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Virgil Van Dijk


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3 minutes ago, an tha said:

It didn't have to be Lovren did it.

 

Just a proper centre half rather than having to pull someobody from another area of the park and weakening that area too.

 

 

If everybody stayed fit this season, I expected Fabinho to lose his place. Our best midfield is Henderson, Thiago and Widjnaldum, with Fabinho, Keta, Milner, Oxlade, and Jones waiting in the wings. 

 

VVD hasn't missed a game for us through injury since signing. It was impossible to predict that some cunt would go through him like Pickford did. 

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6 minutes ago, niallers said:

On the topic of him walking off afterwards, remember Lucas against Chelsea. He played on for 5 mins after and he had ruptured his. I'm only hoping that it's his medial or lateral ligaments.

Yep and as I posted earlier when ings did one of his, he didn't even think it was serious right away. My understanding is if it's a big tear or its completely snapped you don't much move. If it's tiny, it's sore but probably isn't even enough to stop you running. But the journey back is pretty much still a long haul. 

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4 minutes ago, Barrington Womble said:

Curtis jones was already at the club and playing games. He stepped up and I would say replaced Pedro Chiravella - he went past Chiravella during the last campaign which is why Chiravella is no longer at the club and left during the summer. 

Chirivella played 1 league game for us in his entire Liverpool career!

 

Lallana played, 12, 13 and 15 league games in his last 3 seasons. He had a bit part role. We didn't sign Thiago as a bit part player.

 

Jones has taken the bit part player role of Lallana. Thiago was signed to start, with Henderson and Fabinho competing for the same positions. 

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Here we go again, an imaginary 4th choice centre back who's going to be as good as Virgil is better than Matip and Gomez, is going to sit on the bench until needed, isnt going to cost less than 30m and probably wants 100k a week. Oh and he has to be 'home grown' otherwise he could not be in the squad unless we shipped some other non home grown player out.

 

If only the premier league was FIFA 2020.

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53 minutes ago, an tha said:

Not getting a 4th centre half when our 4th one last season played loads was IMO a risk that should not have been taken.

 

Especially in a season like this one where games are really condensed.

I’d have more of an issue with the goalkeeping situation really, in the sense that the Atletico game should surely have been all the evidence that was required as to our back-up’s quality. Wouldn’t have needed to spend a fortune either to upgrade a bit. 

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26 minutes ago, Marko121 said:

So it’s ok that our keeper is shit as long as theirs is? 
 

 

I just don't think there are many good keepers. Let alone good keepers who are happy to brush alisson's hair, because if he stays fit that's all they'd be useful for. We had ming for years. He was shite and 1st choice. He's now the 1st choice goalkeeper for the number 1 ranked international team. Don't get me wrong, I wish we had a better backup keeper, but I'm realistic enough to know good keepers don't grow on trees and there's even fewer who are.good who are willing to retire for a good wage packet. 

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14 minutes ago, MegadriveMan said:

Who though? Genuinely interested who you think we could have got?


I dont watch anywhere near enough football to know who would be best suited. But I’m sure there are at least a handful of CBs out there in the 21-23 age bracket that would fit the bill. Ibrahima Konate?

 

Genuine question in return, do you have a good overview and think no young CB out there is good enough?

 

 

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11 minutes ago, Barrington Womble said:

Surely every time you replace a player you would hope he contributes more than the last fella? 


I genuinly dont totally see very many signings as replacing a particular player. I’d rather think of it as building a team and squad and adding to the players you already have.

 

Certainly in the case of Lallana I dont really see a logic of looking for a replacement. If Alisson was sold then sure, we’d need to replace him, but Lallana?

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10 minutes ago, MegadriveMan said:

Chirivella played 1 league game for us in his entire Liverpool career!

 

Lallana played, 12, 13 and 15 league games in his last 3 seasons. He had a bit part role. We didn't sign Thiago as a bit part player.

 

Jones has taken the bit part player role of Lallana. Thiago was signed to start, with Henderson and Fabinho competing for the same positions. 

