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Virgil Van Dijk


Paco
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24 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? 

 

I think it's more the point that we might need one - no, not as good as VVD of course - but as a viable option... given the two "fit" ones are often enough sick notes, the 3rd one is makeshift (plus a very good midfielder) and of course, this crazy covid/international bullshit schedule that will no doubt see us throw away another FA Cup run, while one of the other top 6 win it.

 

Anyway, without VVD and Allison for the next run of games, we could be fucked regardless in the scheme of this season.

 

Mane, Salah, (Firmino) and Jota are going to need to score a truck load of goals to keep us in it I reckon.  

 

Last couple of seasons, generally, two goals were certain to do the trick for us.  But already this season we've needed 4 goals to win a game - and twice we've scored 2 goals with only a point in total to show for those.

 

Thank God Mo and Mane look on, and Jota looks a definite scorer too.

 

 

 

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3 minutes ago, an tha said:

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.

 

 

Firstly, "good solid cover" can't replace a top player like van Dijk and doesn't mitigate any risk of him being injured. Can't believe that has to be said. 

 

Secondly, Thiago slotting in for Fabinho to cover at centre half is not weakening any other area. Not at all. 

 

And finally, I'm not overlooking anything. Matip and Gomez are in fact unreliable for a couple different reasons, I'm fully aware. The issue is that people act like there was more than a .001 % chance that they would both be swept aside for a top centre back that is at the level of van Dijk. Would I personally have liked if one of them were sold for a great, reliable CB? Yeah, wouldn't have minded that. But was that totally unrealistic given the long contracts given to both Matip and Gomez, and the fondness that Klopp has for both of them? Also yes. So again, I think this whole conversation is misplaced. 

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Fabinho's better than most centre backs in the world. Would take him over 80% of the league's starting centre backs, if not more. To be honest our summer business was exceptional - the one piece missing was a replacement for Adrian. Infinitely more pressing than this mythical "top 4th centre back" (when was 4 top centre backs on the books at one time ever even a thing?). In lieu of that, we've played great in 4 of 5 fixtures this year. You can't legisilate for the injuries so far - you certainly can't find footballers even remotely of a similar level, even if you were paying £50 mil a pop. We're talking best-in-the-world in their positions here.

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9 minutes ago, 3 Stacks said:

Firstly, "good solid cover" can't replace a top player like van Dijk and doesn't mitigate any risk of him being injured. Can't believe that has to be said. 

 

Secondly, Thiago slotting in for Fabinho to cover at centre half is not weakening any other area. Not at all. 

 

And finally, I'm not overlooking anything. Matip and Gomez are in fact unreliable for a couple different reasons, I'm fully aware. The issue is that people act like there was more than a .001 % chance that they would both be swept aside for a top centre back that is at the level of van Dijk. Would I personally have liked if one of them were sold for a great, reliable CB? Yeah, wouldn't have minded that. But was that totally unrealistic given the long contracts given to both Matip and Gomez, and the fondness that Klopp has for both of them? Also yes. So again, I think this whole conversation is misplaced. 

Little to no point continuing it is there.

 

We'll agree to disagree and that is sound.

 

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3 minutes ago, Alex_K said:

Fabinho's better than most centre backs in the world. Would take him over 80% of the league's starting centre backs, if not more. To be honest our summer business was exceptional - the one piece missing was a replacement for Adrian. Infinitely more pressing than this mythical "top 4th centre back" (when was 4 top centre backs on the books at one time ever even a thing?). In lieu of that, we've played great in 4 of 5 fixtures this year. You can't legisilate for the injuries so far - you certainly can't find footballers even remotely of a similar level, even if you were paying £50 mil a pop. We're talking best-in-the-world in their positions here.

 

Fair enough.  Fabinho definitely looks sound at centre-back.  Let's hope those 3 can do it between them.

 

And that Thiago holds up injury-wise.

