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That's another argument I'd be willing to hear. Maybe we should have sold and sacrificed a midfielder, maybe Wijnaldum, and have an extra CB take his squad spot. And then Fabinho would have remained strictly a midfielder. Maybe the way the squad is set up was a bit of a mistake. Shaqiri, to be fair, doesn't really make the bench much either. But keeping the same number of midfielders, plus adding Thiago, plus adding a CB was clearly not in the cards. Too bloated.

Sure, but those were emergencies. The problem with the argument we lack cover is that if we had bought a CB that is in the upper echelon of talent without selling either Matip or Gomez, when everyone's fit, one of them wouldn't have even made the bench. Or if you sign a stopgap to replace Lovren, same thing, might not make the bench. Now people will say, well Matip gets injured a lot so we would have never had that problem. Well then the issue is more with Klopp and the club because they have had no issue trusting Matip and his fitness. So the only acceptable argument is maybe we should have sold and replaced Matip. Because as our squad is currently constituted, with Thiago and the depth we have in midfield, having 4 senior CB's made no sense. Too many bodies.

Mings looks like a poor man's van Dijk, but that's probably an unrealistic possibility.

Not to downplay the severity but reconstructive knee surgery is normal nowadays for elite athletes. There have been severe cases of everything in an athlete's knee being shredded and being beyond repair, but that doesn't seem to be the case here and the vast, vast majority recover great nowadays. There's hundreds of success stories of players coming back to their best after tearing knee ligaments.

Because Fabinho wasn't seen as a CB last season but we clearly prepared this season with him as a real CB option in mind and we added a midfielder to make up for that.

People talking about cover have been talking shite. The cover is the same as it was last season, just replace Lovren and Lallana with Fabinho going into defense, Thiago taking Fabinho's place in midfield and a bigger role for Jones. The only sound argument against the club is if someone was interested in Matip, maybe they should have sold and replaced him.

I have doubts that one, we'd sign a player of Upamecano's standing, if we sign a CB at all, but two, if we sign a CB, I think it will be a younger, unproven CB who accepts he may not get that many games when everyone is fit. He'd probably be a left side CB too, because we have two right sided ones. Upamecano is right sided. I have a feeling it would be a left footer as we don't have any.

And yet I've only been about as half as stubborn about it as you are in the FSG threads.

For the last time, I didn't call you dumb, I said what you said was dumb. That's pretty clear, it's written in the post you quoted and if you can't see that, you may as well in fact be pretty dumb. And yeah, I'll fucking respond. If you can't tell, I've got all day. Both Matip and Gomez have been significant contributors on Champions League and Premier League winning teams and they both have long term deals. Hence, they have Klopp's trust and it's obvious he doesn't view upgrading those two as worthwhile or as an easy thing to do. And so as a result, the CB's we may have looked at, if we looked at any, would have been young and ones that we could develop. Pretty sure Jimmy Pearce mentioned Ben White and Ben Godfrey as options. Two young players with room to grow. One of them, White, my only memory of him this season is watching him get buried by Marcus Rashford and Godfrey just played right back for fucking Everton. So needless to say, none of those two are making up for a van Dijk injury in any way. Forgive me for preferring Thiago and a forward to those two or someone of that ilk. But that's the realistic scenario. There are people who said we should have signed someone established like Koulibaly, which would be a fine suggestion if those people had any idea what our financial situation is and didn't live on Mars, as if that was ever gonna hapoen. Glad I could clear that up.

I didn't insult the guy, I said he said something dumb, which it was. I think most of the opinions that have been put forward following van Dijk's injury are bad and I've said so, but I haven't called anyone stupid. So, I mean, I don't see the problem is.

Instead of signing a world class midfielder and much needed forward, you'd have rather we signed a 4th CB and a backup keeper? Congrats, out of all the dumb stuff that's been said since Virgil's injury, that takes the cake.

People sure love to speculate over pure fantasy. Sorry but there is not a world in which we would have decided to pay 30m for a 19 year old kid to be our 4th choice CB, especially in a pandemic, especially when that kid will get tonnes of games at Leicester and before van Dijk's injury, wouldn't have got a game here for 6 months.

He's first choice at Leicester who will play in Europe, ffs. He'd have been 4th choice here and may not have wanted that/we'd never pay 30m+. What is so hard to understand about that concept?

Just because the cunt can either film Thiago coming out of a hospital or share a video someone else filmed, doesn't mean he has inside info.

Fernandinho is 35, slow and had a player in Rodri replacing him in midfield that is above average at best. Fabinho is a top class player in the prime of his career and we have a world class player in Thiago to take his place whenever we need him at the back. It's not the same thing at all. There's nothing inherently wrong with playing a midfielder at CB, especially someone with the qualities Fabinho has. Football has moved on from every single player needing to play a single position since they were 5 years old to be good in that position. Bayern won the Champions League with a washed up Jerome Boateng and a left back in central defense. They had nothing else there.