We have been incredibly unfortunate with injuries this season. I think 4 top quality starters with increasing support from the academy players would be fine.
Firmino
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We have been incredibly unfortunate with injuries this season. I think 4 top quality starters with increasing support from the academy players would be fine.
I think it's a combination of things.
The sort of (unfortunately common) mistakes you see from simple bad positioning, loss of concentration and other random awfulness you'd hope could be cut out to an extent by having better players.
I believe there are wider systemic issues however as some of the stuff we have seen over the last few years (such as the repeated panicked collapses) cannot be so easily attributed to specific individuals.
I see a lot of parallels between us and City. They have spent a fortune on defenders over the last few years and still have the same problems.
It's hard to believe that every single one is actually a terrible player. Savic for example now plays for the defensively excellent A.Madrid.
They can afford and attract the superstar defender(s) in their continued attempts to mask the wider issues. I'm not so sure we can.
So your not looking for a 20 plus a season striker?
We are always unlucky with injuries. We need a much bigger, higher quality, squad than we have now. 4 players would have covered this season - nowhere near enough for next, IMO.
No. Not really. I'm looking for a high scoring forward.
£60m could get you Dembele from Dortmund
It won't the market's gone shit crazy. Hazard and Mbappe being touted at £100m
Higher quality - Yes. Bigger -Yes. More than 4? Okay, 5 seems to be right to me for the whole season (including European and domestic cup games). More than that, I think, would be going overboard.
There are only so many guys of good/solid quality you can carry on the roster before you have issues with discontentment, lack of sharpness/form from lack of playing time, and stunted development of the younger players. Say, we picked up 5 quality guys this summer - and by that, I mean guys who would be close to the level of the incumbents (or even better), then the squad looks like this:
GK: Mignolet, Karius, Ward
LB: ???, Milner
RB: Clyne, Trent
CB: ???, Matip, Lovren, Gomez, Klavan
CM: ???, Henderson, Can
CM: Lallana, Wijnaldum, Grujic
AM/WF: ???, Coutinho, Mane
CF: ???, Firmino, Origi, Ings
Some of these guys cover multiple positions because of their versatility, so an injury, say, to Mane and Coutinho at the same time could be covered by the new AM/WF and the new CF, for example (or Firmino / Origi could be pulled out wide). Full backs aside, this staffing plan would almost provide (non-youth level) cover for 2 concurrent injuries at each position. That is already a very unfortunate situation. If you're so unlucky to get more, then, yes, some U23 guys would've to be drafted in.
In the setup above, the 18-man squad is pretty easy to determine (and still, we stunt Gomez's and Origi's growth, and Ings' diminishing value). If we're buying way more than 4 or 5 guys, we're going to struggle. Yes, I get that injuries happen and everybody will get their chance, but rampant injuries can also not happen for a period of time, especially earlier in the season. I'm not sure it's helpful for Klopp to have to deal with additional unnecessary distractions from overzealous staffing.
Besides, if I remember correctly, generally, clubs that are in the CL use a rotation of maybe 18 to 20 players in the squad for the season. Perhaps 22 tops.
You know what, you're absolutely right.
If we reduce our attacking intent, put more bodies in defence and Klopp changes his playing philosophy we'll absolutely have to sign a striker who's clinical because we won't be creating all those chances.
But why would we, when it's blatantly obvious that, due to injury, we haven't been able to consistently field our best 2 CB's.
When we have - WE'VE NOT LOST A GAME AND CONCEEDED FAR LESS GOALS!!!
That's even before we start a discussion on not being able to consistently field our best DM in front of them.
It's not "bleating on" about being top scorers , as inconvenient a fact as it is for your argument that we need better forwards.
It's about actually having central defenders that can do their job consistently at a high level - which Lucas & Klavan clearly can't.
Chelsea & Spurs success this season owes as much to being able to field their first choice players in these positions consistently - Vertonghen, Alderweireld, Wanyama, Cahill, Luiz, Kante & Matic have all played more frequently than Matip, Lovren & Henderson.
You're arguing for going to the likes of Bournemouth and scrapping for a 1-0 victory, achieved by a clinical striker putting his one chance away.
I'm arguing that if we had our best defenders on the pitch there's a lot less of a chance we'd lose a game we were 3-1 up in with 15 minutes to go.
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For the CL I think there's a limit for over 21 players (22 ?) but virtually unlimited for U21s. City for example had 19 players over 21 listed but a total of 39 players inc. 21 and under !
You're assumption above is that we are almost not selling anyone. I would not be surprised to see Klavan and Ings go, and Gomez and the club have a decision to make there too. Lucas looks to be gone but who knows. In any case every top club needs 5 capable CBs and we could be down to 2-3. I see two CBs inbound.
Keita is our top target for CM (goes down on knees and prays) but Henderson is now a sicknote as his recent history shows - and it's getting worse. We need 2 x CM.
Grujic has it all to prove but I liked what I saw before his injuries - I have high hopes. Brandt is rumoured for a Mane-like role on the other wing. With Sturridge & Ings gone (assumed) we'll need two replacements.
All of that is only barely covering departures never mind deepening the squad. I'd be surprised to see less than 7 inbound and expect it to be higher. We can't rely on just our youngsters to cover in CL and key PL matches. Nobody else does and we haven't exactly been successful with bringing youngsters through over the past 10 seasons or so. BTW one of the CL semi-finalists (I forget which one) had an average team age of 31 in the last round and most PL winning teams have an average over 28 yrs old. Youngsters are for the future and shouldn't be expected to be able to support a PL or CL title bid. AA clearly looks ready though that said, but he's the only one.
As for over-zealous staffing, maybe ask United, Chelsea, Arsenal and City if that is an issue for them, injuries badly hurting United and Arsenal at times this season. Spurs' relatively small squad (still substantially stronger in depth than ours), got away with it this season as they have been very lucky with injuries until recently. Competition for places breeds keener more determined players than those virtually guaranteed a slot week-in week-out.
It's not just recently. If you check the Physioroom historical 'league' standings for the number of 'player games' lost to injuries, under all of our recent managers over the past few seasons we seem to have had a poor injury record, amongst the worst in the PL. Arsenal have a similarly poor record and United's isn't good.
Chelsea on the other hand are almost always near the bottom of that league (least number of 'player games' lost to injuries) for whatever reason. it has certainly helped their title campaigns. I have no idea whether that is due to training regimes / medical staff and technology or pure luck.
Drugs? It's not as if Conte doesn't have previous. Allegedly
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If you look at some of our injuries its quite clear that they arent a result of Klopps training or philosophy. Coutinho and Mané being the best examples.
I'm loath to say we've avoided the hamstrings party we got going last season lest it happen bit it suggests we solved that balls up.
Well we've changed something alright but we still are amongst the worst for injuries this season despite not having European football.
Diet is probably as big a factor as the training but there's fuck all data about either made available publicly. Football overall always seems about 5 years behind the other top sports.
Take Rooney's diet, some of which is typical in English football:
Compared to Messi, which is more typical of top athletes:
Can has struggled with his calf for a few years now.
You're in the wrong game.
Your nutritional awareness shows the truly masochistic/hedonistic nature of your chicken nugget binges.
I wouldn't have much credibility as a 16 stone (+?) nutritionist.
The anti inflammatory approach to food though does seem to improve players ability to get on the field week in week out and extends careers too.
I go through phases with it (much shorter than my nuggets phases unfortunately) but my inflammation levels definitely go down when i've done it for a few weeks.
How do you measure your inflammation levels?
Just say you are a professional that obviously doesn't take his work home with him
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