Chiravella would have played more if he wasn't pretty crap. This is the point of the kid in the squad - he gets a chance, he takes it or not. Chiravella didn't. Jones did, which is why Chiravella plays elsewhere. I agree we haven't signed thiago to play a bit part, we signed him to play when he's fit, but his injury record suggests he still might not play a lot. And milner will play less, Henderson will probably not play more and most likely less as he struggles with injuries and we'll be fading Gini out. You mentioned just a few posts back you thought fabinho was dropped for thiago, but you saw from today's team that's not true. What we didn't sign thiago for is for fabinho to play 30 games at centre back, not least because thiago doesn't have a terrific record of fitness himself. 

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1 minute ago, Joey8FrogsLegs said:


I dont watch anywhere near enough football to know who would be best suited. But I’m sure there are at least a handful of CBs out there in the 21-23 age bracket that would fit the bill. Ibrahima Konate?

 

Genuine question in return, do you have a good overview and think no young CB out there is good enough?

 

 

Its not that I don't think they are players that are good enough, its more that I think we went in to this season happy with our 3 centre backs and not thinking that it was worth splashing the cash on a player to be 3rd/4th choice.

 

Look at how much money United and City have spent on centre backs in recent years. The likes of James Tarkowski and Ben White are valued at £50 million plus these days! According to google Konate would cost a similar amount also. 

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24 minutes ago, MegadriveMan said:

 

If everybody stayed fit this season, I expected Fabinho to lose his place. Our best midfield is Henderson, Thiago and Widjnaldum, with Fabinho, Keta, Milner, Oxlade, and Jones waiting in the wings. 

 

VVD hasn't missed a game for us through injury since signing. It was impossible to predict that some cunt would go through him like Pickford did. 

I do get that but at same time it is fair to say Oxlade, Keita and Thiago have pretty poor injury records....add in Matip having one too and Gomez is not exactly rock solid when it comes to being available and i just feel a proper 4th centre half rather than pulling a midfielder back would have been better.

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2 minutes ago, MegadriveMan said:

Its not that I don't think they are players that are good enough, its more that I think we went in to this season happy with our 3 centre backs and not thinking that it was worth splashing the cash on a player to be 3rd/4th choice.

 

Look at how much money United and City have spent on centre backs in recent years. The likes of James Tarkowski and Ben White are valued at £50 million plus these days! According to google Konate would cost a similar amount also. 


I understand the logic, and guess also Klopps thinking of keeping the squad happy plays a role here. And Klopps judgement is normally not bad, but in this case I really struggle to agree. 

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2 minutes ago, Barrington Womble said:

Chiravella would have played more if he wasn't pretty crap. This is the point of the kid in the squad - he gets a chance, he takes it or not. Chiravella didn't. Jones did, which is why Chiravella plays elsewhere. I agree we haven't signed thiago to play a bit part, we signed him to play when he's fit, but his injury record suggests he still might not play a lot. And milner will play less, Henderson will probably not play more and most likely less as he struggles with injuries and we'll be fading Gini out. You mentioned just a few posts back you thought fabinho was dropped for thiago, but you saw from today's team that's not true. What we didn't sign thiago for is for fabinho to play 30 games at centre back, not least because thiago doesn't have a terrific record of fitness himself. 

 

Due to the thrashing we took last time out, and because Everton has won all four games so far we were always likely to play 3 more defensively minded players today. As the season progresses I expect it to be 2 from 3 of Thiago, Henderson and Fabinho, with Fabinho likely to be third choice if it was a big game. 

 

What we saw in the Chelsea game was that Fabinho is essentially the 4th choice centre back.  Personally I am ok with this. He's got all the attributes to play there. 

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4 minutes ago, Joey8FrogsLegs said:


I genuinly dont totally see very many signings as replacing a particular player. I’d rather think of it as building a team and squad and adding to the players you already have.

