3 Stacks

Always knew J.Sanch was class.

God knows I don't like Endo, but I don't think it's that easy to upgrade on him. That position, you need a dominant player that plays every game and I don't see many if any players good enough to clearly offer that. Buying players to offer slight upgrades isn't good business. Same situation for Nunez. In a perfect world, we'd find way better than those two, but not sure we can pull that off. 6 would be the bigger priority, though.

The audio for one of the Forest-Everton incidents was released and it really just confirms that the reason you cant implement something like VAR successfully is that some people are truly too stupid.

Which, you have to agree, is hilarious, given the discourse about anything stats related on here.

Dier is miles better than him which, wow.

I think the market is inherently difficult now for a club like us who want to find value for money. At the start of Klopps time, we were somehow finding really strong players who had English football experience, for incredible value. Now the prices are ballooned and you re trying to interpret data and performances from players in mediocre leagues like Portugal and the Netherlands because players are inherently less expensive there at this point in time. That seems incredibly difficult. Id almost say the scouting in those leagues should be way more eye test, You know when a player is just a freak talent and there have been such players from those leagues, but how they play against Vitesse or whatever, what can you even take from that,

Im not sure thats totally true. Logically, Klopp and Ljinders would have had more of a say on transfers in the last few years, but they would have been given suggestions based on data. The club didnt stop doing that and Klopp+Ljinders wouldnt have had the time to scout players and whatnot.

The problem with all these suggestions is we bought the 2 best forwards in Portugal and probably the best player in the Eredivisie in Gakpo not long ago, and the result's not been ideal. The players haven't developed that much and they've got weaknesses. So is that because it's exceedingly hard to find players who are complete and good enough for a reasonable fee anymore, or because we stopped developing players as well?

They would then presumably have the freedom of the middle.

Why do you like this guy? Looks nebbish.

Slot doesn't strike me as someone who'd play a bunch of centre back profiles in the backline, but neither did Guardiola, so who knows.

If we were signing Geertruida, I think we'd have to get rid of Gomez, which is fine, but not sure that’s priority.

If Geertruida could play 6 consistently a high level, that would be sorely needed, but that would be very surprising. I think he's meant to be exactly what Gomez is, is he not? Right back, centre back, inverts, steps in at 6.

Joe Gomez did this season what Geertruida would do. Would seem redundant.

Josh Williams. Yeah, he's decent but I think his own pod is paywalled.

With the winger, it would be interesting to see if we see a player out there who can do everything, like a Mané, or if we have to do what we've done recently where we find someone with traits that are different to what we already have and then the combo of players gives us what we need. City did this with Doku and Grealish on the left. Two different profiles that in a sense, complete eachother. Though the end product isn't really there with either, but Haaland covers that up. So can we find someone that can totally supplant a Diaz or Salah, or is it someone that does something great that is different to what those two offer.

Oh yeah, Redmen too. Forgot about that one. I've never really listened to it.

Honestly, there aren't many. TLW is up there with anything. Anfield Wrap and Anfield Index, most of their stuff is paywalled and not worth paying for. The not paywalled stuff is either cut off on time (AI) or bog standard (AW).

I dont pretend to know anything I don't know these days. But now it's pretty easy with sites like fbref to have an opinion or make a judgement on a player you may not have watched much of.

Not sure they are getting relegated.

Someone will buy Openda for a lot of money and he is a good player but we're not talking about someone special or especially complete. He isn't levels above Nunez or whoever we have and for all the criticizing we can do of our forwards, which I will gladly partake in, they're all still pretty effective players. To truly upgrade on any of them, it has to be someone who has an undeniable special talent, or that is good enough at everything that he could play pretty much every game for us. Last summer, perfect couldn't be the enemy of good when we were upgrading the midfield, but it's not the same with the forward line.

Which part would that be? Getting past markers? Defending? Build up play? He is now turd at all of that. It's exclusively final pass and penalty area, where he is still excellent.

He's not good in general play and will get worse. I don't see how that's remotely controversial. It's also balanced by the fact the other forwards stink and just his stats make him better than them. None of that is disrespectful towards him.

We can keep playing him in the 11, wherever that is, but it should be with the understanding you probably have to sacrifice another attacking player somewhere to make up for it. The way City play so many attacking players, some of which like De Bruyne don't defend, is they basically play with 5 attacking players and 5 defensive players. There is still a balance of sorts.

The missed catch was fucking dreadful and it's absolutely the type of thing that leads to conceding.