Thiago Alcantara

[Paulie Dangerously]

Another one for the Paulie D signature. 

[aws]

I think we pay a shedload of agents' fees because of all the extended contracts we've been signing up to. An agent is getting a big slice for everyone of them. If a player extends for two years then his agent isn't getting a huge cut of a transfer fee in two years so he gets what effectively is compensation. 

[Mil-ing Around]

2 hours ago, 3 Stacks said:

Them two in a double pivot is beautifully balanced. It's Mascherano - Xabi Alonso level.

I think if Fabinho is at CB and Thiago is ahead of him that would leave us seriously lacking pace through the spine of our team, especially with Bobby up front. 

 

Fabinho and Thiago next to each other, like you suggested, might work nicely but i'd say Thiago deep with the legs & energy of Henderson + Wijnaldum either side of him would be our best midfield three (on paper). Will be interesting to see how we use him. 

 

He'll shine against low block teams but i wonder how we will play him against high press teams or fast counter attack teams. I think we are going to see another progression in Klopps tactics here and that's just what we need this season. Wonderful signing and I'm really happy we have added another world class player to our squad. 

[Aventus]

2 hours ago, The Guest said:

I reckon Fabinho and Thiago are gonna get on like a house on fire.  It’s definitely not an either or there.  We’re gonna play some mad formations this year I think.

One of my favourite things about Fabinho are his quick forward passes, he turns defence into attack in a heartbeat before the opposition midfield know what's happening. 

Thiago does a similar thing except a bit further up the pitch, splitting defences instead of midfields, so I can only imagine what we are in for when they are both on the field. 

 

Teams aren't going to be able to cope with us anymore, we're too good. Anything less than a European Cup and 114 points at the end of the season will be a disgrace. 

[Dr Nowt]

1 hour ago, neko said:

Fabinho can now become the first choice CB, without having to leave a gaping hole in the midfield if/when he does need to play there.

Agreed.

[neko]

2 minutes ago, Dr Nowt said:

Agreed.

I see what you did there.

[halewood pete]

1 hour ago, mattyq said:

 

 

[Dr Nowt]

9 minutes ago, neko said:

1. Fabinho 

2. Fabinho 

3. Fabinho 

4. Fabinho 

5. Fabinho 

6. Fabinho 

7. Fabinho 

8. Fabinho 

9. Fabinho 

10. Fabinho 

11. Fabinho 

Agreed.

[LFC 6 Times]

Estatic with this a top signing, a genuinely world-class player. This will give us that bit of impetous to push us on this year, hugely confident about retaining the league and going far in Champions League. Hopefully us fans can see him in the stadium in not too long.

[1892-LFCWasBorn]

 

[Sugar Ape]

Thiago, the man who makes gaps appear

 

In the summer of 2004, Liverpool were about as far away from the position they are in now as they could be. A new cycle was beginning under Rafa Benitez. Chelsea were trying to sign Steven Gerrard. The captain needed support in midfield but a deal for Xabi Alonso did not look like it was going to happen. Real Madrid wanted him but they wondered whether he was too slow and ended up messing him around for too long. This created an opportunity for Liverpool.

 

The reports about Alonso started on Merseyside almost as soon as Benitez was appointed. Two and a half months later, he was finally a Liverpool player and Gerrard was still there. He and Jamie Carragher had seen a bit of him on Sky because of Real Sociedad’s rise up the league during the 2002-03 season when the Basques finished second.

 

Keen, established footballers are observers of new signings as much as fans are — but of course, they know better about which smaller details to look out for.

To Carragher at least, there was something about the way Alonso tied his bootlaces that reinforced the impression that he might be half decent. Alonso pulled them really tight, like he meant business – in comparison to Igor Biscan who was sitting next to him, it has to be said. Then he adjusted his shin pads, ensuring the top of his training socks were almost at knee level. Out on the grass, Alonso started to make passes.

 

He was unafraid to make difficult choices but always thundered them towards team-mates, testing their touch. As much as he was being watched, he was watching them; trying to gain an understanding of the new technical abilities around him. “Stevie and I knew straight away that Xabi would be a success,” Carragher remembered.

 

What would you pay to watch footage of that session at Melwood? What, indeed, would you pay to watch football of the first session that involves Thiago Alcantara all these years later? There are comparisons to be made between Thiago and Alonso because both have filled the same roles with the same national team as well as Bayern Munich with such distinction. Both have been raised by fathers who were successful professional footballers in La Liga. Though Periko Alonso played a decade earlier than Mazinho, the pair were regarded not only as the brains of enterprising sides from San Sebastian and Vigo but the lungs as well.

 

From a position on the side of a pitch at Bayern’s training facility, Alonso once told me that he appreciated what a footballer looked like because of his experiences helping warming up the reserve goalkeepers of clubs like Tolosa, Beasain and Eibar where his father had managed. He understood what it took to become a footballer and he understood what it took to maintain standards. Weirdly, it was at that point Thiago – then a team-mate in the Bayern midfield – walked past. Alonso embraced him firmly and said as he trotted away, “A player, a player…” Great footballers know other great footballers…

 

Jurgen Klopp has a way with words and it seems now that he really meant it when he said recently that Liverpool would not defend their Premier League crown, they’d instead, “attack it.” The task he faces is a new one in his career because he hasn’t had to sell any of his best players like he did at Borussia Dortmund after each of his Bundesliga titles. Throughout the summer there has been no sense of absence or loss at Anfield.

 

For Klopp, the questions instead are a very different ones: how do you keep improving a world-class team where the individuals are approaching their peak even though they have already won the game’s most coveted prizes? Motivation at a base level should not be a problem but how to you push them to their farthest extreme? Can you get even more out of personalities you already know so well?

