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Centre Half situation

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Gary25

Gary25

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Few interesting snippets from Tony Barrett on the Anfield Wrap the other day...not suggesting he's always bang on, but he's usually one of the more reliable Journos.

Anyway, according to Barrett:

  • Toure expected to go (no surprise there)
  • Skrtel likely to as well
  • Touch and go whether Sakho goes, depending on form until end of season and/or size of offer(s) for him...if any. Another centre back will be signed if he does leave
  • Klopp wants a Matip-Lovren partnership next season
  • Klopp has high hopes for Joe Gomez and wants him to be one of our 4 centre back's
 
Looks like bollocks to me. I can't see any manager looking to turn over 3 of his 4 CBs and also install a youngster who he's never seen play !

Matip / Lovren / Sakho / NEW / Gomez could well be the 5 CBs we'll need (assuming EL football).
 
Frogfish said:
I can't see any manager looking to turn over 3 of his 4 CBs and also install a youngster who he's never seen play !
Click to expand...

But having seen the other three play he'll know the kid has to be an improvement. And from his comments in the weeks prior to Rodgers getting the sack it was pretty clear Klopp was keeping a close eye on us.
 
Kolo's time as a player at top level may well be up, but I'd like to see if we could keep him here on the coaching staff. He's the kind of individual whose value to a team and a club goes beyond his contribution on the pitch.
 
When your defense has been as bad as ours in the last couple of years, an overhaul is understandable.

Quite encouraging if true, that Klopp is willing to overlook the stats 'experts' love of Sakho and see him for what he is - a clumsy player that puts others under pressure and who is generally awful when we're under pressure holding onto a lead.

*Edit - the Palace crumble 2 years ago and the Southampton horror show last weekend had one thing in common: The Mignolet, Skrtel and Sakho combination.
 
Anyone think Lucas could be retained as a 4th choice centreback? Or have a couple of decent displays deceived us?

Strictly centre back though. Our midfield need to progress without him.
 
Don't you think our defence does too? In fairness to Lucas he's played reasonably well in that position when called upon, but acting as a stand-in with few expectations on you isn't the same thing as doing it for your day job.
 
I've always preferred keeping Gomez as a full back but if we're going to press our centre backs need to comfortable defending in one on one situations when it fails.

Gomez is perfect for that.
 
Jack D Rips said:
I think Gomez's preferred position, and the position we signed him for is CB.
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It was, but there are loads of centre backs who aren't quite trusted in their preferred position for a few years, so they normally play fullback to blood them. The concerning thing is that we could go into the season with potentially three of the four centre backs being fairly alien to the league and team.

Lovren hasn't been all that either, so I find it a touch remarkable that he's being assured of a place next season after 20 months of form that, the majority of the time, has been somewhere between average and piss poor.

It smacks of a jouno jumping on current manager preferences, a small amount of the fucking obvious and one shit game by our most experienced defender. Barrett's got form for this previously. We signed Firmino and straight away he said that Adam Lallana should be very worried about his future under Rodgers, then when Rodgers played Lallana in the first game of the season, he went off on his infamous tirade about how obvious it was to work out who signed who, because he started with Lallana. He's all over the place with his insider info.
 
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I fully support this sort of turnover where this bunch of CBs is concerned, given their overall incompetence over these few seasons. If Klopp would do it, I'd be over the moon. He did it at Dortmund in his first season, so yeah, I'd love to see it happen. Doesn't mean we'll necessarily improve right away, but the alternative is seeing the same bunch of guys screw up yet another season at the back. Hope they take the keeper with them too.
 
As I recall Gomez was persistently being played out of position at left-back (and some of Rodgers's selection were odd at the best of times). The one time he played centre-half he was much better than anybody we had hitherto deployed there this season.
 
In fairness to Rodgers, Gomez did well at LB on tour down under and, while that's of limited value as a long-term indicator, IMO it wasn't particularly off-the-wall to stick with him there when the season started, especially as our options were limited.
 
I'd be really disappointed if Sakho isn't one of the players getting sold. It is so obvious that he isn't good enough.
 
