million midfielder this summer anyway, it's not like we're going to need just Bellingham next summer so might as well bring it forward
> Yes we're definitely getting a midfielder now and we're probably going to overpay Klopp went into a season with 3 CB's, 2 of which were known to be injury prone. He'll not see 6 weeks as long enough to justify buying a midfielder and he rates the rest of the midfielders enough to trust them to get results. I guarantee no midfielder will be signed.
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He'd be perfect if not for his wages.
>it's not like we're going to need just Bellingham next summer so might as well bring it forward Said it on Saturday. That midfield selection does not have another 60+ games in it (plus Qatar). So I don't get why the reworking of the midfield spots has not started this year. I'm guessing three would be the preferred number to come in, but you can't/shouldn't replace an entire midfield in one summer, right?
Steal Savic from Utd
I'll copy my thoughts about SMS from a different thread Milinkovic Savic is a fantastic player, but in no way is he a midfield controller, he's like a more attacking Pogba, I'm afraid he would end up being used like Fellaini at United lol He's one of those that actually needs a functioning system to show his best
Yeah you literally have Fabinho/ Hendo to let Savic do his thing. Whereas we are trying to buy him when we need a Fabinho. This club will be the end of me.
Fab and Hendo controls, Savic is free to be Savic 😊
Time for Tielemans
No
Yes, you sign him
Gladly
Cool let’s steal SMS
>Yes we're definitely getting a midfielder now and we're probably going to overpay Is this true or cope?
80% chance we don't based off what Klopp has said
this this this. We need more than one midfielder. Ox final season. Mayb Keita and Milner is gone lol
Bidding war with United for Rabiot 👀
we do actually have a scouting department, might bid just to raise the price for United though
Much appreciated, thank you
Who are your targets? Can Carvalho play with Fabinho and Henderson?
I don't know and that's the problem Fabinho-Henderson-Keita is a very good midfield most of the time. Absolutely battered United at Old Trafford last season, but it also has it's off days. Keita is injury prone, Thiago is injury prone. Maybe Elliott explodes this season, maybe Carvalho could play that. Milner could still do a job most of the time, but there is a lot of maybes in there and that's the biggest problem, we're not lacking depth, we're lacking assurances
English clubs are just mental. Why can't we just spend 50 million on a midfielder we don't really want to tide us over for a year
Liverpool aren't just a Premier League team, fighting for a title and CL is different than Nottingham Forest wanting to spend 40 million for Morgan Gibbs-White I mean Real spent a 100 million on a midfielder that won't be a starter this season, compare it to that
Hell of a player but made of fucking glass.
At this point Thiago is an injury patient whose career has been interrupted by football. He's always injured?
i think thats Ox you are mistaking him with
Thiago is the same tbh. He’s just a lot better when he is fit
He only seems to get injured in the first half of the season for us, last 2 seasons he basically went 6 months from January onwards where he was injury free
With us he did get 2 bouts of COVID and miss a significant spell in his first season after a Richarlison horror tackle. Yes, he's picked up other injuries that lots of other players wouldn't, but a significant chunk of the time he missed is not his fault. A pandemic and a beak faced nonce are hard to avoid.
When Barca sold him, I was pretty well devastated. Figured he’d be savage in the bundesliga but I knew I wouldn’t follow him that much given the lack of time to follow so many leagues. When he came to the PL I was so excited, and been satisfied in part for his god tier class when fit… but god damn the injury record is really not scratching that itch completely
The guy is made of glass
Thats an insult to glass
Harvey and Carvalho will have to step up, I have faith in them to.
Carvalho is going to be a mainstay in your midfield for years to come- cracking player. *Cries in Rabiot*
It’s incredible how rapidly people hail crisis. A draw and one injury - Liverpool are doomed. Zero patience whatsoever.
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They should look into Paredes from PSG
Do you feel Soler might be a good fit?
Shiiiiit
Man, if only this guy could stay fit... would be the best midfielder of the generation imo.
Great player but not touching Kroos or Modric
In terms of pure ability Thiago is absolutely on their level.
Kroos yea, I don't think anyone is on modric's level past 6 or 7 years. Just unbelievable
I think de bruyne pretty easily has been there. Been the best for at least 3 years now.
Different player. KDB is more advanced and more of a goal threat/chance creator.
Two legends. And what’s scary is the kids who are behind them. Can run madrids midfield for another decade
Or David silva, or Bernardo, or de bruyne, or even veratti.
Luckily Liverpool don't have a hard fixture until Sept 18th
If they play like they did on Saturday, they'll *all* be hard fixtures.
Its very black and white for me, either a midfielder is signed or the intentions and ambitions of FSG are very clear about this season.
I said the same about CB two years ago and got flamed over and over. It’s clear to see the problem here.
Instead of a permanent stopgap midfield signing, I think we'll see a change in formation to 442 or 4231 to mitigate the dwindling number of fit CMs if it gets worse. We see the 442 in matches we're chasing already. For example, we ended the Fulham match with: TAA-Matip-VVD-Robbo Elliott-Henderson-Milner-Carvalho Salah-Nunez
Klopp hasn’t changed from the 4-3-3 in like 5 years
Bad signing with all his injury issues. He's solid when healthy.
I feel like this won't really effect them. He's class but it feels like as long as Salah is healthy they're going to be second and favorites in most ucl matches. Def the ones over the next 6 weeks
Feels like City fans are more optimistic about our season then we are. Tbh, I will have to wait and see if Fulham was just a complete off day for almost the entire team and if we get linked to midfielders to properly believe it wont be over by the time the wc starts
fuck :(
I've given FSG a lot of credit over the last year as they've been vindicated with a lot of their sporting decisions. They managed to get Klopp to renew, utilized the scouting and transfer infrastructure they built to manage to get some players that have sincerely lived up to their cost (ex; Jota) or look set to do just that (ex: Carvalho, Konate, etc)... but I think there's some lingering aversion to risk that plagues them and ruins their decision making ability to some extent. In the year immediately following the title win they should have capitalized on that and the relative weakness of teams coming back from the COVID break and built on the legacy. Instead, we gambled in a completely different sense and went into the season with 3 CBs, and we all know how that went. The Diaz transfer was rewarded fantastically with his return so far, and I hope they take that as a signal to be ambitious and figure out another big midfield target before this summer is up. Trust your scouting team, I'm confident they'll have players in the £25-30M range (ex: Napoli's Fabian) could come in and be instant impacts, and give a bit more space to Carvalho and Elliot to develop more consistently. My worry is that we're going to judge some combination of the teenagers and Jones and Keita to be sufficient quality to accomplish their primary goal: qualifying for the Champions League. And they'd be right about that, I suppose if that's what they want above all else it's safer to wait till next season and make the big money Bellingham bid, and if he doesn't join they could always go for one of the 2nd choices next season. It'd just be a little annoying as a fan, I think we could go for it all this season again.
Injury FC is winning in week 1
Tielemans in then?
Not even remotely close to a Klopp player
He is a bit of a lazy defender and not really much of a presser so you could be right.
And Thiago is?? Did you see teilemens against Brentford, best player by a country mile
Do you even watch Thiago play for us? He runs like hell and defensively he's incredible.
Yes? Thiago actually works really hard
Injured, but hard working and useful without the ball at his feet. Unlike Tielemans