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Joel Matip


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20 minutes ago, 3 Stacks said:

With Matip successfully partnering van Dijk, Gomez being a young star at the position and Lovren still in the side, you would have bought a CB that summer? Hindsight much. 

I think matip and Gomez are both flakes, as was lovren who I don't think strung more than 6 games on the bounce without getting injured in his 5 or 6 years at the club. I posted here last year I would have happily sold 2 of any of our centre backs who wasn't vvd to get in one who could play and stay fit. 

 

As for their talents, I like matip, but he's only any use alongside vvd (or another strong leader type defender), we saw that plenty before vvd joined the club. And he's never fit and never has been in all his time at the club. I wouldn't lose a seconds sleep if he was sold to fund a different centre back. 

 

And as for Gomez being a young star, I realise it's not a popular opinion and we'll have to agree to disagree, but I don't think he's very good. He can't read the flight of the ball, he can't jump, his positional work is poor, his close tackling is clumsy. But he has (had?) loads and loads of pace and is pretty good at the toe in recovery tackle tackle when running at full speed. But I genuinely can't remember when I last saw that burst of pace. So put it simply, while I heard a stat they've never started together as a pair, I think they'll make a particularly poor partnership. I think matip could be very good next to vvd and Gomez adequate. So with vvd there, we might be alright. Without him i think we have some problems there. That was the gamble we took, it's all about vvd being fit. 

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12 minutes ago, Barrington Womble said:

I think matip and Gomez are both flakes, as was lovren who I don't think strung more than 6 games on the bounce without getting injured in his 5 or 6 years at the club. I posted here last year I would have happily sold 2 of any of our centre backs who wasn't vvd to get in one who could play and stay fit. 

 

As for their talents, I like matip, but he's only any use alongside vvd (or another strong leader type defender), we saw that plenty before vvd joined the club. And he's never fit and never has been in all his time at the club. I wouldn't lose a seconds sleep if he was sold to fund a different centre back. 

 

And as for Gomez being a young star, I realise it's not a popular opinion and we'll have to agree to disagree, but I don't think he's very good. He can't read the flight of the ball, he can't jump, his positional work is poor, his close tackling is clumsy. But he has (had?) loads and loads of pace and is pretty good at the toe in recovery tackle tackle when running at full speed. But I genuinely can't remember when I last saw that burst of pace. So put it simply, while I heard a stat they've never started together as a pair, I think they'll make a particularly poor partnership. I think matip could be very good next to vvd and Gomez adequate. So with vvd there, we might be alright. Without him in think we have some problems there. That was the gamble we took, it's all about vvd being fit. 

You talked about wanting a CB after we won in Europe. At the time, Gomez was a young star. Now, yes, he has issues that have crept up.

 

And when Lovren was here, what exactly did you want Klopp to do? We had 4 CB's, 3 of which happen to get injured a lot but so what, should we have had 6 CB's as insurance if they all get injured? As it happens, we won the League and the Champions League with those 4. So yeah sorry, big hindsight on your part.

 

Anyway, the point is we have more midfielders than we really need and that's what Klopp does to mitigate the possible absence of a CB. It's not a gamble because that's what he believes in. It's not skimping by the club because we've invested loads in the midfield, both in quality and in numbers, to make up for having 3 CB's. Again, criticize that all you want or criticize Klopp for still believing in Matip or Gomez, because that's the reality. 

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23 minutes ago, 3 Stacks said:

You talked about wanting a CB after we won in Europe. At the time, Gomez was a young star. Now, yes, he has issues that have crept up.

 

And when Lovren was here, what exactly did you want Klopp to do? We had 4 CB's, 3 of which happen to get injured a lot but so what, should we have had 6 CB's as insurance if they all get injured? As it happens, we won the League and the Champions League with those 4. So yeah sorry, big hindsight on your part.

 

Anyway, the point is we have more midfielders than we really need and that's what Klopp does to mitigate the possible absence of a CB. It's not a gamble because that's what he believes in. It's not skimping by the club because we've invested loads in the midfield, both in quality and in numbers, to make up for having 3 CB's. Again, criticize that all you want or criticize Klopp for still believing in Matip or Gomez, but that's the reality. 

I've always thought Gomez was a bit shit. I've never been taken by the hype because he could run fast. I'm old enough to no longer get excited by that in a footballer and all of those weaknesses I mentioned have always been apparent in his game, it's just he got some leeway because he often played out of position and his pace got him out of jail. Loads of people now are looking at his poor performances because actually that burst of pace everyone always used to think showed he was a great defender, now he's not quite as quick just highlight his poor positioning. So no revisionism from me. As I said, you will see posts on exactly what I wanted if you're bored enough to look. I'd have sold any 2 of lovren, matip and Gomez and replaced them with a centre back. I don't know how many times I can say that, I'm definitely not saying buy 6 centre backs, but you know that and are just being a complete bellend. 

