Could potentially win a medal for every club competition he has appeared in this season, including 2 with Porto!!
Luis Diaz
- Thread starter Frank Grimes
- Start date
Bingo. The guy's technical ability is something you don't really coach into a player. He'd be just as good playing for Spurs.
Diaz is a good example of Klopp's profile of first team signings - I would include Diogo Jota as well - but also those bench/back up players are paying dividends this season such as Minamino, Tsimikas, Konaté and even Origi many years back. The guy plays peanuts and still scores important goals and looks motivated AF.
As some of you said, Henderson may not be pure talent but the guy definitely acquired lots of maturity and consistency due to a well implemented system. Wish United had same leadership from Maguire, to place some perspective. Same can be said with other like Matip
As for Diaz, his potential will continue to flourish, sadly for us.
Henderson and Salah fits perfectly to Klopp system as they are proven great players in his system. Doubt anyone was saying that before they proved themselves in Klopp's system. It's all good with benefit of hindsight, now we can talk how Henderson was perfect Klopp player.
They may well have all had great seasons before joining us and also may be great players working in the system that they were used to .... however this doesn't guarantee they would be great fits for United.
This then causes real problems when they're shoe horned into new systems that they can't easily adapt to.
It could be argued that a GOOD manager can help them adjust and make the most of the situation and the undoubted talent of the players in question.
Seems to me though it'd make much more sense if the players we were pursuing were both a) excellent players in their own right and b) readily suited to the system United are currently seeking to employ.
Thinking about the player who is the subject of this thread - an excellent player obviously (hadn't known much about the bastard previously tbf) but also fits absolutely seemlessly into the way Pool play.
Compare that with Ronaldo.
GOAT. Nuff said.
However......does he fit in with what United are trying to achieve, the system we (Ole at the time) were trying to implement? Ole went on record stating that he wanted the fittest most hard working team in the league.
As wonderful as he is as a footballer, there is no way you'd include CR7 in such a system.
I said it at the time and it bears repeating. Never in a million years was Ronaldo a Solskjaer signing.
Rodgers was apparently at loggerheads with the transfer committee at Pool and wanted full control of the reigns including hiring and firing of players from the get go. There's an hilarious video of him saying exactly this the day he was introduced to the public, the faces on the FSG blokes were absolutely priceless...
The sting was that the transfer committee survived and Brenton did his Elvis impression. Klopp came in under no illusion that he was part of a team - ffs he wanted Brandt ahead of Salah
That transfer committee is the real brains behind Liverpool's success, some of them actual feckin rocket scientists I'm led to believe.
Klopp's a wizard as a manager but he weaves his magic via the unparalleled backroom staff he's inherited or brought in himself.
Let's hope ETH fits a blueprint that everyone behind the scenes at Carrington has meticulously developed or it's gonna be another long period in the wilderness.
EDIT
Lentwood are you bugging me or am I bugging you
So you sort of agreed with the point I was making, we signed good players and our managers had no clue.
Now to the actual point, there is no system that was consistently applied by our managers. We looked like bunch of strangers who had no clue what to do with the ball, this happened under Ole and Jose too.
We can't say Ronaldo doesn't suit the system Ole wanted to play when there is no system. Also managers are not rigid in their philosophies, people said Aguero's time is up as Pep wants more from 9, Aguero played almost every game he was fit. Klopp played with pure 9 like Lewandowksi at Dortmund and then converted Firmino into hybrid CF/AM to play CF position. Both couldn't have been more different.
Great managers know what they want, also they know how to get best out of the team. For some reason people have very narrow views on what mangers' want and how they cant work with xyz player.
It's very simple, people have watched players played under shit managers and broken systems for years, then concluded that we sign only shit players.
You're talking about one player here though who just happened to have the attributes that suit Klopp's system.
How many other players, that were already at Liverpool or City, do Pep or Klopp still use on a regular basis? Or did they make better players?
The fact is, their systems demand a certain type of player with specific attributes - hence why the recruitment is absolutely fundamental to it all
Liverpool had Firmino, Henderson, Milner, he even made Origi into the player capable of playing big role in CL semi finals.
Pep won league with 7-8 players in starting 11 who were signed before his time. Otamendi, Delph, KdB, Fernandinho, Sterling, David Silva, Aguero and yes, every single one of them improved under Pep and Klopp.
What are the common attributes between Firmino and Lewandowski, who played as 9s under Klopp? Or Lewa and Messi as 9s in Pep system, there are 0 common attributes between them.
Same with KdB with any of Busquets, Iniesta, Xavi. Or Walker with Dani Alves.
People have created some prototype player for every manager in their minds, when in reality, managers play players with different attributes. Ofcourse you can't play AWB in Pep system, that's extreme example.
Also is it by coincidence that these great managers never worked at clubs where recruitment team is poor?
Yeh agree with you here. It isn’t all on the manager but I do think he’s the most important piece of the puzzle. There are some managers that can extract more from players even if they don’t fit their exact style or system and I think Klopp is one of those. Of course more often than not the recruitment matches his vision like with Salah or Diaz and it all comes together but he can work with a variety of players.
