Fekir - Oh shit here we go again..

[dmishra]

Fekir is a left-footed AM/forward who likes to cut in from the right – just like Shaqiri. Forget financial considerations: purely in football terms would you be in favor of buying Fekir if it means Shaqiri will have to leave? Why or why not?

Don't see a huge degree of overlap between Shaqiri and Fekir tbh, either positionally or skill-wise.

Shaq almost exclusively plays RW, either in a 4-2-3-1 or a 4-3-3. Klopp tried playing him a midfield three once, and it lasted only 45 mins. Never played him as a no. 10 or a false 9 at any point during this season either to my recollection.

Fekir operates far more centrally than Shaqiri - in some of his earlier clips for Lyon, there are instances of him being on the right, but whatever I've seen of him of late has been very central. So he'll play either the no. 10 in a 4-2-3-1 or Bobby's false 9 role in the 4-3-3.

Skill-wise, Shaq's main qualities are 1) cutting in and shooting, and 2) providing a threat through crosses and set pieces.

Fekir's skillset seems to be a little different. While he does do a bit of cutting in from the right and shooting, in the central role, his main value is being a very dribbly / flicky / unpredictable pivot or no. 10. That's frankly quite different from what Shaq provides. He's also far more prolific than Shaqiri, with some very good instinctive finishing with both feet.

Also, I think he'd be a very interesting alternative to Firmino for the false 9 role. While Firmino's pressing, movement and positional brilliance is almost unparalleled across Europe, Fekir seems to have much better upper body strength and the ability to play back to goal. Nobody in our squad (apart from Mane) has that ability.

He'd be a very interesting player to add to our attack imo.

 

[Brizzle]

I love Shaq, I still think that if he'd played more in our 'blip' we could have turned one or more of those draws into a win... but let's not go there

 

[manwithnoname]

We need a central, dribbly, flicky pivot

 

[Silver Sean]

We need a squad that competes with Citeh. So we should be adding Fekir/Pepe/ etc plus keeping Deggsy and Lallana etc. We need more depth. And we need quality that wants to stay and do a job from the squad.
We're European champions, we've made record profits, and we have ambitious owners and manager. We need to get out of the mindset that we need 13 top players a few decent squaddies and some youngsters. We need to build the best squad in the country to overtake Citeh. The fucking blerts.

 

[rurikbird]

Don't see a huge degree of overlap between Shaqiri and Fekir tbh, either positionally or skill-wise.

Shaq almost exclusively plays RW, either in a 4-2-3-1 or a 4-3-3. Klopp tried playing him a midfield three once, and it lasted only 45 mins. Never played him as a no. 10 or a false 9 at any point during this season either to my recollection.

Fekir operates far more centrally than Shaqiri - in some of his earlier clips for Lyon, there are instances of him being on the right, but whatever I've seen of him of late has been very central. So he'll play either the no. 10 in a 4-2-3-1 or Bobby's false 9 role in the 4-3-3.

Skill-wise, Shaq's main qualities are 1) cutting in and shooting, and 2) providing a threat through crosses and set pieces.

Fekir's skillset seems to be a little different. While he does do a bit of cutting in from the right and shooting, in the central role, his main value is being a very dribbly / flicky / unpredictable pivot or no. 10. That's frankly quite different from what Shaq provides. He's also far more prolific than Shaqiri, with some very good instinctive finishing with both feet.

Also, I think he'd be a very interesting alternative to Firmino for the false 9 role. While Firmino's pressing, movement and positional brilliance is almost unparalleled across Europe, Fekir seems to have much better upper body strength and the ability to play back to goal. Nobody in our squad (apart from Mane) has that ability.

He'd be a very interesting player to add to our attack imo.

I agree with many of your observations above, but these are just nuances of each of their attacking games – if you go into this level of detail you will find that every single player on the planet has a different skill-set (because indeed they do!). I'm looking at it from the standpoint of the bigger picture – how does each player fit into the team structure, what do the offer in terms of defense vs attack and do they attack mostly by looking to receive the ball in space or to feet? So for instance even though Sturridge and Shaqiri have very different attacking styles, in the overall structure I considered them largely interchangeable last season – because both offered little defensively (so the CMs had to be more disciplined to compensate), both mostly received the ball to feet and if you brought one of them off the bench with 20 minutes to go you would be hoping for the same thing: some cutting edge and guile in order to create or score a goal. You wouldn't bring either of them to energize the pressing game or to stretch the defense with pace, for example, you have Milner and Origi for that.

I think Fekir would largely perform the same role as Shaq or the departing Sturridge, albeit from a more central position – someone to add a bit of guile and cutting edge at the expense of defense-stretching speed and defensive contribution. I can only think of a limited number of situations where having two players like this on the pitch would be preferable – in most games and game situations you would rather substitute one of them for for a player with different strong qualities. This is why I think we ended up buying Shaq AFTER the Fekir deal fell through – clearly he was called upon to fill the void left by the collapse of the deal for the French-Algerian playmaker. So now that our original first choice is available at a lower price (I'm sure it's not €15M though – probably closer to €30M), do we go back for him and let Shaqiri go (having made some nice quick profit) or stick with the Powercube? Or go in a completely different direction with someone like Pepe?

