Crazy Dave

Sounds like the beginning of the Milner thread back in 2015.

I like him. Very underrated player who would fit in well.

The story doesn't make any sense to me. We'd have known all along what fee they wanted and we haven't walked away regardless of whatever fee Dortmund have told us (which seems to be between £100m - £120m). There's no chance we're walking away now. My best guess is that, the player has told us he only wants to come here, and we're trying to drive the price down which seems like good business to me.

Maybe. My preference would be to give it another try next year of, more preferably, move him into midfield where his weaknesses are less exposed. My point still stands though. He’s phoned it in all season and it’s not acceptable at a club this size. His performance against Palace the other week was absurd. If we received a big offer then would it really be a surprise if the club did consider it?

I'm genuinely bewildered by Trent this season. You can argue, rightfully, that the midfield setup has done him no favours, but his performances cannot just be attributed to that. Professional pride has to come into it as well and, at many times this season, his desire to fight and compete has been absent and his attitude and body language has been appalling. How he's been getting picked week after week is mind boggling. Milner and Gomez have turned in better performances this year. In away games, playing Trent at right back is a gift to the opposition. Klopp has to take some responsibility for this situation too. And, at the very least, the club has got to bring in genuine competition for him come the summer. That's the only thing I can think of which might help prevent him for phoning it again. Otherwise we should flog him.

He looks quite silky rather than a midfield workhorse who's constantly recycling the ball and moving the full backs forwards. Is Klopp doubling down on the changes to the playing style we've seen this season?

In retrospect it might not have helped a teenage lad having the Anfield Wrap boys painting a giant mural of him outside of Anfield. Trent has been absolutely dreadful yet again.

I do not see the argument for keeping Bobby. We have five other senior strikers already on the books and that's before you factor in the likes of Carvalho, Elliott, Gordon & Doak. Nostalgia & misplaced loyalty has partly gotten us into this situation, the one thing we don't need is to repeat the cycle again this summer.

I'm less arsed about Gomez than some. He is what he is, a 4th choice centre back who can do a job as a right back occasionally. He should be doing better, admittedly, but he's not a big problem in the grand scheme of things. I'm much more concerned about Virgil. I was hoping he'd become our version of Thiago Silva, just in terms of still playing to a very high standard in his mid to late 30's, but the way he's played we should be having a serious discussion about whether he's worth his place in the starting eleven next season or not. Konate, for me, is our first choice centre back now and if we can find somebody else like him then Virgil might become 3rd choice sooner than many of us anticipated he would.

That I do. I've been a critic of him in the past, but he needs a run in the side (and a rocket up his arse) to see whether he has a future here. At the moment the team is struggling, so why not risk it?

I must be the one of the few who'd keep Milner. I think a lot of people judge him on his age and that alone. If we're going to have 8-9 midfielders then just keep him as the 8th or 9th choice. His performances are still good when called upon. Even at right back he's been better than Trent this season. Plus he's homegrown and if keeping him means we have more flexibility to recruit from overseas elsewhere in the squad then that shouldn't be discounted. You lose an awful lot when players like Milner leave the club.

Wouldn't mind seeing Curtis Jones start in Thiago's place tonight.

18 months assuming this run of form continues to the end of the season. Fabinho began to drop off during the second half of last season and that run of form nosedived this season. I don't see him pulling it around, but would love to be proved wrong.

He's been an amazing player but us over the years, but we should absolutely bomb Fabinho. If we don't and if/when this form over the past 18 months continues then we're going to be stuck with a him until 2026 as no other club will take on his salary. I can see an Italian or Spanish club taking a risk on him this summer, but another year of these performances and I can't see any exit route for him.

What's this long-term injury for Ramsey about? Absolute disaster of a season for him and us.

His deal expires 2024. No chance it's getting renewed and rightfully so given his injury record.

