neopulian

Yeah,Gomez is struggling there. Even if TAA's future is in midfield I would still play him at right back. He's young enough to stake a claim in another position or two. Is he any good in goal?

Was he? He was utterly awful at judging balls floating over his head (makes it very tricky to be a central defender, that he supposedly is -- perhaps he needs his eyes checked out, something might not be right with his depth perception? I don't know) -- but a complete terrier on the ground. He didn't win every dual against Sane but he handled him at least as well as anyone I've seen, I thought.

This is the part that really grates on me:

 

We have never been in a better position in recent times

We may have less points and sit lower on the table, but as a project, we've moved further along -- or am I imaging things? 

Losing Coutinho is a blow,  but everything is not going to disintegrate and regress just because of him. 

No you're wrong.

Another poster suggested that it's not fair to question FSGs ambition to keep our best players because they can't move the club to Spain (I'm paraphrasing). My response that Chelsea and Man City are not in Spain was in reference to Torres and Sterling.

Then you suggested I go and support City, a balanced response not.

You said "But we'll still have these owners, owners who are overseeing a period in the club's history where our best players want to leave every 18-24 months. They're not creating the conditions where these players want to stay and that deserves criticism."

To which I said, half jokingly: That's unfair, they can't move the club to Spain or recruit Messi., implying we can't compete with Barcelona, the club we lost our last 2 best South American players to, in pulling power.

To which you replied with "Chelsea and Man City" -- both propped up by sugardaddies spending billions. Fair enough, you implied "Torres and Sterling" -- one a fading star angling to leave a club that had been drowning in crisis, the other an emerging player angling for a move to a richer and better funded project, using his agent publicly lambasting the club and his manager to get wish -- but you only brought that up waaaay later. 

My jumping to conclusion that you were bitter because FSG can't fund the club like Abu Dhabi funding Man City was completely fair. 

Priceless. Can't express concerns about the club's ambition without being told to go and support Man City! Fuck off.

Well, you were complaining our spending ain't matching City, no? 

Is Chelsea in Spain? Is Man City?

Aren't Chelsea pricking about losing Hazard to Real Madrid?

It's also not news FSG ain't an energy emirate funding a PR project. If sugar daddies are what you're after, why don't you support Manchester City? Their football is sexy, they'll win everything. I won't begrudge you switching. 

What's the point in criticising the player to any great extent, he won't be our player for much longer so we might as well forget about him.

But we'll still have these owners, owners who are overseeing a period in the club's history where our best players want to leave every 18-24 months. They're not creating the conditions where these players want to stay and that deserves criticism.

That's pretty fucking unfair, mate. It's not exactly a possibility to move Liverpool FC to Spain and at the same time, recruit Messi. 

There is no reasoning with people having an axe to grind. 

This run of games by Robertson for the first time in a while made me feel good about the state of our left back position.

This obsession with newspaper hype must ease sometimes. Lemar had been utterly crap, and seeing how Bakoyoko doing at Chelsea, I have many questions about these one-season-wonder players from Monaco (sans Mbappe). When you pay 90 mils for a player, there can be no room for questions. 
 

Wait a second, what World Club cup did they win?

Gary Neville obviously. 

Kidding asides, Bruno N'Gotty, I thought he was an uber stud when we played PSG in the old CWC semi -- and was annoyed that good old Roy Evans only signed players from the Scandinavia rather than someone like him. He had a good career, but not great. 

I fell hard for Dribril Cisse. He did win us a Super Cup though he got nowhere near living up to his early potential. 

Ross Barkley. 

The opposite side of this coin, unglamorous players that I wish to have stayed longer: Craig Bellamy. Howard Gayle for some reason reminds me a lot of the mad Welshman. 

Been up for only 6 hours, between this and Houston, I'm completely exhausted -- and zero work got done. The size of money involved and the euphoria of people emotionally invested blew up any sense of perspective I had. I don't know how any of you can do this until Thursday. 

The only thing not really feasible in that is the Keita part, the rest looks like it's going through either way. Can't see why they turn down another £40m now though, they know they ain't winning the CL anyway.

Transfer is not online shopping that you can get done by just clicking. 

You wouldn't sign draxler... because it might knock origi off the bench...?

I wouldn't sign Draxler because a striker is not a pressing need. We don't even usually play one anymore. 

