Georginio Wijnaldum

[an tha]

He always had a really uncanny knack of just being in the right place at the right time, nicking the ball away before it can end up as danger.....putting just enough pressure on a player to draw a mistake or make them play a negative ball as opposed to being progressive.

 

We miss what he did - no doubt in my mind this season to date we have been worse in midfield for his absence.

[m0e]

6 hours ago, Arnaud said:

I watched him play against Brest in August, honestly he was poor, as he was in the other games he played for them. He started many games and was dropped because he did not perform, that’s simple as that. 

That's what happens when you overpay on salaries. There's a big enough sample size to show that to be true.

[Barrington Womble]

19 hours ago, an tha said:

He always had a really uncanny knack of just being in the right place at the right time, nicking the ball away before it can end up as danger.....putting just enough pressure on a player to draw a mistake or make them play a negative ball as opposed to being progressive.

 

We miss what he did - no doubt in my mind this season to date we have been worse in midfield for his absence.

The bottom line is though, we can survive without Gini. The real reason we're missing him, is despite having lots of people who are supposedly capable of replacing him, their often injured, shit or both. Expecting Jones to contribute in that way is fanciful at this stage of his career. It shouldn't be unreasonable to expect the players older than him to have been able to step up a little more - but I don't suppose there's accounting for getting injured on blades of grass or whatever. 

[an tha]

9 hours ago, Barrington Womble said:

The bottom line is though, we can survive without Gini. The real reason we're missing him, is despite having lots of people who are supposedly capable of replacing him, their often injured, shit or both. Expecting Jones to contribute in that way is fanciful at this stage of his career. It shouldn't be unreasonable to expect the players older than him to have been able to step up a little more - but I don't suppose there's accounting for getting injured on blades of grass or whatever. 

Yeah we can survive without him, but for my money we have not done a very good job of replacing him.....he played 179 out of the 190 league games he was available for in his time with us...he was such a mainstay.

 

We don't have another player in our midfield even nearly as reliable as that, which means it will be a constantly rotating cast that fills the place he so reliably had in our side - as we have seen already this season - and for me that is not good for our consistency/continuity/understanding in the middle of the park.

 

We are managing at the moment fine though...2nd in League and unbeaten - started well in Europe winning 2 from 2...so it can be argued that even with all the chopping and changing that is going on we are OK, but it worries me longer term as season hots up and games come thick and fast.

 

 

 

 

 

[dave u]

The problem really is that we couldn't replace Gini because of the number of bodies we already had for midfield spots.

 

What we should have done is replaced Keita. If we'd sold him and brought in someone who can actually contribute, that would have solved the problem. You can argue the same about Ox too but we kind of needed him for the home grown quota.

 

I still think Ox is going to contribute this season. His main problem is he needs a run of games to show form, but he never plays well enough when he gets the chance to merit a run of games. If he played half a dozen games on the bounce in midfield we'd start to see him looking good again, but barring a big injury crisis he's never going to get that because there are better players ahead of him.

[VladimirIlyich]

2 minutes ago, dave u said:

The problem really is that we couldn't replace Gini because of the number of bodies we already had for midfield spots.

 

What we should have done is replaced Keita. If we'd sold him and brought in someone who can actually contribute, that would have solved the problem. You can argue the same about Ox too but we kind of needed him for the home grown quota.

 

I still think Ox is going to contribute this season. His main problem is he needs a run of games to show form, but he never plays well enough when he gets the chance to merit a run of games. If he played half a dozen games on the bounce in midfield we'd start to see him looking good again, but barring a big injury crisis he's never going to get that because there are better players ahead of him.

Ox has had numerous chances to put in a run of games but he always gets injured.

[dave u]

7 minutes ago, VladimirIlyich said:

Ox has had numerous chances to put in a run of games but he always gets injured.

 

He's probably not been injured anywhere near as much as the perception of him suggests though. In the last couple of years his problem has been when he gets a rare opportunity he's usually shit and then doesn't get another for a while.

 

It's catch 22. He needs a run to start showing form, but he doesn't show enough form to get a run. And then there are the times when he gets injured too. 

[Barrington Womble]

8 hours ago, an tha said:

Yeah we can survive without him, but for my money we have not done a very good job of replacing him.....he played 179 out of the 190 league games he was available for in his time with us...he was such a mainstay.

 

We don't have another player in our midfield even nearly as reliable as that, which means it will be a constantly rotating cast that fills the place he so reliably had in our side - as we have seen already this season - and for me that is not good for our consistency/continuity/understanding in the middle of the park.

 

We are managing at the moment fine though...2nd in League and unbeaten - started well in Europe winning 2 from 2...so it can be argued that even with all the chopping and changing that is going on we are OK, but it worries me longer term as season hots up and games come thick and fast.