 

 

 

 

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Fabinho, Matip and Joe Gomez is a better collection of centre halves than 95% of football clubs have.

 

We'll have to change our game slightly with VVD out, and will definitely be more susceptible at set pieces, but this is a part of football we have to accept.

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Playing this replacements game, we sold Lovren and Hoever and who replaced them? Fabinho I keep on hearing. He. Is. A. Midfielder. Yes he's done well at centre back when filling in. But we miss what he brings in midfield. That's OK, Hendo can play his position. Yes, but now we have 2 first teamers playing out of their ideal position. It just looks like a gamble that might still, just about pay off, but it's not looking good is it? 

 

Hopefully one of the kids is ready, Koumetio maybe, I really have no idea. 

 

Someone said how can we prepare for the completely unpredictable scenario of VVD getting injured? All players get injured, of course it's something you mitigate, especially this year when the fixtures are so congested. 

 

It should also be said that both Fabinho and Henderson both played CB last season when we still had Lovren and Hoever. This CB situation isn't new, Barry especially has been beating this drum for a couple years. 

 

I like both Matip and Gomez, great players, so this isn't about doubting their talent. 

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7 hours ago, dockers_strike said:

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.

The sand shite you used to say about a forward until we signed Jota. 

 

Amazing how we're the only big club who can have room for three centre backs. 

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1 hour ago, Remmie said:

Playing this replacements game, we sold Lovren and Hoever and who replaced them? Fabinho I keep on hearing. He. Is. A. Midfielder. Yes he's done well at centre back when filling in. But we miss what he brings in midfield. That's OK, Hendo can play his position. Yes, but now we have 2 first teamers playing out of their ideal position. It just looks like a gamble that might still, just about pay off, but it's not looking good is it? 

 

Hopefully one of the kids is ready, Koumetio maybe, I really have no idea. 

 

Someone said how can we prepare for the completely unpredictable scenario of VVD getting injured? All players get injured, of course it's something you mitigate, especially this year when the fixtures are so congested. 

 

It should also be said that both Fabinho and Henderson both played CB last season when we still had Lovren and Hoever. This CB situation isn't new, Barry especially has been beating this drum for a couple years. 

 

I like both Matip and Gomez, great players, so this isn't about doubting their talent. 

Thiago shone at holding mid for Bayern last year, he’s more than capable of playing that role for us to an elite level. 

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23 minutes ago, Grinch said:

The sand shite you used to say about a forward until we signed Jota. 

 

Amazing how we're the only big club who can have room for three centre backs. 

But it's out of choice. We've obviously decided having three and using Fabinho if need be is the way to go and when you see his performance against Chelsea you can see why. So what's the problem? 

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13 hours ago, Grinch said:

Yes it was a red and a penalty.   A collision which happens when playing football. 

 

Stupid cunts who've never kicked a ball calling for him to be kneecapped, need a good shoeing themselves. 

I play football and I'm playing this morning, and I still want him kneecapped. You stupid cunt.

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I cant see him walking off if his ACL was damaged that badly. Doesnt mean he won't be out for a while but I'd be surprised if it was the extreme amount of time we've heard so far. We will cope regardless. We constantly talk about how many world class players we have most teams don't even have one so are we saying klopp isn't a good enough manager to deal with that. Klopp elevates players and teams he isnt a Pep type manager. VVD or not we still have an excellent group of players.

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9 hours 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. 

So I think there's 2 points. Firstly, what I would do, I've said earlier on this thread. I thought it was a problem before this season and a year ago I would have sold any 2 of the centre backs who were not vvd and brought in an top centre back with a good injury record. I'm not against going with 3 if you think 2 of them will be fit nearly every week. However, it really isn't a revolutionary idea to have 4 specialist centre backs. In fact I think at times under klopp we had 5. 