 

I'm not criticising klopp. I'm sure he's part of the the decision making process, but I'm not one who subscribes to the point of view he spends money like it is his own because he wants to. He does that because of what he's given. If you want any proof of that, he's been given a wedge once after selling coutinho and within 6 months had broke a world record for a centre back, broke the world record for a goalkeeper and chucked 40-odd million on fabinho. I am sure if he'd been given the option, he'd have had better options, he said himself in the summer centre back was a problem. We just didn't solve the problem because the money wasn't there. But perhaps it wouldn't have been a problem had we been able to spend last summer. Klopp did some squad balancing and I think I was the 1st on here to call lovren wouldn't be replaced and we would do exactly what we've done. I expected nothing else. It doesn't mean it wasn't a gamble though - and when we were arguing about this same thing just yesterday, I can see why he made the gamble. If he can pair vvd with anyone, we'll be alright. And history tells us vvd gets on the pitch and plays and plays through the pain at times, so it seems a good gamble. But instead vvd was assaulted and the gamble looks like it hasn't paid off. 

 

You might be right and Gomez is a star, matip will be sound and fabinho will fill a gap. Personally I think fabinho will play 30+ games at centre back and some of them will be alongside another player who's not a centre back. And if we're to have any chance of winning the league, we're going to need to attack like we did in 2017/18, because most weeks we'll need 3 goals to win a match. 

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13 minutes ago, 3 Stacks said:

You talked about wanting a CB after we won in Europe. At the time, Gomez was a young star. Now, yes, he has issues that have crept up.

 

And when Lovren was here, what exactly did you want Klopp to do? We had 4 CB's, 3 of which happen to get injured a lot but so what, should we have had 6 CB's as insurance if they all get injured? As it happens, we won the League and the Champions League with those 4. So yeah sorry, big hindsight on your part.

 

Anyway, the point is we have more midfielders than we really need and that's what Klopp does to mitigate the possible absence of a CB. It's not a gamble because that's what he believes in. It's not skimping by the club because we've invested loads in the midfield, both in quality and in numbers, to make up for having 3 CB's. Again, criticize that all you want or criticize Klopp for still believing in Matip or Gomez, because that's the reality. 

You are assuming that's what he believes in, but reality is that he is just putting up with it. He stated clearly in preseason that we have a shortage at centre back.

 

It's not about getting someone in who is at Virgil's level - I'm sure Klopp has identified other centre back with qualities that could play for us. Matip for example was a freebie.

 

It's all well and good saying Fabinho can fill in, and he can, but that was assuming he would be filling in for either Gomez or Matip who in all probability will both get injured at some point or another. One or two more injuries and were looking at a crisis in defense.

 

Saying what's the point of having 4 centre backs when only two play just doesn't cut it, and is exactly how we have ended up with Adrian in goal, by assuming he will never play anyway

 

The situation up front was exactly the same until we got Jota in and we have been extremely lucky on that front. We have had three forwards play pretty much every game with no complimentary alternative, just a couple of unwanted strikers like Origi and Sturridge. You can only get away with for so long I'm afraid. 

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13 minutes ago, ManéMan said:

You are assuming that's what he believes in, but reality is that he is just putting up with it. He stated clearly in preseason that we have a shortage at centre back.

 

It's not about getting someone in who is at Virgil's level - I'm sure Klopp has identified other centre back with qualities that could play for us. Matip for example was a freebie.

 

It's all well and good saying Fabinho can fill in, and he can, but that was assuming he would be filling in for either Gomez or Matip who in all probability will both get injured at some point or another. One or two more injuries and were looking at a crisis in defense.

 

Saying what's the point of having 4 centre backs when only two play just doesn't cut it, and is exactly how we have ended up with Adrian in goal, by assuming he will never play anyway

 

The situation up front was exactly the same until we got Jota in and we have been extremely lucky on that front. We have had three forwards play pretty much every game with no complimentary alternative, just a couple of unwanted strikers like Origi and Sturridge. You can only get away with for so long I'm afraid. 

How many posts in this thread are going to ignore the reality of how our squad is constructed? Why do we have 8 centre mids for 3 spots, yet apparently are skimping out on CB's? It's almost like that's what the plan is. 

 

That's what you should be criticizing. I'm fairly certain if Klopp wanted some random CB for depth for about 10m, he would've gotten one.

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Don't play the hindsight card with Barry about this, he has said consistently for a couple years at least that we need to add depth to our defence because of Gomez and Matip's injury record. This issue isn't new and has only been exacerbated by selling 2 CBs when we already needed Hendo to cover the position last season. This is all before our most reliably fit defender got crocked for a season. 