Lemar would be ace if we could do it. The other part of the article that caught my attention was PSG's need to offload some players to meet FFP. Draxler is an obvious example if Lemar is unattainable at Monaco. And there may be other PSG players who could come and do well here.

With Sturridge, Solanke, and Origi already occupying the bench, where would you insert Draxler? 

We should been all over Matuidi, but we weren't, so that's that. 

Was just watching YT of his dribbling skills over the years. Whimsical, sure, but does it seem to anyone else that he uses to be faster and dribble a lot more, I mean, for Inter and Eapanyol, he was rapid it seemed? Judge for yourselves...

 

https://youtu.be/2qC3fwjYzrk

I don't know if he was faster, but he does dribble less elaborately. That's just natural, the same thing happened to people like Messi and Ronaldo. Because: 1. Getting kicked hurts. 2. With experiences and maturity, they play more efficiently. They dribble to get through to a point, before it becomes counterproductive. 

It's just your misty nostalgia, mate. No one in their right mind could put Italia '90 as "pinnacle of football" -- lowest ever goal average, ridiculous number of games ending in pen shootouts. 

The opening was a miserable thug-fest in which Cameroon kicked the living shits out of the Argies and won 1-0, which resulted in an outrage and started this modern trend of fussy non-contact reffing. And the Argies didn't do themselves any credit playing an incredibly negative brand of football with only a single redemptible moment when Maradona threaded to Caniggia to finish off Brazil. Germany were deserving World Champions, but they won a miserable final from a penalty won by a dive. Brazil had a good group stage, but got suckerpunched in the first knock out round. Massively talented The Netherlands didn't show up, also got knocked out in the first hurdle and went home in shame only notorious for Rijkaard's spitting antics. 

It was somewhat enjoyable for England. After an abortion of an Euro tournament when they entered as favorites in 88, 90 was redemption, but it wasn't all rosy. A single win in group stage (the only game in the group that didn't end in draw), England got past Belgium in the first knock-out in extra time, but only thanked to an iffy decision to disallow a legit goal by Enzo Schifo, then got through Cameroon in the QF 3-2, again in extra time and have fallen behind 1-2 in the 2nd half. The Germany - England semi was a pulsating affair, the best match of that whole tournament, but England lost in pen shootout, Gascoigne cried on the pitch (that supposedly touched millions and launched the Premier League, if you believe the hyperboles).

So no, it was fun for the Germans, memorable for English fans, perhaps (if you're into that moral victory shits), but it was a very shit tournament. 

Klopp to Brazilian journalist on Coutinho bid : "I think tomorrow they will offer a McDonald's Happy Meal and we get the toy as well!?"

Except that he did not . It started as a joke on reddit/r/liverpoolfc as a comment replying to a video that wasn't available outside of Brazil, and alot of people didn't know how to use/don't have access to VPN. Somehow the idiots at the Echo and Express thought it was a real translation. The Brazilian reporter didn't get to interview Klopp directly, they basically used the same Klopp pre/post match interview tidbids that was available for everyone. 

Edit: https://www.reddit.com/r/LiverpoolFC/comments/6uudz2/klopp_talk_about_coutinho_for_brazilian_tv_and/dlvheqg/?sh=00b7f34e&st=J6KUUTO4

Unsavoury reputation....fucking hell listen to PJ Probity here...

It's 21st century, mate. You don't need to be virtuous to be aware how the rest of the world reacted to the controversies he caused. 

I bet you bath in baked beans, you bastard.

What does that mean? 

20m less than Gareth Bale went for 12 months previously - not reasonable in my book.

Bale didn't carry the unsavory reputation that Suarez did. Does anyone other than your and your mum value your book? 

You think we got a fair price for Suarez?

Under the circumstances -- it was reasonable. 

Yeah was a joke.

 

Here was a player who is the absolute definition of world class at his peak and we let him go for only 15m more than we got for a washed up Torres 3 years earlier.

Would be a joke if he didn't happen to bite Chiellini in front of billions of eyeballs; or that he didn't ask to be sold to Arsefuckingnal the summer previous.

I guess everybody in position of responsibility who has to make difficult decisions is never right in your purview. 

He's not worse than Matip or Lovren.

If you didn't know his name was Lovren, how much do you reckon we should sign him for from this highlights? 

We signed Lovren on the back of a 2 minute eulogy from Carra tbf

Since that worked out so well, are you advocating we should sign players on the back of 30 secs eulogy from Spud and Jenas?