Bar the injury to Ibra you are talking mainly about injuries affecting the defence, which wasn't your issue ! Mata hardly a guaranteed starter under Mourinho anyway. And Tuanzebe hardly let you down .. he looked damn good !
Liverpool - 2017/18
- Thread starter Rafateria
- Start date
AMong attackers, only Zlatan and Rashford played more mins than Mata.
Which bit are you disagreeing with? I stand by my claim that systems help players perform better. John Terry had a shocker in AVBs system but in Mourinho's system he's a rock. Lovren was brilliant in Southampton's system with two holding midfielders in front of him.
I'm not quite sure I believe that, since Liverpool's sources have claimed £35m + add-ons (though that converts to ca. €40m euros + add-ons anyway, so close). The Roma MD did say it would have to be his figure or nothing so likely he's padded it a little to please the masses.
oh far more than I would have thought. I stand corrected.
That's your opinion. I bet you wasn't saying that under LVG or when Mourinho first took over. He was absolutely dreadful. I think Lovren would be much better under Mourinho than Klopp. You guys always think your players are better. I had to put up with the following over the years.
Welbeck > Sturridge
Januzaj > Sterling
RVP > Suarez
Cleverly > Henderson
So you believe Liverpool sources than official announcement by Roma? I wouldn't.
Well that's your choice too
Well that's your choice too
It's common sense. Official announcement vs papers that makes up rumours.
I think Roma are on the stock exchange so in reality they have to be clear and correct with the fee?
I really like the kind of attacking unit Klopp is building. Lots of pace, lots of skill and players capable of dragging defences all over the pitch. Suits their quick snappy football well. Taking their style of play into account, Mane, Firmino, Coutino and Salah will again be awful for PL defences to deal with.
One CF who with good hold up play with have them sorted in attack. Hopefully we make some key signings too because we're well behind in this respect.
One CF who with good hold up play with have them sorted in attack. Hopefully we make some key signings too because we're well behind in this respect.
Chelsea are getting a % of the Salah fee. Probably £2.5 to £3 mil depending on the real price.
I have always been a big fan of Rojo's. He's one of my favourite players.
And in fairness, in most cases our players are better. RVP vs Suarez is certainly debatable. He won the league single handedly for us. Suarez couldn't do it for Liverpool.
Sturridge is miles better than Welbeck though. Not sure who would ever argue otherwise.
As for Cleverley/Henderson... they're both shite. But Clever Tom has won the league. Henderson hasn't.
That depends on whether you believe every official announcement or not or serious journalists (so not made up rumours). In this world I don't accepty something just because it comes from an official source, but you are entitled to believe anything you want to, personally I'm far more cynical considering the Roma's MD's previous statements. But hey it could be true, I'm not claiming it's not, just stating my cynicism.
Not sure why the individual squad comparisons are important tbh. Klopp has that attacking unit punching above their weight as the sum of parts is greater than the individuals put together in isolation. For Pool to win stuff, he needs to do the same with their defence which he hadn't been able to for most of last season. If he manages that, I doubt anyone would care who has the better individuals. It will be the same for us in the CL this season, individually, we won't have a team that should go places but with a proper system, we can.
I doubt we will sign a CF, I suppose in Solanke although he may start in the u23's we have some back up option there.
Unless Sturridge is sold I can't see us signing a striker, and given the goals our attacking options provide we probably don't need to.
Your point about someone with good hold up play is valid, Origi hasn't really consistently shown he is able to do that.
From an attacking perspective it's getting past those packed defences that Klopp needs to work on, but I still doubt we will sign a striker unless Sturridge is sold.
CB, LB and CM are the priorities now.
We had injuries to ibra, mata (our second highest scorer and played a reasonably high no.of minutes), pogba (he had an injury during a EL game iirc and his dad also died during the season end making him miss a couple of games including the arsenal game). Those are three of our best attackers. Without mane alone, you struggled to destroy teams it's needless to explain what would happen if you lose 3 of your best attackers together.
Our main deficiency in attack has been that, Mane aside (and sturridge and origi, but they've been pretty underwhelming last season), all our attackers prefer to do their work in front of the opposition's backfour. Signing a striker would help with that, but so would another Mane. Which seems to be the road we've gone.
Do you really want to go there? Remember a few hilarious Babel, N'gog comparisons. Babel > Ronaldo was a thing right?
Rojo was playing mainly LB under LVG and he's still awful there, but you're absolutely right in saying defenders look much better in a Mourinho team. His tactics compliment defensive players in general. You have to be near WC to look good in gung ho systems the likes of Liverpool and City play. That's why I thought people gave Stones undeserved stick at times. If he played for Mourinho, I am sure he'd look better.
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Do we have to do this listing our injured players again ? Mane, Lallana, Coutinho, Sturridge, Henderson, Ings and so on and so on. Both United and Liverpool had a huge number of injuries last season (though still not the highest in the PL - which was one of the relegated teams) but it hit us harder than you because we didn't have the most expensive and deepest squad in football history, we had a few teenagers on the bench most games. And still most of your injuries were to defenders - which remained the strongest part of your game.
TBH, this was also what was so impressive about Ferdinand/Vidic. They were never given the kind of protection that players like Terry/Carvalho were accustomed to and often had to deal with being exposed and under pressure. Both were supremely comfortable in one on ones.
Lovren is excellent in a well-drilled defence where there are bodies enough to cover for each other. Put him under pressure or leave him exposed a bit and he will struggle though. I see Rojo as being much the same.