 

To be honest I don't get why you are so fucked off about wanting cover, not Beckenbauer but cover in a clearly prone and thin defence. 

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13 minutes ago, Remmie said:

Don't play the hindsight card with Barry about this, he has said consistently for a couple years at least that we need to add depth to our defence because of Gomez and Matip's injury record. This issue isn't new and has only been exacerbated by selling 2 CBs when we already needed Hendo to cover the position last season. This is all before our most reliably fit defender got crocked for a season. 

 

To be honest I don't get why you are so fucked off about wanting cover, not Beckenbauer but cover in a clearly prone and thin defence. 

Suggesting Barry wanted us to sell Matip or Gomez after winning the Champions League when Matip put in great performance after great performance and Gomez had shown massive talent in the league doesn't deserve any kind of praise and it's defo hindsight. And not only that, Klopp would have laughed at how callous that suggestion is.

 

And I said it already we had 4 senior CB's at the time, you just can't have more than that. We even tried to sell Lovren that summer and he wouldn't go.

 

And as for the second part, I've written posts that consecutively would form a novel in the last few days as to why we wouldn't have gotten CB depth. Maybe read those if you care?

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1 hour ago, 3 Stacks said:

How many posts in this thread are going to ignore the reality of how our squad is constructed? Why do we have 8 centre mids for 3 spots, yet apparently are skimping out on CB's? It's almost like that's what the plan is. 

 

That's what you should be criticizing. I'm fairly certain if Klopp wanted some random CB for depth for about 10m, he would've gotten one.

That's exactly why. There's 3 midfield spots against 2 CB spots so theres bound to be more centre mids in the squad. Add to that a couple are almost permanently injured and another is also an ageing squad player who is also the only left back cover we had until now. And also we may lose one (Gini) very soon.

 

It's very simple but you're over complicating things and trying to make yourself look clever but it's not working.

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2 hours ago, ManéMan said:

That's exactly why. There's 3 midfield spots against 2 CB spots so theres bound to be more centre mids in the squad. Add to that a couple are almost permanently injured and another is also an ageing squad player who is also the only left back cover we had until now. And also we may lose one (Gini) very soon.

 

It's very simple but you're over complicating things and trying to make yourself look clever but it's not working.

I have to say I’m in agreement with 3 Stacks here, he’d be the first to admit that he and I don’t really agree with him on too many of issues. We didn’t target a CH because Klopp wanted Fabinho to be the 4th choice, as he’d be comfortable moving Fabinho from CDM as Thiago is one of the best holding midfielders in the world. 

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I think we bought Thiago because we know Wijnaldum is leaving in January or next summer and Klopp believed we needed more bodies. We expect or expected Shaqiri to leave and isnt being considered anyway,AOC is always injured and Milner is not playing as much as he once did. Curtis Jones will make a few appearances I reckon but there isn't a major amount of midfielders available to play when all things are considered.

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9 hours ago, Barrington Womble said:

I think the club bet the house on vvd staying fit imo, because pretty much anyone looks like a good centre back next to him. All this "it'll be alright with fabinho" is a flawed plan as soon as there's no vvd. It's a gamble but it was a pretty big gamble. It's not the only gamble we make, we have a world class keeper who is backed up by a bloke who is pretty inadequate, but he was cheap. 

I don't think it was an unreasonable gamble. The chap has been consistently fit for near on 3 years. He was bullet proof until mongo man came along. We had 3 CB's including Fab to cover 1 spot. We haven't added to that area in 3 years so it's safe to assume it was on the menu for next summer. The plan was sound, the squad is the best it's ever been. Hence the fact we will still win the league without the worlds best defender.

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47 minutes ago, No2 said:

I don't think it was an unreasonable gamble. The chap has been consistently fit for near on 3 years. He was bullet proof until mongo man came along. We had 3 CB's including Fab to cover 1 spot. We haven't added to that area in 3 years so it's safe to assume it was on the menu for next summer. The plan was sound, the squad is the best it's ever been. Hence the fact we will still win the league without the worlds best defender.

He has been bullet proof. But where the gamble is imo is I don't believe it works without him. So Gomez/matip/fabinho/Elliot would all look adequate to good centre backs next to him, he's that good. But once he's not there, it becomes a bigger issue in terms of quality and fitness as the other two don't stay fit and both are the guys who look after their own game and not much else. 