 

It will not just be Liverpool’s competing midfielders watching Thiago closely when he puts his boots on at Melwood the first time. Despite his achievements, he’ll be desperate to impress them and in turn they’ll be desperate to impress him. Training standards will increase. Mohamed Salah, Sadio Mane and Roberto Firmino will be salivating at the thought of the service they’ll be getting. Virgil van Dijk and Alisson Becker will be confident they’ll be receiving better protection because Thiago does that side of the game well too.

 

Though some gaps remain in the squad, the team itself had seemed almost impossible to improve. Only a select few of the world’s best players were capable of making Liverpool’s starting XI better than it already was but Thiago — arguably the best player on the pitch during the Champions League final — will do that. His passing range probably isn’t as extensive as Alonso’s but his shorter game is more incisive and he leaves you with the impression that his movement and thought is quicker in tight spaces. He is always trying to find a way forward.

 

At Bayern, the much taller and rangy Leon Goretzka moved from box to box and Thiago’s responsibility was a deeper one but you could not describe him as a sitting midfielder. So often over the last few seasons especially, his pass has been the one before the assist and this reflects a willingness to join the attack. “He does not wait for the gaps to appear,” reflected Michael Ballack, the former Bayern and Chelsea midfielder. “He makes them appear.”

 

During Liverpool’s briefest of pre-seasons, Klopp has experimented with new team shapes and one of those used was his old 4-2-3-1 formation from his Dortmund days. Perhaps this reveals what he might do with Thiago, who was nevertheless reared at Barcelona, where 4-3-3 is sacred. In the most important games over the last two or three seasons his midfield has been a three of Jordan Henderson, Fabinho and Georginio Wijnaldum and it would appear that the latter’s position will face the most scrutiny following Thiago’s arrival, possibly even leading to a departure. Sources at Liverpool have this morning told the The Athletic that the club’s fourth captain is expected to remain at Anfield until the end of the season, however.

 

Thiago’s signing is untypical of Liverpool because he is a 29-year-old with a status of superstar proportions and this is a club with a history of moulding rather than buying them. Not so long ago, Klopp insisted he did not want to coach Kylian Mbappe but the next Kylian Mbappe. The recruitment of Thiago is hardly a surprise given the length and depth of the conversation about him since he was first linked but his arrival is a departure from Klopp’s original thinking.

 

Despite some impressions of Klopp, he does not subscribe to dogma – nor is he stubborn. This might be perceived as a weakness when really it should be considered a strength. The challenge is always changing in football and nobody predicted COVID-19 or its impact. In those empty stadiums where opponents have been better placed to soak up pressure because of the lack of frustration or urgency from supporters, he must surely have been able to see that Liverpool needed something different in midfield.

Thiago changes the schemes of rival managers who might have started believing they understand Klopp better, as well as his already brilliant title-winning team.

[Arnaud]

Great article, thanks 

[lifetime fan]

16 minutes ago, 1892-LFCWasBorn said:

 

Why post that? 
 

I was convinced it was a good signing. Now he’s gonna be shot if that prick is bugging him up. 

[Scooby Dudek]

18 minutes ago, 1892-LFCWasBorn said:

 

Best midfielder in the world ? Not even in the top three in Merseyside.

[Scott_M]

3 minutes ago, Scooby Dudek said:

Best midfielder in the world ? Not even in the top three in Merseyside.

No - Dacoure, Allen & Davies are better. 

[Captain Turdseye]

1 hour ago, Paulie Dangerously said:

Another one for the Paulie D signature. 

Credit where credit’s due Paulie. 
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This was Elite’s scoop. 

[Scott_M]

56 minutes ago, Mil-ing Around said:

He'll shine against low block teams but i wonder how we will play him against high press teams or fast counter attack teams. I think we are going to see another progression in Klopps tactics here and that's just what we need this season. Wonderful signing and I'm really happy we have added another world class player to our squad. 

In the latter stages of the CL this season, he was getting the ball deep, being pressed and didn’t seem phased by it at all .

[Tj hooker]

 

[Stouffer]

49 minutes ago, lifetime fan said:

I was convinced it was a good signing. Now he’s gonna be shot if that prick is bugging him up. 

[Chocoholic]

21 hours ago, neko said:

That's a nice hotel and pretty reasonable. I'll stay there when I visit.

You haven't a fucking hope, mate. There'll be nothing available with all the Norw Colombians bigging it up, in town to see their boys.

 

Has anyone checked on the lads next door?

[Code]

2 hours ago, aws said:

I think we pay a shedload of agents' fees because of all the extended contracts we've been signing up to. An agent is getting a big slice for everyone of them. If a player extends for two years then his agent isn't getting a huge cut of a transfer fee in two years so he gets what effectively is compensation. 

I know an agent, he gets paid 10% of his players wages, this comes from the clubs and not the players wages. 
 

 

[Elite]

1 hour ago, Captain Turdseye said:

Credit where credit’s due Paulie. 
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This was Elite’s scoop. 

Too fucking right. I didn't put in all that ground work for someone to try to steal the credit 

[J-V]

2 minutes ago, Elite said:

Too fucking right. I didn't put in all that ground work for someone to try to steal the credit 

Put you are Paulie on the card for Berlin?

[Alan Sex]

I very much look forward to seeing “Talc” in our midfield. 
 

I will call him “Talc” from now on. Or until I forget. 

[m0e]

1 hour ago, 1892-LFCWasBorn said:

 

Firstly,  he turned down the whole world effectively,  because he ONLY wanted to go to Liverpool.

 

Secondly, he won the last 8 league titles at Bayern, not 6.

 

I can't believe these cunts get paid for their "analysis".