I just don’t think Utd have got the manager right post Fergie and there’s definitely a portion of Utd fans who just can’t seem to accept that all of our managers have had major deficiencies. I’m hoping that Ten Hag might prove to rectify that problem.
See, whenever we have a discussion about a subject you tend to want to make things very absolute and very specific. Before you know it, we're talking about individual players again, which is not the point. It's not about whether Walker and Alves are strictly 'identical'....or Lewandowski and Firminho.
At a high-level, your point is that United have recruited reasonably well and that we have just had poor managers/coaches who haven't been able to get the best out of the players purchased.
I, and at least one other poster, responded by saying that it's unlikely that all five of the full-time managers United have appointed post-SAF can be completely useless and the problem relates to the lack of strategic direction in our recruitment. Specifically, not understanding how we want to play and which players fit that style of football.
It's not about creating this 'absolute' scenario whereby people are claiming that only a tiny group of individual specialists can play RB for Pep or CM for Klopp. That's not what is being said. However, there are a base set of attributes that a player must possess to be successful in each position in a Pep side or a Klopp side. Let's not even get into a discussion about what those attributes are - the point is, they know what they are looking for in each area of the pitch.
We at United have not understood what we are looking for. We have lurched from one strategy to the next. Under Moyes we bought Fellaini, whom he used as a target-man at Everton, to operate in the centre of our midfield. We then added Juan Mata, a highly-technical but physically limited #10, who we then proceeded to play wide to accommodate club captain and legend Wayne Rooney.
Now, even using this one window, we have evidence of my point. I am agreeing with you that Fellaini and Mata are not 'poor' players. I am agreeing with you that somehow, somewhere, some manager could work out a system which is successful and wins trophies and incorporates one or both of these players IF the other nine had the right qualities and complementary attributes. However, the key point is that when we signed these players, we didn't think about how they would fit into our side or our system specifically and hence, predictably, they struggled.
Extrapolate that out over 6/7 years and you get chaos and continual poor results on the pitch. Every time a new manager comes in, they inherit the FrankenSquad that their predecessors chaotically assembled behind them and left...making their job as 'Head Coach' near impossible.
I don't even know what's controversial about this argument at this point. Our recruitment has been very poor, I don't think that's even up for debate personally. That doesn't mean every player we have signed is poor, it means we haven't assembled a functional squad...and that's the key distinction.
Quite amazing people go on about adapting to the league however this guy has slotted right into the Liverpool side.
So all that just to say we hired poor coaches. We hired coaches who were washed up or not good enough.
Why people act as if suddenly Klopp made him good?
He has been great since last season, for both us and Colombia. And this includes Champions League games as well.
It was there for everyone to see, he was really good if you actually watched him.
Diogo Jota was nowhere near his quality and potential when he played for us, there is no doubt Diaz will be much better (excluding injuries etc).
He has been great since last season, for both us and Colombia. And this includes Champions League games as well.
It was there for everyone to see, he was really good if you actually watched him.
Diogo Jota was nowhere near his quality and potential when he played for us, there is no doubt Diaz will be much better (excluding injuries etc).
Not sure whether I am agreeing with you in principal though. I definitely never said or intimated that the players brought in by United were shite, because they are obviously not. Also they cost an outrageously pretty penny
and as you rightly pointed out they had been playing well for their current clubs.In hindsight they did not ideally nor stylistically fit in to a system..... because there wasn't a system to fit into.
The contention appears to be that it's the manager who drives everything and it's him/her who sets the tone and everything follows.
If we're using Pool as a template for getting things right (I know, I know.....) then the system was in place BEFORE Klopp arrived. I'm actually wondering how much the at-that-time much maligned transfer committee had an influence in Klopp's appointment.
I understand that it was an absolute no fekkin brainer to get Klopp in from a floundering Liverpool's perspective considering his credentials and experience, so no real scouting was required ( I could've done it
)......... however from Klopp's perspective he was a fekkin big fish in a very limited pond. The 'project' had to be right for him.
The pitch from Woodward was like trying to sell sand to the Eskimos. On the other hand Liverpool's situation was right up Klopp's street and had all the ingredients to attract him
Sleeping 'giant'
Massive fan base with rabid
supportWorking class/socialist perspective (fans, not owners)
A project where he'd be given time and resources to challenge, not a bottomless money pit but perhaps more than he was allocated at Dortmund facing the might of Bayern consistently plundering his players
NOT FEKKIN DISNEYLAND!!!!!
And most importantly a system already in place to attract and secure the right players to fit a particular footballing philosophy.
i.e. the system was in place before the manager. The fact that Klopp has implemented it so well is testament not only to his outstanding managerial acumen but also that he had a plan to follow and the expertise of absolutely top notch backroom staff, many of whom preceded him.
He is an excellent player and a great signing for Liverpool however in a way I think it has worked out well for Spurs anyway as we got Kulusevski instead who has been absolutely class for us and is much younger than Diaz.
