aRdja

12 hours ago, Duff Man said:

Still hopeful he can get back to pre-injury form. Genuinely looked like he was on the verge of becoming world class that season.

He can only go back to said form with games, but he’s not getting games ahead of Virge or Konate. Same story as our midfield with Jones and Ox, they need games to get to their top level but we can’t afford go give them games as we need to win every game because that’s what Man City do. 

7 hours ago, dave u said:

And besides, there'd be nothing stopping us going with the same 4-2-3-1 he played in when he was just behind Torres.

X

I think the sneering is a bit premature, window is still open and if they manage to finalise Sterling, get De Jong and one of the centre halfs they’ve been linked with (De Ligt or Kounde) that’d be a good window for them. 

I think against sides we know we’re better than we should be able to field two of Thiago, Fabinho and Hendo in midfield, and play another attacking player. That could be Jota, Bobby or Carvalho. When Bobby leaves I reckon that’s a position we should spend big on, maybe Joao Felix?

In terms of pure footballing ability then Thiago, but Xabi was probably a better leader and definitely less brittle. 

51 minutes ago, 3 Stacks said:

Be interesting to see whether City got Sterling's best years. Don't think they really care either way, when they're fine selling to Chelsea.

Must say it’s a bit odd. Barca conquered the world with Pedro as a key part of their forward line and Sterling, twice the player Pedro has ever been, but Pep doesn’t rate him.

9 minutes ago, DaveT said:

He’s got 21 international caps and helped Fulham get promotion. Southampton are paying £10m for some City 18 year old (Lavia?) who nobody’s ever heard of. One of those is a good deal (for both parties). The other is distinctly dodgy. 

Regardless, it’s a lot of money for someone we clearly don’t want. We played Milner at RB before him early last season from memory.

2 hours ago, Harry Squatter said:

 

Jesus, I honestly don’t know how we do it. 

38 minutes ago, 3 Stacks said:

He was picked 29 times last year, then the manager stopped picking him. He was fit all season. How that's "stealing a wage", is anybody's guess.

Wait til you hear what they think of Joe Gomez 

7 minutes ago, cloggypop said:

I said as soon as they signed him that he'd be building around Donny v d Beek. Knows the system inside out. 

How do you play VdB, Eriksen and Fernandes in the same line up? Midfield diamond?

5 minutes ago, DaveT said:

So, United fans were watching all smug whilst Keita was ripping £52m Fred and his team mates a new one at OT last season? 

Was very good against Kante and Kovacic too in the Carabao cup final. He provides us good midfield depth, it’d be idiotic getting rid of him because he skied a shot one time. 

1 minute ago, Lee909 said:

 

Solid enough season is what you want from a youth team player or a Shaqiri type 10ml signing. You expect more from a player that cost 50ml and gets 120k a week. 

 

He has been a terrible signing

If the Mancs or Arsenal had spent 50ml on him we would be passing ourselves laughing at them

We paid what we paid, but now he’s in the team and he’s contributing. He played really well in that Carabao cup final for example. You’d struggle to find a better 4th choice midfielder on the league IMO.

6 hours ago, 3 Stacks said:

To be honest, it just looks like they're signing players with an Eredivisie connection because no one else wants to join. It might turn out to be a fine strategy, but there's not much originality there.

How important is being original in football? Pep and Klopp have been copying each other over the past couple of years for example; false 9, full back tucking in, direct diagonal ball from centre half to winger.

The forum has found its new whipping boy it seems. Shame, as he had a solid enough season.

13 minutes ago, SlugTrail said:

Struggles to stay in that Leicester team for long periods.

4th highest minutes in the PL for Leicester, 12 goals + 8 assists real good numbers.

If Ramsey is deemed not ready and we want a different dimension in our midfield and PL proven you could do a lot worse than James Maddison IMO. His numbers are very good, and a threat from distance too.

9 minutes ago, chrisbonnie said:

And even though I trust the manager completely, our midfield signings haven't fully come good have they. 

Fabinho, Thiago, Gini?!

12 minutes ago, Barrington Womble said:

Chelsea have. They also run the biggest squad in the league because they believe human beings are commodities to be traded, so their model is completely different to ours and this is literally their model. Ours is to find players, improve them and let them make our 1st team - we sell the ones who won't make it. It's why we slimmed down the academy too a few years ago. 

 

If all you want to give Jones is game time and that's all he needs, why would you sell and not loan (or keep him and let him earn his games)? Why would a club want to invest in a footballer who we can buy back for pennies more? So buybacks are a thing and usually operate at double to cost or more of the initial purchase (see your Tammy Abraham example). The only exception I can think to that was when Barca used to do it and it didn't work for them. 