Matip has that extra bit about him where he can do his job and help out his teammates when they are in trouble to boot as well that puts him well above Lovren for me,
With currently Sturridge, Ings, Origi, Woodman and Solanke on the books ... and in a system that could only utilise one of them, at most, per game .... we need to divest ourselves of strikers not accumulate more, unless we are buying a very high quality striker (in which case expect 2-3 to go, Woodman on loan as we simply don't have enough games for him in the reserves). I just don't see that happening since our stated interest has been in a CB, LB, CM and pacy wide.
Oh this bullshit 'we didn't have the most expensive squad' again. In terms of depth (actual players who were rated. So ignoring the likes of bastian and sakho aren't included)
You had 3 keepers (mig, karius, manninger) We had 2 (ddg and Romero)
You had 3 CBs (lovren,matip,klavan). We had 4 (Rojo Bailly smalling jones)
You had 2 LBs (Milner and Moreno). We had two (Blind and shaw)
You had 1 RB. We had two (darmian and Valencia)
Midfielders 4 (wijnaldum, can, Henderson,Lucas) vs us 5 (pogba carrick fellaini Herrera Schneiderlin)
Attackers 7 (mane coutinho firmino lallana origi sturridge ings) vs 7 (mkhi mata Lingard martial rashford Memphis Zlatan)
Barely much difference in attack. We had 1 extra midfielder who we sold in January anyway and barely featured before that. You also have ings who was injured in November I think as against Memphis who we sold in January. In defence we did have an additional CB in jones who for a change was fit for a while and an additional back up RB in darmian.
Yet you guys have barely any depth?
My first impression of Matip was that he was a clumsy giant with no pace at all but I was taken by surprise. He's deceptively quick and very agile especially for the player of his size. He can read the game well and can drive forward if need be. Good shrewd buisness by Klopp.
You have ignored, or don't comprehend, the whole point of DEPTH which is the QUALITY of the players. It's not just numbers since virtually every team in the league had the same quantity ! Ings was out all season - he's only made 6 appearances in 2 years). We have a stronger attack, which is where we were hit hardest by injuries, you have a stronger midfield and defence. However when the injuries hit your defence held up whereas our attack suffered, what is there to dispute there since the facts speak for themselves ? Look at the players you have listed, virtually all of yours are potential, or were, first team starters whereas that is clearly far from the case for us.
They should target Aguero so that their front line would be: Mané-Kun-Salah
That's true, there's been some crazy ratings/comparisons of players from all sides.
I think going off the last season, which can be unfair if a player suffered an injury or a freak loss of form, is about the best way of rating a player going into a new season and I would take Rojo at centre half over Lovren. That being said Rojo needs to calm his shit, you can't be the better player when you're off the pitch.
I agree with this insofar as squad depth is about quality as well as quantity. However I would argue Liverpool had more trouble than injuries/AFCON last season; their form in January was that bad that explaining it by the absence of a couple of key players does an injustice to the work Klopp has to do with his squad to make them competitive on all fronts.
We were piss poor in attack with or without those three players. Pogba was also quite awful infront of goal. We need to improve big time in attack and were well behind Liverpool in this respect last season.
https://www.redcafe.net/threads/interesting-read.30805/
Both fans overate their own players, you lot are amongst the most deluded fan bases in the world inspite of winning feck all in the last decade or so, the constant optimism every year in this thread(or thread related to Liverpool) always amuses me.
Oh and btw RvP(almost singlehandedly) took his team to a title victory. Many people will have Welbeck over Sturridge right now.
Welbeck over Sturridge right now wasn't the debate. Or if it was, can we do Suarez compared to RvP right now?
https://www.redcafe.net/threads/interesting-read.30805/
Both fans overate their own players, you lot are amongst the most deluded fan bases in the world inspite of winning feck all in the last decade or so, the constant optimism every year in this thread(or thread related to Liverpool) always amuses me.
Oh and btw RvP(almost singlehandedly) took his team to a title victory. Many people will have Welbeck over Sturridge right now.
Don't forget Woodburn
My favourite debate on here was Fletcher v Mascherano. Genuine debate.
However, I think it's healthy to overrate players from the team you support. It's better than being a negative whopper, draining the joy out of the whole enterprise.
My favorite was La Tellec and Babel over Ronaldo and Nani(that article I just posted was actually on Liverpool's OS, delusion runs throughout the club)
Actually best of them was Benitez vs Ferguson. How did that turn out?
I think i agree with all that, I think he will help you beat or perform better against bottom of table clubs. But who does he replaces in the starting line up. I think if every one is fit, he goes onto the bench, Is it worth having 50 million bench warmer?
I'd like to add that it doesn't help that Klopp isn't really good at defence. A different manager might be able to squeeze the best out of those defenders or form them into a unit but Klopp needs to have better players on those positions to make up for his own lack of skills (or interest?) in defence.
Don't know how we will line up but see no reason we can't accommodate him, Mane and Firmino in the same team.
It could depend on who we are playing, at the very least our bench will be better!
See you doing the usual 'Cafe add a few million on to the price mate.
Our defence hasn't been good enough for years, clearly in this window he is looking at addressing that.
It could well be so far the right players just haven't been available.
When it comes to transfers and numbers I believe official announcement over some journalist who didn't even see the legal documents and used only as a pawn by club to push their agenda/or whatever.
That's the number published by Roma, not CAF.