 

Secondly you're assuming people wanted a 4th choice centre back to replace vvd, when we saw last season we needed lovren plenty of times and VVD played every week. The 4th choice would be someone who fills in when Gomez and matip aren't available normally because they aren't plenty of times - well unless you you pull off a thiago style deal and have someone who'll play ahead of them. Now vvd is injured, that issue becomes even bigger, because it's absolutely certain matip and Gomez will be injured at the same time, because they have been every single year since they've been at the club, because they're both injury prone. So when you're at that point, you're down to a centre midfielder and who? Billy the kid? Henderson? Gini? Come on. 

 

And that's before you consider as far as we know none of matip/Gomez/fabinho have had covid yet. And we're playing 2 games a week pretty much all season. 

 

It's pretty standard in this level of football to have 4 centre backs. Carrying just 3 would be a risk for any side. Carrying 3 when 2 of them are complete fitness flakes surely you can see we carried a risk even without VVD's injury. 

49 minutes ago, Anubis said:

Nobody has confirmed anything. The 7-8 month is a rumour started by Bein with no substance.

Well bein with one of their panelists texting vvd directly. I'm not sure what substance you'd want aside from a letter from the doctor. 

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10 minutes ago, Bobby Hundreds said:

I cant see him walking off if his ACL was damaged that badly. Doesnt mean he won't be out for a while but I'd be surprised if it was the extreme amount of time we've heard so far. We will cope regardless. We constantly talk about how many world class players we have most teams don't even have one so are we saying klopp isn't a good enough manager to deal with that. Klopp elevates players and teams he isnt a Pep type manager. VVD or not we still have an excellent group of players.

Agree with that Bobby.

 

Nothing confirmed yet. It isn't good we know but nothing confirmed. The latest is the club aren't impressed with Bein and have contacted them.

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Well bein with one of their panelists texting vvd directly. I'm not sure what substance you'd want aside from a letter from the doctor


I don’t think VVD is texting confidential club medical information to De Jong. Especially as we won’t have the results of the scans and full specialists opinion yet. He may have said what he was being investigated for at most. 

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2 minutes ago, Anubis said:


I don’t think VVD is texting confidential club medical information to De Jong. Especially as we won’t have the results of the scans and full specialists opinion yet. He may have said what he was being investigated for at most. 

Well firstly who said it's full medical opinion? in fact they said Liverpool are awaiting confirmation. I think it would be pretty normal if a mate text and said "what's happening" you might just reply and say "just had a scan, it looks like an ACL". You're assuming vvd was sneaking some scan report and sending photos of them to de Jong, it could have been half a dozen words. It's just 2 lads texting with each other. I would even bet the way it happened is de Jong took the text during the 1st half of the city game and wasn't expecting keys to "break the story". 

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6 minutes ago, Anubis said:


I don’t think VVD is texting confidential club medical information to De Jong. Especially as we won’t have the results of the scans and full specialists opinion yet. He may have said what he was being investigated for at most. 

Wonder how close he is to De Jong? On the surface it might be that he is an ex team mate that he likes. If De Jong passed on the info to keys, then he is a bit of a knob.

 

If i was in Virgil's position in the hospital, I might be contacting my wife, my agent or my team mates giving them an idea of what is being said. 

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3 minutes ago, Geoff Woade said:

I’m seeing a lot of whataboutery from the scummy bastards around Robertson on Allan. They don’t understand the difference between a flick out in frustration and an actual assault.

Mina’s also lucky to get away with leading with his arm in the lead up to the Richarlison one. 

Robbo on Allan? He's just been pushed and is stumbling. It's not even a foul, let alone serious foul play. 

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3 minutes ago, Geoff Woade said:

I’m seeing a lot of whataboutery from the scummy bastards around Robertson on Allan. They don’t understand the difference between a flick out in frustration and an actual assault.

Mina’s also lucky to get away with leading with his arm in the lead up to the Richarlison one. 

Just seen one going on about our fans attacking Alan Smith's ambulance after he was injured in the FA Cup game in 2005. 

 

Even though he came out years ago saying it never happened. 

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