Disturbing that all 4 of our top centre backs are in essence worth selling for the right offer
 
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Out of interest, was watching a 'classic premiership clash' served up by my local network last weekend. The game was Everton vs Arsenal in 2002. Kolo was playing right wing. Up there in the front 4 with Henry, Ljundberg and Kanu.

He strikes me as the kind of player that would have made a success of any position. When he burst through I remember thinking he's going to be the best right back in the world. Wonder what made Wenger put him at centre back.

Still, for a few years he was a top notch CB.
 
Has Barrett's comments been backed up by anything in Twitter yet?
 
JurgenKlopp said:
I'd say, Toure, Skrtel and Lovern should go before him, in that order
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Yet Toure's been better than all of them from the word go and especially this season. The main justification people have for selling Toure is that he's older and ergo, people have had this mindset from the minute he signed, that he's finished. Even though his performances have indicated otherwise. He might not have long left on the clock, but he doesn't deserve to go before any of them, on merit.

Skrtel's had one bad game and people have chosen to forget the rest of his career.
 
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These podcasts. I assume they're all shit and have never listened to any of them. Any of them good? Any funny ones?
 
mark1975 said:
Skrtel's had one bad game and people have chosen to forget the rest of his career.
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One? 1? One bad game? Are you serious? One?

Did you not see the Crystal Palace match in the title challenging season when we threw away a 3 goal lead in about 5 minutes to draw?

How about the match against Stoke where we were losing 5-0 by half time?

Or did Skrtel actually play well in those matches?

Skrtel has had loads (and loads) of bad games for us, which is the reason some have decided it wouldn't be the end of the world if he was sold in the Summer.
 
Tinto said:
One? 1? One bad game? Are you serious? One?

Did you not see the Crystal Palace match in the title challenging season when we threw away a 3 goal lead in about 5 minutes to draw?

How about the match against Stoke where we were losing 5-0 by half time?

Or did Skrtel actually play well in those matches?

Skrtel has had loads (and loads) of bad games for us, which is the reason some have decided it wouldn't be the end of the world if he was sold in the Summer.
Click to expand...

Oh sorry, I didn't realise he was the only top centre half to have a few bad games. You could create a list as long as your arm with the number of bad games Terry, Kompany and even Carragher has had. It's a bit reactionary on the back of him being out injured for months and then returning clearly not match fit. If people were saying this earlier in the season (after his brilliant performance against City, for example), it might have a dose of perspective about it, as it is it's a bunch of dullards jumping on one bad match.
 
mark1975 said:
Oh sorry, I didn't realise he was the only top centre half to have a few bad games. You could create a list as long as your arm with the number of bad games Terry, Kompany and even Carragher has had. It's a bit reactionary on the back of him being out injured for months and then returning clearly not match fit. If people were saying this earlier in the season (after his brilliant performance against City, for example), it might have a dose of perspective about it, as it is it's a bunch of dullards jumping on one bad match.
Click to expand...

All that would be true except Skrtel has never ever been a top centre half.

Good when partnered with a top centre half but not when not.

Nobody in their right minds would put Skrtel in the same class as Terry, Kompany, Carra or Sami.

Do you seriously thinks he's that good and we're talking about a Liverpool legend here?
 
Somewhat slanted comparison IMHO. That list of names represents the absolute crème de la crème in that position. Skrtel is one of a number of players who aren't quite at that level but still qualify as top CBs, because there are an awful lot worse out there.
 
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Tinto said:
All that would be true except Skrtel has never ever been a top centre half.

Good when partnered with a top centre half but not when not.

Nobody in their right minds would put Skrtel in the same class as Terry, Kompany, Carra or Sami.

Do you seriously thinks he's that good and we're talking about a Liverpool legend here?
Click to expand...
Carra shouldn't even be in that company.
 
Judge Jules said:
Somewhat slanted comparison IMHO. That list of names represents the absolute crème de la crème in that position. Skrtel is one of numerous players who aren't quite at that level but still qualify as top CBs, because there are an awful lot worse out there.
Click to expand...

I agreed with that when Rafa left but years and years of seeing us concede soft goal after soft goal after soft goal, I don't any more. We haven't had a decent defence for half a decade.

You put up with bad performances from top centre halves because you get far far more good performances than bad. You don't really with Skrtel, or any of our other centre halves for that matter. They can all go and it's not the end of the world.
 
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