 

Certainly in the case of Lallana I dont really see a logic of looking for a replacement. If Alisson was sold then sure, we’d need to replace him, but Lallana?

I think we're very much a team that has a number of places for senior players. I think we pretty much like to do 1 for 1 replacements. It's not a perfect world, so sometimes you can't sell someone or sometimes you can't buy someone when someone leaves, but that's our target. Thiago is using lallana's peg in the dressing room. He won't contribute the same, but he's using a seat and klopp likes to run quite a tight ship. For those reasons thiago has replaced lallana and in the same.way Kostas replaced lallana even though they play different positions. 

 

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3 minutes ago, Barrington Womble said:

I think we're very much a team that has a number of places for senior players. I think we pretty much like to do 1 for 1 replacements. It's not a perfect world, so sometimes you can't sell someone or sometimes you can't buy someone when someone leaves, but that's our target. Thiago is using lallana's peg in the dressing room. He won't contribute the same, but he's using a seat and klopp likes to run quite a tight ship. For those reasons thiago has replaced lallana and in the same.way Kostas replaced lallana even though they play different positions. 

 


If that’s how you define replacing I more or less agree. Klopp certainly doesnt seem to want too large a squad.

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1 minute ago, MegadriveMan said:

 

Due to the thrashing we took last time out, and because Everton has won all four games so far we were always likely to play 3 more defensively minded players today. As the season progresses I expect it to be 2 from 3 of Thiago, Henderson and Fabinho, with Fabinho likely to be third choice if it was a big game. 

 

What we saw in the Chelsea game was that Fabinho is essentially the 4th choice centre back.  Personally I am ok with this. He's got all the attributes to play there. 

It's pretty easy to say that now vvd is fucked! He'll play more than Gomez and matip because they can't stay fit. Fabinho played Chelsea because there was nobody else, they were all injured! I'm not disputing he will be used as 4th choice or that was the plan. I just don't think the aim of the game was to make him a defender. It's just klopp doing what he likes to do and load up the midfield and hope they can fill the gaps. I think it's a pretty reasonable position too. I just also think it's pretty reasonable considering the injury record of Gomez and matip that for once it could bite us on the arse. Although I think you can say the lack of quality cover in goal last season cost us a better run in the CL and lack of full back cover in 18/19 contributed to the run of draws that cost us the title that season. So considering squad quality and balance has been an issue in the past, coupled with a couple of flakes at centre back, it's doesn't seem radical to say that was a big risk and it looks like blowing up in our faces. 

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7 minutes ago, Barrington Womble said:

It's pretty easy to say that now vvd is fucked! He'll play more than Gomez and matip because they can't stay fit. Fabinho played Chelsea because there was nobody else, they were all injured! I'm not disputing he will be used as 4th choice or that was the plan. I just don't think the aim of the game was to make him a defender. It's just klopp doing what he likes to do and load up the midfield and hope they can fill the gaps. I think it's a pretty reasonable position too. I just also think it's pretty reasonable considering the injury record of Gomez and matip that for once it could bite us on the arse. Although I think you can say the lack of quality cover in goal last season cost us a better run in the CL and lack of full back cover in 18/19 contributed to the run of draws that cost us the title that season. So considering squad quality and balance has been an issue in the past, coupled with a couple of flakes at centre back, it's doesn't seem radical to say that was a big risk and it looks like blowing up in our faces. 

But what would you have done, sell Matip or Gomez and buy Koulibaly? There's no top quality CB, that comes to be 4th choice, and Klopp wouldn't have just relegated one of those two to 4th choice. To say an injury to van Dijk blew up in our face is at the same time a complete eye-roller because obviously one of the best defenders in the world getting injured stinks, but also there's just no way to mitigate that kind of risk. It's like if Messi got injured, and people said "oh Barca don't have a guy to get 40 goals and 30 assists in a season to replace him, poor planning". Like, give me a break. 

