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The reasons to be optimistic about the new season thread.


YorkshireRed
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  • 3 weeks later...

I think in comparison to last season we can be optimistic about crowds being back and key personnel (one in particular) back too.

But Wijnaldum will be a huge loss and I think ultimately we'll finish in a lower position because the teams around us have strengthened while, at best, we've stood still (though I think time will tell that overall we've gone backwards).

There's always Big Ears though, you just never know.

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We didn’t sign some of the bang average players being touted on the Summer Transfer thread. 
 

Players who would have diluted the overall quality of the squad and become unflushable you know what’s down the road. 
 

The squad is high on quality, if short on numbers. Better that, than being topped up with bollocks. We’ve signed bollocks before, never works. 
 

Our model is far from perfect, the owners are certainly flawed, but we can still be optimistic about the challenges ahead and grateful that we don’t support cunt clubs like City, Chelsea and United.

 

Smash ‘em Reds.

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5 hours ago, YorkshireRed said:

We didn’t sign some of the bang average players being touted on the Summer Transfer thread. 
 

Players who would have diluted the overall quality of the squad and become unflushable you know what’s down the road. 
 

The squad is high on quality, if short on numbers. Better that, than being topped up with bollocks. We’ve signed bollocks before, never works. 
 

Our model is far from perfect, the owners are certainly flawed, but we can still be optimistic about the challenges ahead and grateful that we don’t support cunt clubs like City, Chelsea and United.

 

Smash ‘em Reds.

I think we've a great squad. You look at our bench and most of those players are starters at every other PL club bar our immediate rivals. And dont forget some of those rival fans say our first choice 11 dont make their teams. Mendy better than Allison? They can fuck off.

 

Bottom line is with both city and particularly chelsea spending £100m on a single player, whether we buy a player for £30m - £60m we're always going to be looking as lagging behind to some.

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1 hour ago, dockers_strike said:

I think we've a great squad. You look at our bench and most of those players are starters at every other PL club bar our immediate rivals. And dont forget some of those rival fans say our first choice 11 dont make their teams. Mendy better than Allison? They can fuck off.

 

Bottom line is with both city and particularly chelsea spending £100m on a single player, whether we buy a player for £30m - £60m we're always going to be looking as lagging behind to some.

 

It's not really surprising though is it? Fan says player they don't watch as much for team they don't like very much isn't as good as player they love on their team. It's kind of human nature as supporters to be a bit biased in this regard. 

 

None of the top four clubs' fans would put Hendo or Matip in their first 11s, for instance. We'd all pick them over any of their lot. Way she goes. 

 

 

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we've got 265 points over the past 3 seasons, the same as City. 

 

Jurgen is right to go again with the same players.... we've just added Thiago, Jota, Konate , decent left back cover and Harvey Elliott to our championship winning side.

 

To counter this though, Lallana is a big loss. 

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The key as always, is the core strength staying fit. If Alison, VVD & Hendo in particular can get through the season pretty much unscathed, confidence in midfield and up front will surge. Add to that the freeing up of the creative & technical ability of Robbo & Trent, knowing some pressure is released on their defensive duties, and in theory, we are back to where we were 2-3 seasons ago.

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2 hours ago, Chris said:

 

It's not really surprising though is it? Fan says player they don't watch as much for team they don't like very much isn't as good as player they love on their team. It's kind of human nature as supporters to be a bit biased in this regard. 

 

None of the top four clubs' fans would put Hendo or Matip in their first 11s, for instance. We'd all pick them over any of their lot. Way she goes. 

 

 

Hendo and Matip both have PL and CL winner's medals though. How many City players can say that?

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57 minutes ago, El Rojo said:

A major source of optimism for me is Harry Kane not going to Manchester City this summer. Staggering they didn't just focus on him or Haaland instead of Grealish, who they don't actually need. 

Yeah I found that weird and all. I think Grealish is really good personally, but I don't see how he particularly improves them as they've already got players like him all over the place; Grealish is probably a better dribbler but given their style I'm not sure how good that is. Kane (or Haaland, which would be terrifying) would give them something that they don't already have.

 

Overall I'm optimistic for the season - I still think we've got a quality first XI and enough good backups (bearing in mind Jurgen likes a smaller squad) to win a lot of games barring an injury crisis. I'd have liked another attacker - doubly so with the AFCON coming up - but that's about it from me. But the squad looks hungry, we've got fans back in the ground and Klopp looks refreshed so I think we can have a good season.

 

My pessimism is more reserved for the next few years. Mainly that our rivals seem to be getting their shit in order, so we can't just rely on being smarter than them or them bungling into walls to stay ahead. We have to match them - we might get away with doing less business here and there but sooner or later we're going to have to keep up. Secondly, the age profile of the squad bothers me. Not for this season, but going forward we're going to have a lot of players entering their 30s at once and we now risk having to do major overhauls rather than making minor changes here and there. We could absorb new, younger players into the squad now and spread the cost (and the settling in of new faces) over a couple of years - with the option to move on the couple that don't work out; instead we're risking having to have an expensive summer where we HAVE to get every signing right and the squad going through a major personality change in a couple of months.

 

Basically it just seems like a wasted opportunity rather than a catastrophe.

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