Trent has looked depressed all season. No joy in his play any more. For some reason we persevere with him at right back despite it being exploited time and again on the counter. He can only work at RB when our press is 100% efficient. When it's off, like it has been all season, then we're shooting ourselves in the foot because he leaves a crater of space for a forward to run into. Move him into midfield starting Monday, get him closer to the oppo goal because, he's still by some distance our most creative player and has a shot on him too. Play Gomez at right back and look to bring in a right sided version of Robbo in the summer.

Would consider bringing big Nat in for this one, purely for set pieces.

This is fucking long, but: Of course I've got full faith in Jurgen to turn things around and I wouldn't want any other coach on the bench. However, anybody thinking there's no chance of him walking is being naive - he did break his contract with Dortmund lets not forget. If he honestly feels as though he cannot get a tune out of the players then I think he will go of his own volition. There's countless reasons why things have disintegrated like this but I think one of the main ones is what's gone on behind the scenes with recruitment. Go back 2-3 years and we had such an effective structure off the pitch under Edwards and the data analyst guys. It was incredible how well we recruited and sold (albeit with the odd exception granted). We also had a clear way of playing and recruited specifically for our needs. For me the sign that things were changing was when we signed Thiago. I love the guy and overall he's been a good player for us, but he was a break from the tried and trusted method, plus he was 29, had an injury record and coming in on high wages. At the time there was the sense that he was a signing made by Klopp and the coaches, not by Edwards, Graham and the analysts. Around the same period we refused to renew Gini's contract because he had turned 30. It's obvious that Klopp wanted to him to stay but Edwards and co didn't want players of 30+ on big contracts. But then, post-Gini, we've seen just that happen - Hendo, Fabinho, Virgil, Salah, and, now, even Bobby soon have contracts well into their 30's. I might be way off on this, but I don't think that happens under Edwards, or at least not the same length of terms. It's pretty obvious that the coaching staff have too big a say in recruitment now. The successful model has not shifted. Julian Ward and Ian Graham are fucking off because they have a diminishing role. Whether Klopp feels he should have a larger say in recruitment is irrelevant. What we do know is the team was much more successful when he could trust others at the club to perform this role. Our successes were built off of young, hungry players who weren't cheap but didn't cost a fortune either. Now we only seem interested in players at the top end of the market or 16-17 year old talents. With our original model we would have recruited a Manu Kone or a Thuram-type midfielder for 30m last summer. No doubt about it. Now we see the likes of Nunez, Gakpo, even Carvalho being recruited and they seem completely at odds with how we recruited between 2015-2019, where we were hitting the target nearly every time. I do think Klopp and Lijnders are trying to evolve our style of play, but it hasn't worked - we seem like a pound shop version of Man City now and I've never seen a Liverpool team so brittle - and I've been supporting the club since 1990. We need to rediscover our original identity again, sort out the chaos behind the scenes, relieve Klopp and Lijnders to be coaches again, and be absolutely brutal with the squad this summer.

He looked alright in the Firmino role against Brighton, but no more than that. He doesn’t have the pace or the directness to play wide and nobody can convince me that this isn’t an almighty fuck up by Lijnders or whomever if we signed him with that in mind.

Love Bobby but certainly think it’s time we went our separate ways. Aside from diminishing returns and his recent injury record, we won’t have European football next season so no point in keeping him to be 6th choice and blocking the path of Carvalho, Gordon or Doak. People talk about a reduced wage but he’s supposed to be on 180k a week at the moment. He might accept less but no chance he’s gonna take a drastic reduction when he’s got offers from Saudi Arabia on the table.

Is it in his new 400k a week contract that he can never be subbed or can’t be a substitute? Elliott doesn’t have close to Mo’s attacking talent but give me him on the right any day of the week at the moment.

This. Enough is enough. We are sitting ducks every single game. For the love of God move the line back 10 yards and take Trent away from the right back position. Oh and I’d want Milner in the team every single week at the moment. Don’t give a shit where he plays, just get him on the pitch.

Something is clearly not right behind the scenes. I can’t see where the next 3 points come from. Not a chance we beat Everton playing like this.

Needs to be benched. Completely unacceptable performances since the league resumed