 

 

 

 

 

Yeah, I agree we could have done better. I think we should have bought. I think most posters on this forum thought in May we needed a midfielder, it's just we get a lot of revisionism from some who are desperate to believe the club do no wrong. It's not a numbers thing for me, it's about the quality or reliability of those players who make up the numbers. Some we just don't want on the pitch. Some just can't get on the pitch. Or both. 

 

I'm not over stressed about players being rotated, klopp has always rotated the midfield to some extent. But we rotate from necessity through injury rather than when the manager would like to rest players. That is mostly down to these players never staying fit. If the club is going to persevere with them, they need to find a way to keep them fit. 

1 hour ago, dave u said:

The problem really is that we couldn't replace Gini because of the number of bodies we already had for midfield spots.

 

What we should have done is replaced Keita. If we'd sold him and brought in someone who can actually contribute, that would have solved the problem. You can argue the same about Ox too but we kind of needed him for the home grown quota.

 

I still think Ox is going to contribute this season. His main problem is he needs a run of games to show form, but he never plays well enough when he gets the chance to merit a run of games. If he played half a dozen games on the bounce in midfield we'd start to see him looking good again, but barring a big injury crisis he's never going to get that because there are better players ahead of him.

If we were arsed about the foreign quota, we'd have not kept Adrian. While I see it as a thing we keep Chamberlain pretty much because he's English, it's just pointless as he probably won't play 1000 minutes this season. In fact he probably won't play half that. 

[an tha]

For me the answer in summer was simple.

 

Bin bag Ox and Keita and bring in one reliable top class midfielder.

 

We would have been much, much better off had we done this.

[Carvalho Diablo]

3 hours ago, dave u said:

The problem really is that we couldn't replace Gini because of the number of bodies we already had for midfield spots.

 

What we should have done is replaced Keita. If we'd sold him and brought in someone who can actually contribute, that would have solved the problem. You can argue the same about Ox too but we kind of needed him for the home grown quota.

 

I still think Ox is going to contribute this season. His main problem is he needs a run of games to show form, but he never plays well enough when he gets the chance to merit a run of games. If he played half a dozen games on the bounce in midfield we'd start to see him looking good again, but barring a big injury crisis he's never going to get that because there are better players ahead of him.

Ox's main problem is his passing. It's fucking atrocious

 

[Freddo]

5 minutes ago, an tha said:

For me the answer in summer was simple.

 

Bin bag Ox and Keita and bring in one reliable top class midfielder.

 

We would have been much, much better off had we done this.

Can't say fairer than that. That was the best and most obvious option 

[TheHowieLama]

How is "bin bagging" simple?

[an tha]

30 minutes ago, TheHowieLama said:

How is "bin bagging" simple?

Probably the wrong turn of phrase to be fair...but basically both should have been sold - i am sure we could have got rid if we really wanted to, yeah we may have had to take a loss - but for me that would just have to be swallowed....better than both staying stinking the place out/adding fuck all.

[TheHowieLama]

4 minutes ago, an tha said:

 i am sure we could have got rid if we really wanted to

Not sure either would agree a wage cut.

[an tha]

7 minutes ago, TheHowieLama said:

Not sure either would agree a wage cut.

Hard to say but you know as well as i do that if a club wants a player gone they usually get them gone.

 

We clearly did not so its irrelevant anyway, but for my money we have made a mistake keeping those two.....hopefully they prove me wrong as we are clearly going to need them as evidenced tomorrow when they are 2 of only 4 midfielders we have available.

[Babb'sBurstNad]

I don't think the last couple of windows were really conducive to selling injury prone out of form players on high-ish wages.

[VERBAL DIARRHEA]

2 hours ago, Carvalho Diablo said:

Ox's main problem is his passing. It's fucking atrocious

 

Watch how close he has to get to the trampoline thing. Then toys out of the pram.

 

[TheHowieLama]

He is going to be a brilliant pundit.

[VERBAL DIARRHEA]

20 minutes ago, TheHowieLama said:

He is going to be a brilliant pundit.

He’s a legend in his own dinner hour.

[m0e]

3 hours ago, Carvalho Diablo said:

Ox's main problem is he's fucking atrocious

 

Fixed 

[johnsusername]

We haven't replaced Gini's smile, which was the most important thing in his repertoire. 

[VERBAL DIARRHEA]

Just now, johnsusername said:

We haven't replaced Gini's smile, which was the most important thing in his repertoire. 

Haha

[VERBAL DIARRHEA]

Alex Oxlade Chamberlain

 

Run with the ball. Lose it.

Pass the ball. Lose it.

Shoot from distance. Miss by yards.

Keita is nearly as bad but lacks the dancing on stones steps in socks whilst injured. He may do it but be savvy enough not to post it.

 

[VladimirIlyich]

Alex 'Neville' Chamberlain. About as useful as the piece of paper his namesake got Hitler to sign.

[Captain Turdseye]

On 12/10/2021 at 19:43, Pete said:

Bring him back in January. Even if just on loan. I miss his big beautiful smile. 

If we can get him on a free and he’ll take less wages than he was originally on then I’d be all over that.