Thiago is already 30 and Curtis Jones is a squad player at best. Hendo is also coming up to his twilight. Liverpool need to spend in the summer to stay at the top. They have no doubt arguably got the best manager in the world right now.
He's 29, he's also not the sort of player that's going to age badly - he doesn't rely on his physical attributes. No doubt we could do with frenshening up our midfield with Wijnaldum likely to be off and Hendo & Milner getting on but we're hardly on our last legs in that regard.
I've said previously that I've no doubt that at the right time Liverpool will cash in on Salah. The club is very pragmatic in that regard and know the easiest way to replace Salah is with £150m from selling him rather than keeping him for all of his best years. That may happen this summer but our track record of signing forwards has been pretty good of late so I'm comfortable with that.
The pace of Gomez and VVD is the reason for that imo but something else we're missing is the press, it's all but gone. Hendo in midfield is usually the catalyst but COVID and the constricted calendar must also be playing a part. Perhaps Klopp's just playing the long game and expecting to play most games of every competition this season so he's asking less of the players atm.
I agree. We were the hardest side around to counter attack on - the energy and defensive work of our midfield made it very difficult for sides to play through the pitch and VVD gobbled everything up if teams tried to go long or in behind.
I don't think Klopp's playing any sort of game though, he's just playing the hand he's been dealt - it wouldn't be an exaggeration to say that he was playing all we had for a number of weeks when Thiago, Ox, Shaq etc were all out. Maybe by some miracle Klopp will sign a CB or Matip will stay fit for more than 45 mins and we can start to put out a more settled side with a more balanced midfield or we're going to have to just battle through and rely on Thiago + a Shaq or Keita to provide a bit more creativity that we're not getting from our fullbacks right now.
For me the bigger worry has always been the lack of a genuine number 9
People calling for Trent to play as a right midfielder/winger and this are the two things that wind me up the most. We brought Origi on late on today and where did Klopp put him? On the left. We have a manager that does not want to and will not play with a typical number 9. It's not that Klopp is against playing with a tranditional CF because he did at Dortmund with Lewandowski but that's because he had Lewandowski. We don't have Lewandowski but have Salah and Mane and to get the best out of them you don't play with an out and out CF.
Klopp, similar to Pep, isn't a plan B sort of manager. They would rather tweak and or improve plan A than try to do something totally different. There will be times where you could say that's a negative but the reason why they've reached the levels they have is because their commitment to a particular way of playing. You cannot always have your cake and eat it - you have to accept that this is what you get with Klopp and the good massively outweighs the bad. It's the same story with transfers - he's not going to sign any old CB and in the short term than might weaken us but he's making the decision for the long term.
