Matip ill give you but Gomez isnt injury prone.
Greenlizard0 PL & Championship Football Thread ** spoilers ** [2nd - 5th Feb 2021]
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Matip ill give you but Gomez isnt injury prone.
Caporegime
Regardless of what happens this season, expect next season to be even tougher on the players with the Euro's in the summer, another condensed fixture list and the African Cup of Nations in January.
Will the current Liverpool squad cope with that as well as the physical demands Klopp places on them? Not a chance in hell.
Will the current Liverpool squad cope with that as well as the physical demands Klopp places on them? Not a chance in hell.
Gomez not injury prone in the traditional sense (given the types of injuries) but he has now missed major time in 3/4 of the previous seasons.
Poorly calculated gamble for a club that wanted to keep winning and keep Klopp happy.(Ultimate I imagine the second point makes us more money due to the level of interest in the team)
Poorly calculated gamble for a club that wanted to keep winning and keep Klopp happy.(Ultimate I imagine the second point makes us more money due to the level of interest in the team)
Yes. The alternative was only marginaly safer, from a CB pov, than the decision we took. And as I explained in my post, overall we'd have been no better off had we gone down the other route of signing Kabak in the summer and selling Wijnaldum. In fact in the couple of months after VVD's injury we'd have actually been slightly worse off as we had more CB options available than midfield options then. It's only been the last couple of weeks of January that we've had more midfielders available that signing a CB in the summer (and losing Wijnaldum) would have been better.
I appreciate that most football supporters act like spoilt kids and want everything - they'd have had us sign a CB, keep Wijnaldum, sign 4 more forwards and then complain when the club puts £1 on a ticket to try to pay for all this. Unfortunately we have to deal in the real world and signing anybody and everybody wasn't possible, particularly in this season. I don't think that going into the season with 4 fullbacks, 4 cb's (including Fab), 7 central midfielders (not including Fab) and 7 forward was that bad, in fact it seems very well balanced. You can't account for having 10 players missing for 2+ months though.
And I disagree that Gomez is injury prone. I consider an injury prone player somebody that is clearly susceptible to particular types of injuries and or has an issue with one particular part of the body. Gomez has had 4 completely different major injuries to different parts of the body. He's just been incredibly unlucky.
To be fair, I don't usually agree with you but I do here. Our first 11 is better, but once you get beyond the first, say, 13 the drop off in quality is less pronounced in United's squad
That's at least partly down to the fact that our first 11 is ridiculously good though. It's a nice problem to have but it's not easy having back-ups for some of the best players in the world in their positions.
Take Utd as an example, it's far easier for them to keep Henderson happy than it would be us. Henderson will feel that he has a real chance of displacing De Gea. No keeper joining us will believe they're anything other than the League Cup keeper. It's the same story in both full back positions, with VVD and our front 3.
Caporegime
Part of Liverpools problem is that a lot of their players that have been absolutely world class are having duff seasons as well. Well, duff compared to their peak of the past 2 years.
Its really not as bad as many are making out either. Lots of injuries and this season is probably a lost cause with regards to the title. City are playing well, have a healthy lead and no one else is coming close to their level currently. Top 4 won't be an issue for Liverpool come the end of the season. Will those players hit those highs again next year? Who knows but Klopp is a top manager and will know what needs to be done. Signing half decent CBs in Jan wouldn't have had Liverpool fighting for the title again this year and would just have taken lots of money away from the summer.
TLDR; Liverpools expectations are really high and are not being met due to injuries and post PL dip/weird season. They are still doing fine.
Its really not as bad as many are making out either. Lots of injuries and this season is probably a lost cause with regards to the title. City are playing well, have a healthy lead and no one else is coming close to their level currently. Top 4 won't be an issue for Liverpool come the end of the season. Will those players hit those highs again next year? Who knows but Klopp is a top manager and will know what needs to be done. Signing half decent CBs in Jan wouldn't have had Liverpool fighting for the title again this year and would just have taken lots of money away from the summer.
TLDR; Liverpools expectations are really high and are not being met due to injuries and post PL dip/weird season. They are still doing fine.
I agree with this too, and it's obviously part of the issue. Any defender in the world is a drop off from VVD, less so Maguire. And having such an impressive first 11 is incredible. But it also makes chopping and changing trickier, and injuries to our top players hit harder.
Would I change the quality of our first 11 for a more balanced squad? No. But it's a pretty reasonable point to make that our drop off is big.
Arsenal's appeal over David Luiz's red card has been rejected however Southampton have had Bednarek's red overturned, presumably because they felt it wasn't even a foul.
It's been clear to me that Klopp/the clubs idea has been to have as strong a first 11 as possible with lots of flexible midfielders that can cover other positions. I really don't mind this strategy and you'd be hard pushed to argue that it wasn't succesful but there's a small gamble involved if you're without a couple of key players and end up with midfielders playing in attack/defence for a long time. As it happens the number and severity of injuries that we've had and the fact we've been without so many midfielders this season has meant we'd be no better off regardless of the strategy we took.