Yes he looks like a really good player, be interesting to compare/contrast how Días and Kulusevskis careers pan out
Am I only one who thinks he might be a bit shit and benefitting from coming into a team on form and in a 'honeymoon' period? Shit is way too harsh obviously, but I'm not convinced by him. Next season will be interesting
Yeah, I think he's a decent enough player. A bit like Jota. He plays in a quality team, under a top manager. That has to help. I don't think he's this cross between prime Messi and Ronaldo that we are led to believe though.
I keep telling my pool mates, that Klopp is the reason some of their players look like world beaters, if he goes, some would drop a level or two overnight.
That said, not sure on Diaz, he seems good for their system, aggresive in pressing, strong and can take a man on.
Aggressive pressers is what he wants from his front 3, someone like Bowen would be a decent addition for them too, even if he's not a world beater.
Only if you want to disregard his performances for Porto and especially Colombia last summer.
He was the second best performer at the Copa America after Messi IMO.
I don't think this is beyond the realm of possibility - the comparison for me is Bruno Fernandes insofar as both were comfortably the best player in Portugal making the switch to massive English clubs and both hit the ground running.
Frankly though I think Bruno's struggles are down to some of the ridiculous goings-on at United - even a modicum of background research would show clearly that Ronaldo and Bruno have struggled to mesh for Portugal, so thinking that could translate at club level with someone who is charitably not a tactical genius was bold. I guess I just don't see the same happening for Diaz at Liverpool - especially with Klopp's recent extension.
I’m with you. I think he has some quality but I wouldn’t say he’s better than anyone Liverpool already have. He’s better than Firmino but Firmino is utter dogshit so it’s not a high bar.
Yeah I think that's a terrible take. He's kicked Jota out of our first choice XI and makes things happen for us at a time when Salah's form has fallen off of a cliff.
He’s a drifter. As in drifting in and out of games. No way is he a Mane or Salah replacement.
Nonsense, I have just watched the Villa game, he was everywhere. A true super player bought for significantly less the the likes of AWB, Sancho etc.
Better than Neymar, according to Jason Cundy. It's amazing that he gets paid to talk about football on national radio.
Have you seen Salah play since he came back from AFCON? Diaz has completely outperformed him.
Oh no doubts there, but that was kind of my question. I think, based on nothing more than a hunch watching, that this is his peak. Very much a product of coming into a flying team. I could of course be wrong and he might excel like mane, but he just doesn't look as solid a player as him for example. For his price he'll be a good signing most likely, but can't see him sustaining his initial burst of form
He seems a solid 7/8 out of 10 player currently. Haven't seen him have an awful game yet - but he probably doesn't have the heights of Salah either.
Perfect squad player though. Can play both flanks, works like a horse and seems to have the desire to win. He always looks angry and aggressive which I like. Not a fair weather fairy like our lads.
Perfect squad player though. Can play both flanks, works like a horse and seems to have the desire to win. He always looks angry and aggressive which I like. Not a fair weather fairy like our lads.
I am kinda expecting him to go up a level at some point.
He's paid to say dumb shit so people get outraged.
He's a significant part of the reason why they're a flying team. Unless you watch every minute of every game, you won't see the whole package. His influence isn't just G+A.
He does look very good, unfortunately. Annoying how seamlessly Liverpool are able to fit attackers into their system.
Too early to tell imo. He was roughly the same age as Mane was when he signed for Liverpool, and he went up a few levels during his time at the club. Especially since Klopp seems to be staying until 2026, there's nothing so far that indicates that he can't sustain this level under Klopp's reign (who has always done well with pacey wingers). If anything his immediate inclusion in the starting XI is surprising given that Klopp usually gives his signings time to ease into the team.
He's a constant threat and makes things happen in the final third, or at least causes some chaos which could lead to dangerous situations. Could see an uptick in goals in the future to a 20+ goals player if he becomes a bit calmer in the box and his decision-making improves further.
Liverpool's style of play suits Diaz to a tee, they have an elite manager who gives him concise instructions, and they're well-drilled and brimming with confidence. It's no surprise he's settled in early.
Which means more attention, which means more clicks, which means more revenue. I should know better than to get incensed but I always do. The issue for me is that he and people like him are making the football population dumber with their provocative 'hot takes.'
I’d say anyone who listens to Jason Cundy or TalkSport in general and takes anything they say seriously is already too far gone.
Agreed, but their toxicity is not just confined to the radio, it's all over social media as well.
He looks class, nothing about his style of play tells me he's a product of the team he's playing for. Had never seen him play or hardly ever heard of him before coming to the PL but he's fast becoming a personal favorite of mine, absolute joy to watch, I can see why both Liverpool and Tottenham deemed him too big of a talent not to push the boat for when he became available.
True! I also feel the media has gone a little over the top with praise for the lad when he has only been here 5 minutes, and as you say is playing for a settled team in top form.
Next season will be the real test. But that isn't in any way a criticism of Diaz.
Not for me.