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1 minute ago, Barrington Womble said:

It's pretty easy to say that now vvd is fucked! He'll play more than Gomez and matip because they can't stay fit. Fabinho played Chelsea because there was nobody else, they were all injured! I'm not disputing he will be used as 4th choice or that was the plan. I just don't think the aim of the game was to make him a defender. It's just klopp doing what he likes to do and load up the midfield and hope they can fill the gaps. I think it's a pretty reasonable position too. I just also think it's pretty reasonable considering the injury record of Gomez and matip that for once it could bite us on the arse. Although I think you can say the lack of quality cover in goal last season cost us a better run in the CL and lack of full back cover in 18/19 contributed to the run of draws that cost us the title that season. So considering squad quality and balance has been an issue in the past, coupled with a couple of flakes at centre back, it's doesn't seem radical to say that was a big risk and it looks like blowing up in our faces. 

 

Yeah I understand. For years its been obvious that our lack of depth has been the problem, but its always likely to be a problem when competing with the likes of City, Chelsea and United who have more money than we do. 

 

We've been fortunate that most of our key players, Allison, TAA, VVD, Robertson, Salah, and Mane haven't really had long injury lay offs, and rarely been injured at the same time. 

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10 minutes ago, 3 Stacks said:

But what would you have done, sell Matip or Gomez and buy Koulibaly? There's no top quality CB, that comes to be 4th choice, and Klopp wouldn't have just relegated one of those two to 4th choice. To say an injury to van Dijk blew up in our face is at the same time a complete eye-roller because obviously one of the best defenders in the world getting injured stinks, but also there's just no way to mitigate that kind of risk. It's like if Messi got injured, and people said "oh Barca don't have a guy to get 40 goals and 30 assists in a season to replace him, poor planning". Like, give me a break. 

Is it really that difficult an ask for a club of our standing to have a 4th proper specialist senior centre half?

 

Especially given that 1 of our 3 and arguably 2 is/are pretty injury prone.

 

It's OK saying Fabinho is 4th choice and he has of course and will do a job there, but when he has to it weakens our midfield options.

 

Lovren was 4th choice last season and played 15 games in all comps - it is no stretch at all to suggest our 4th choice this season would likely play at least as many this season, especially given the condensed nature of the schedule this season.

 

Here we are a mere 5 games in and Fabinho has already been needed at centre half.

 

Neither Matip or Gomez have ever managed to play in 30 league games in a season for us....some of that is down to them being rotated - it is mostly down to them having poor injury records.

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3 minutes ago, an tha said:

Is it really that difficult an ask for a club of our standing to have a 4th proper specialist senior centre half?

 

Especially given that 1 of our 3 and arguably 2 is/are pretty injury prone.

 

It's OK saying Fabinho is 4th choice and he has of course and will do a job there, but when he has to it weakens our midfield options.

 

Lovren was 4th choice last season and played 15 games in all comps - it is no stretch at all to suggest our 4th choice this season would likely play at least as many this season, especially given the condensed nature of the schedule this season.

 

Here we are a mere 5 games in and Fabinho has already been needed at centre half.

 

Neither Matip or Gomez have ever managed to play in 30 league games in a season for us.

But who cares? What the fuck difference does having a "4th specialist CB" solve when the best centre back in the world tore his knee? Is that 4th CB van Dijk's clone? 

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8 minutes ago, 3 Stacks said:

But who cares? What the fuck difference does having a "4th specialist CB" solve when the best centre back in the world tore his knee? Is that 4th CB van Dijk's clone? 

Since when have cover players had to be as good as the first choice? Just good solid cover that offers depth when needed is surely enough.

 

And in answer to your question what difference does it make - well erm how about you don't have to weaken options elsewhere on park and you have proper cover on bench in games when down to 2 like we are now.

 

You seem to be totally overlooking just how unreliable at least one of our 3 proper centre halves are.

 

We had 4 last year and 4th choice played in over a quarter of our league games...personally i think our 4th choice was always likely to play at least that many games this season - and i'd rather he was a proper centre half than a midfielder pulled back to do a job and whilst doing it reduce our options in midfield.

 

 

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