I agree, it's a reasonable point. This all links back into our transfer strategy in regards to back-up players though. I know you're very much in favour of us signing a centre forward as a plan b but who are you going to sign that's good enough to make an impact that will be happy playing 1 in 10? It's nigh on impossible to find somebody. Having Jota, who can play right across the front makes much more sense imo. Not only does he cover 3 positions instead of 1 but it's far easier to give him games than it would be a number 9 meaning you can attract and keep a better quality player.
It's been clear to me that Klopp/the clubs idea has been to have as strong a first 11 as possible with lots of flexible midfielders that can cover other positions. I really don't mind this strategy and you'd be hard pushed to argue that it wasn't succesful but there's a small gamble involved if you're without a couple of key players and end up with midfielders playing in attack/defence for a long time. As it happens the number and severity of injuries that we've had and the fact we've been without so many midfielders this season has meant we'd be no better off regardless of the strategy we took.
Caporegime
There are arguments to be made for injuries costing us this season, the mental fatigue of playing such a ridiculously high level of football for two years costing us and a lack of new faces in the summer costing us which a number of pundits, commentators and ex players warned us about in the summer. I think it's probably a mixture of all three although it's hard to judge how much better off we would be had Thiago and Jota stayed injury free.
Assuming we get top 4 this season, we desperately need a squad refresh in the summer. One CB to play alongside VVD and compete with Gomez, at least two midfielders to replace Gini, Keita and Milner and at least one attacker to replace Firmino. We haven't seen the best of him for almost 18 months and it's time to consider it's not an issue with his form, just the gradual regression of him as a player. Not scoring isn't a problem when he's creating space and chances for his teammates, he's done neither consistently for far too long.
Assuming we get top 4 this season, we desperately need a squad refresh in the summer. One CB to play alongside VVD and compete with Gomez, at least two midfielders to replace Gini, Keita and Milner and at least one attacker to replace Firmino. We haven't seen the best of him for almost 18 months and it's time to consider it's not an issue with his form, just the gradual regression of him as a player. Not scoring isn't a problem when he's creating space and chances for his teammates, he's done neither consistently for far too long.
Not surprising, neither is it when players that leave their leg hanging get away with it.
Caporegime
Competition for places is a good thing. It has arguably helped Shaw's game. It seem TAA is in the same boat and needs someone to push him.
To say we apparently have no depth and the drop off is significant we are still only 4 points behind United.
We have depth...we have no depth to that depth. No team in the league can suffer 8 first team players inc 3 in the same position and replace them. City arguably could but last season they lost Leporte and went to pieces at the back. We have 4 cbs out...not 1 and are hanging in on a title race.
If I listed LFCs midfield with Uniteds I know which im taking.
We have depth...we have no depth to that depth. No team in the league can suffer 8 first team players inc 3 in the same position and replace them. City arguably could but last season they lost Leporte and went to pieces at the back. We have 4 cbs out...not 1 and are hanging in on a title race.
If I listed LFCs midfield with Uniteds I know which im taking.
I think you've missed the point. It's very difficult to get genuine competition for somebody that will probably go down as a one in a generation fullback. Telles joined Utd with a decent chance of playing regularly. No RB in the world is joining us and genuinely expecting to play regularly because of how good Trent is. That makes finding cover for him more complicated and likely limits you to players not quite good enough but would rather be on the bench for us than start for West Ham, mercenaries or versatile players that will get games playing in other positions. Generally we've gone for the latter and relied on a Gomez or Milner.
Jota has been a great signing as he can play across the front line, and I wouldn't change him for anyone. He slots into our plan A perfectly and is worth having to rotate with our front three. However, I've mentioned before that we should have got Giroud when he went to Chelsea. I'd have taken Higuain for a season despite his faults. I'd take Milik. They're all players who would be happy being bit part, but are good enough to have an impact either if we're injury hit, or if our plan A isn't working.
When we have injury problems, I'd prefer us to say (for example) "well we don't have Salah, we need a way to win which doesn't utilise him" rather than "we don't have Salah, let's bring in our second in line who's not as good and try to win in the same way".
Caporegime
Of course you would take Liverpool's midfield. You're a Liverpool fan. How's Thiago working out for you?
The point I was making was that Giroud wouldn't have signed for us. We don't play with a number 9 and like it or not, our manager doesn't do plan b's, meaning Giroud would be limited to a few sub appearances and League Cup games. No half decent player is signing up for that.
Caporegime
Tottenham are 4/1 in this game. Really surprised by that.
Caporegime
Dier lmao
Soldato
WTF is Dier doing there?!?