 

And he hasn't regressed over the last couple of years. He's 21 and like most 21 years olds their career trajectory is not linear. He will have ups and downs, but as he gets out of his late teens/early twenties and starts to get towards 100-120 appearances for the club and his mid twenties, he should start showing more consistency. He's not there yet, but there absolutely no reason to think he can't get in front of keita this season. Keita had his best season for the club last year and was still really not significantly better than Jones and Jones has certainly shown he has a higher bar imo. 

 

I don’t think we’re ‘above’ it. Believe he have a buy-back clause for Brewster and Solanke. I’m okay with either loan or a sale with a buyback clause for Jones. I wanted to bring Jacob Ramsey in, and thought that Jones could really do with regular game time, and clubs tend to give their own more leeway than players on loan. 

18 minutes ago, TD_LFC said:

Good job you corrected me on the tactical tweaks we make season to season, I should have mentioned them in the post you quoted.....

Klopp has played with an AM in the past over here and at Dortmund, and Hendo’s role last season morphed into something more attacking than previous season, yeah I don’t see Klopp having issues making tweaks to accommodate a more attacking centre midfielder. 

7 minutes ago, TD_LFC said:

You seem to be struggling to differentiate between what you'd like and how that applies to the reality of how the team plays.

 

As Klopp said, buying a goal scoring midfielder doesn't translate to goals being scored because of the system in place.

 

You can point to the more 'attacking' midfielder in our system to counter that but the reality is the job of our 'attacking' (in reality a better description would be advanced) midfielder, Henderson or Elliot on the right of the three usually, is to create the overload and occupy players to create space for Trent and Salah.

 

Maybe it'll be the next big tactical tweak next season but for now we can only judge on what our system is not what it might be.

Klopp is not as wedded to the system as you think. He makes tweaks every season. He started off with 4-2-3-1, then he settled into 4-3-3, in 18/19 he experimented with 4-2-3-1 again with Salah as a central striker and Shaq on the right. Last season Trent started tucking in to allow Hendo or Salah to go wide and the other in the box.

4 hours ago, HBenn said:

We took 2-0 leads against Chelsea and Brighton. We took the lead against Spurs, Brentford and Man City. How many of those games was Thiago playing in and Hendo deputising?

I thinking that played a bigger role than this 25 goals from midfield.

Klopp has never looked from loads of goals from our 3 mids and could have played more attacking midfield players if he wanted 

Add De Bruyne or peak Thomas Muller and play him in front of Thiago and Fabinho and we would’ve won the quadruple. We already have one of the best defensive midfielders in the world in Fabinho and he’s quicker and more athletic than City’s defensive midfielder, Rodri. Last time I checked they they’re not having issues winning league titles. 

3 hours ago, Jose Jones said:

We should just sell all our team, then buy Man City’s team and our midfielders would then score 25 more goals. Easy.

I’d take one.

2 hours ago, Barrington Womble said:

5m is no sort a profit, it's just an expensive loan and not a chance we should sell him for 20m. The lad is light years a better footballer than say neco who we want 15m for. I wouldn't consider any offer under 40m. In fact I wouldn't sell him. A loan would be ok if we signed a player who would be at least good enough to compete with thiago/Henderson/fab. 

Chelsea sold loads of players on with a buy back clause; Tammy Abraham is one of them from memory. The £ is arbitrary, not worth wasting our time negotiating. He just needs regular games to kick on, and at the moment he’s behind our starters and Keita. He’s regressed over the past couple of years, something’s gotta change. 

8 hours ago, El Rojo said:

It’s possible to be delighted that he’s staying with us while simultaneously despairing at some elements of modern football. 

Yeah, £350k a week is ridiculous cash, there’s no denying that, but he’s still not even the best paid player in the league with that salary.
 

There’s so much money in football at the moment and I’d much rather it going to the players. From what I’ve read Mo seems like one of the better guys in football too.

2 hours ago, HBenn said:

Had we signed Tchouameni, who in no way bares an resemblance to a defensive midfielder, for £70m I am sure the plan would be for him to not play alongside Thiago and Fabinho when they were all fit. Instead he would sit on the bench and cover Fabinho when he was injured.

3 hours ago, aRdja said:

It would’ve been a similar purchase to Konate. Matip started the season as first choice, but Ibou’s form at the end of the season made him undroppable. 

2 hours ago, HBenn said:

The additional goals from midfield didn't make the difference, the draws from winning positions made the difference. Had we controlled the midfield that wouldn't have happened. 

Hmmm not convinced this is right. We likely had one of the best win % after we’ve taken the lead in world football last year. We never took the lead against Spurs, Leicester, City and West Ham in the second half of last season. On the other hand 25 additional goals certainly would’ve made a difference, even half that.

2 hours ago, HBenn said:

Of course he wouldn't ever need to come on for Thiago because he doesn't miss games does he? (You can choose to swerve that question if you like).

2 hours ago, aRdja said:

Hendo played some of his best games last season as a DM also so we’re sorted for back-up.