 

I've said lots of times in this thread I understand the gamble. It's one I expected us to take. But I absolutely refuse to see it wasn't a big gamble and we can just shrug our shoulder like it doesn't matter. If one of matip or Gomez were different players - so they can be fit and a leading presence in the back 4 - then I think it's less of a gamble. But personally I think with the options we have, it's an "all in" on VVD's fitness. And he's not superman, he's just a football player who is susceptible to injury, because he's a human - he was out for around 6 months before he joined us. And even forgetting big injuries like he's got now, at 29 and spending I imagine his whole career playing through the pain, it maybe wouldn't be unreasonable to think that might have started to catch up with him anyway. We bet the house on him staying fit. 

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10 hours ago, ManéMan said:

That's exactly why. There's 3 midfield spots against 2 CB spots so theres bound to be more centre mids in the squad. Add to that a couple are almost permanently injured and another is also an ageing squad player who is also the only left back cover we had until now. And also we may lose one (Gini) very soon.

 

It's very simple but you're over complicating things and trying to make yourself look clever but it's not working.

Hey buddy, it's easy to look at other squads and see we have more central midfield depth than they do by design. We have 8 CM's. Fab, Thiago, Hendo, Milner, Gini, Naby, Jones and Ox. Every other "big club in the league have max 6. City have Rodri, Fernandinho, Foden, Gundogan, De Bruyne and at a push Bernardo Silva. United have 6 with Pogba, Fernandes, McTominay, Matic, van de Beek and Fred. Arsenal have 6 with Maintland-Niles, Xhaka, Thomas, Elneny, Ceballos and Willock. Spurs have 6 with Hojbjerg, Ndombele, Lo Celso, Winks, Sissoko and Gedson. Chelsea have like 4-6. 

 

The reason you think it's simple is because you just haven't thought that through. A site to look this stuff up to look less dumb in the future is Transfermarkt.com, mate. You're welcome. 

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5 minutes ago, 3 Stacks said:

Hey buddy, it's easy to look at other squads and see we have more central midfield depth than they do by design. We have 8 CM's. Fab, Thiago, Hendo, Milner, Gini, Naby, Jones and Ox. Every other "big club in the league have max 6. City have Rodri, Fernandinho, Foden, Gundogan, De Bruyne and at a push Bernardo Silva. United have 6 with Pogba, Fernandes, McTominay, Matic, van de Beek and Fred. Arsenal have 6 with Maintland-Niles, Xhaka, Thomas, Elneny, Ceballos and Willock. Spurs have 6 with Hojbjerg, Ndombele, Lo Celso, Winks, Sissoko and Gedson.

 

The reason you think it's simple is because you just haven't thought that through. A site to look this stuff up to look less dumb in the future is Transfermarkt.com, mate. You're welcome. 

So we have designed a squad with more CMs just so one or two of them can be cover at centre back? Okay. But would make more sense to have an actual centre back as cover to cover you know the centre backs.

 

We had 4 centre backs till this season and done pretty well if I recall.

 

And one more time, Klopp specifically stated we have a shortage at centre back, which doesn't seem like design to me.

 

 

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8 minutes ago, ManéMan said:

So we have designed a squad with more CMs just so one or two of them can be cover at centre back? Okay. But would make more sense to have an actual centre back as cover to cover you know the centre backs.

 

We had 4 centre backs till this season and done pretty well if I recall.

 

And one more time, Klopp specifically stated we have a shortage at centre back, which doesn't seem like design to me.

 

 

Ding ding ding. If you don't like the strategy, take it up with Klopp  not me. 

 

And if you want to think Klopp was denied funds for a defender this summer, despite what I've said, knock yourself out. 

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2 hours ago, Barrington Womble said:

He has been bullet proof. But where the gamble is imo is I don't believe it works without him. So Gomez/matip/fabinho/Elliot would all look adequate to good centre backs next to him, he's that good. But once he's not there, it becomes a bigger issue in terms of quality and fitness as the other two don't stay fit and both are the guys who look after their own game and not much else. 

 

I've said lots of times in this thread I understand the gamble. It's one I expected us to take. But I absolutely refuse to see it wasn't a big gamble and we can just shrug our shoulder like it doesn't matter. If one of matip or Gomez were different players - so they can be fit and a leading presence in the back 4 - then I think it's less of a gamble. But personally I think with the options we have, it's an "all in" on VVD's fitness. And he's not superman, he's just a football player who is susceptible to injury, because he's a human - he was out for around 6 months before he joined us. And even forgetting big injuries like he's got now, at 29 and spending I imagine his whole career playing through the pain, it maybe wouldn't be unreasonable to think that might have started to catch up with him anyway. We bet the house on him staying fit. 

It's the same gamble we took last year and the year before. If we signed someone then that player have no appearances for Liverpool. If anything it was less of a gamble this season as Fab has been more injury resistant than Lovren. Its bad luck,  nothing more.

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