 

[Hyena]

Would be a bit sad if he missed out on a CL medal just because we messed him around for a year before buying him. 😗

 

[bluebell]

The amount of games we have next season means everyone will get a chance to prove themselves. Shaq more than pulled his weight with 6 goals and 5 assists

 

[Peatcheo]

I understand circumstances can change but James Pearce has been fairly adamant that we will not be going back in for him.

 

[bluebell]

Liverpool have renewed their interest in Lyon playmaker Nabil Fekir but will not pay the £53m fee they agreed with the Ligue 1 club for the 25-year-old France international last summer. (Le Progres, via Mail)

 

[Halmeister]

I'd have him, I like him. Good player. We've just given Ox a new contract, so let's give this cripple one too.

 

[bluebell]

I'd have him, I like him. Good player. We've just given Ox a new contract, so let's give this cripple one too.

For €20m, yes, but not for what they're asking for, they can do one.

 

[tombrown]

[bcolor=transparent]​

 

[rurikbird]

The amount of games we have next season means everyone will get a chance to prove themselves. Shaq more than pulled his weight with 6 goals and 5 assists

He definitely did and contributed a lot in the first part of the season – but remember that Klopp had to change the system to accommodate him (and Fabinho at first). After the switch back to 4-3-3 Shaqiri has not been seen. That's why there are legitimate doubts about his future – a player has to work in our main system to be useful, no?

 

[bluebell]

He definitely did and contributed a lot in the first part of the season – but remember that Klopp had to change the system to accommodate him (and Fabinho at first). After the switch back to 4-3-3 Shaqiri has not been seen. That's why there are legitimate doubts about his future – a player has to work in our main system to be useful, no?

He has grown on me., He is no doubt working hard to fit into the system. I would like him to have one more season before he is shipped off.
Seeing that we'll be competing for WCC, Charity Shield, League Cup, FA Cup, PL and CL, we need depth.

 

[Modo]

Let's say that this is real, which it most likely isn't...
Signing Fekir, who can play as an AM and behind the striker, would that mean that Ox will be asked to play on the wing in games, since the only other option we have is Shaqiri?

 

[moron]

Fekir is a left-footed AM/forward who likes to cut in from the right – just like Shaqiri. Forget financial considerations: purely in football terms would you be in favor of buying Fekir if it means Shaqiri will have to leave? Why or why not?

No, i think Shaq has a lot to offer which is unique amongst our players, plus as much as I would like Fekir .. that so called injury fix he has had is a worry and I think Shaq is like the harder members of our squad who are available most of the time.

Gini, Hendo, Milner ... workmen mids,
Ox, Keita, Lallana ... our ball carriers ...none are reliable.

Shaq can play as Right Mid or Salah cover.

So is Fekir the AM, LM, Mane cover player ? Also am not sure the type of dribbling he offers is the type we need for our team, can he run at pace with the blasting through opposition defencea like a Hazard etc.. ?

 

[MaBigTip]

I may be weird but I'd sign him for the €30 million just because he put Man City to the sword single handedly this year. If he could do that 3-7 more times next year he'd go a long way to helping us win a number of trophies.

1 goal and 1 assist. Besting City at theirs 1-2.

 

[Mors]

Apart from if he's got the same stuff in his system that Remy had when we put him through a medical, I can't see why we wouldn't be revisiting this IF he's now considerably cheaper. Klopp went back again for Virgil. Gotta be something dodgy in his medical. Although it's not stopped him playing this season as he's played 40 games..... To be fair he's played like 50, 40 and then 40 games over the last few years, so there's fuck all wrong with him physically.

 

[manwithnoname]

Apart from if he's got the same stuff in his system that Remy had when we put him through a medical, I can't see why we wouldn't be revisiting this IF he's now considerably cheaper. Klopp went back again for Virgil. Gotta be something dodgy in his medical. Although it's not stopped him playing this season as he's played 40 games..... To be fair he's played like 50, 40 and then 40 games over the last few years, so there's fuck all wrong with him physically.

Going back for Van Dijk is hardly comparable, WE called off the Fekir transfer because of medical advice.

 

[bluebell]

"Liverpool offer £45m for Nabil Fekir transfer and propose five-year contract offer"
https://www.dailystar.co.uk/sport/f...Nm2BEFB0lRHm2o3pq3IYvYpT_AVp0nziuQAye9yeMRL7w

 

[juniormember]

"Liverpool offer £45m for Nabil Fekir transfer and propose five-year contract offer"
https://www.dailystar.co.uk/sport/f...Nm2BEFB0lRHm2o3pq3IYvYpT_AVp0nziuQAye9yeMRL7w

What, so we waited till he became a year older and offered a fee only 5m or so cheaper? Bollocks.

 

[bluebell]

What, so we waited till he became a year older and offered a fee only 5m or so cheaper? Bollocks.

I 100% believe the owner of Lyon is holding out for €50m, if we are interested I doubt we would be willing to pay any more than £25m

 

[6TimesaRed]

Defo legit..

 

[6TimesaRed]

 

[white-sox]

That's not real. Just look at Klopp's teeth.

 

[Halmeister]

It's strange that the medical team found something before Fekir signed, but they weren't able to suss out the fact that the Ox is perpetually injured, too.

 

[737Max]

I wonder if all these stories of a fall out between Salah and Klopp has legs? No smoke without fire, especially with the latest sports saying he won't move this summer but will reevaluate next summer.

 

[Red Bird]

Sometimes the fire is just host air from an AS.