Froggy: have to agree. There may be room for debate about the level of investment from the owners but I honestly don't think there is about the van Dijk thing.
Klopp
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Can anyone honesty say the likes of Maguire wouldn't have instantly improved us after having to watch Klavan plod around the pitch against City?
It's criminal we didn't strengthen CB VVD notwithstanding
It's criminal we didn't strengthen CB VVD notwithstanding
No-one can honestly say Maguire (whom I also rate) would have instantly improved us either. Klavan himself arrived with plaudits from ITKs in Germany, and was intended as 4th choice in a squad including van Dijk anyway.
The van Dijk affair is a difficult one.
There's merit - judging by the press reports - in the opinion that he was the sole target. It's possible, but perhaps less likely, that there were other targets but we were tight-lipped after the public withdrawal of interest and the fuck up there.
But it's been done to death, the long and the short of it is that we were crying out for a first choice CB, we know the club could see this because we targeted one, yet still ended the summer without signing one.
The issue with Klopp is that he isn't particularly tactically astute (or it appears that way defensively at least), but what he is is a terrific motivator and man-manager and the collective team around him clearly knows how to improve a player. It just seems like to be successful he needs a squad of top quality or on-the-cusp-of-top-quality players, so I can see why he's not rushed out and bought 47 players.
I had three question marks from the summer:
1) Robertson. I didn't think he was good enough the 12 times or so I saw him last year. He's already surpassed last year's level in the couple of performances I've seen so far this year.
2) Oxlade-Chamberlain. Big fee for a player who had vast potential 5-or-so years ago, but hasn't really lived up to it since his move to Arsenal. I'll reserve judgement on him until the end of the season.
3) No new CB. Personally, I thought we needed at least one top quality CB - I would have been happier with two. It's clear Lovren isn't good enough at this level, he's capable of some great games but is never going to be consistent enough. I would actually level the same at Matip, I think we'll eventually replace Lovren then we'll find ourselves looking at the other half of the partnership. Don't get me wrong, I think Matip on a free is and was still a great deal.
There's a lot of individual errors happening at the back that suggests the personnel isn't good enough. Klopp seems content to wait for the big pieces of the puzzle rather than make incremental changes in quality, which is fine so long as it doesn't cost us a place in the CL this year. There is a school of thought that suggests that Klopp is content with the squad, but I'd contest that all this chopping and changing in the back five (keepers being messed around especially so) points more to the fact that he doesn't trust what he has there at all. Every position in the back five is up for grabs it seems, with perhaps only 4-5 of the front six set in stone.
He deserves far more time, that shouldn't even be in question. We've improved in a lot of areas, the main bug bear is that the headache from Rodgers' time is still there
There's merit - judging by the press reports - in the opinion that he was the sole target. It's possible, but perhaps less likely, that there were other targets but we were tight-lipped after the public withdrawal of interest and the fuck up there.
But it's been done to death, the long and the short of it is that we were crying out for a first choice CB, we know the club could see this because we targeted one, yet still ended the summer without signing one.
The issue with Klopp is that he isn't particularly tactically astute (or it appears that way defensively at least), but what he is is a terrific motivator and man-manager and the collective team around him clearly knows how to improve a player. It just seems like to be successful he needs a squad of top quality or on-the-cusp-of-top-quality players, so I can see why he's not rushed out and bought 47 players.
I had three question marks from the summer:
1) Robertson. I didn't think he was good enough the 12 times or so I saw him last year. He's already surpassed last year's level in the couple of performances I've seen so far this year.
2) Oxlade-Chamberlain. Big fee for a player who had vast potential 5-or-so years ago, but hasn't really lived up to it since his move to Arsenal. I'll reserve judgement on him until the end of the season.
3) No new CB. Personally, I thought we needed at least one top quality CB - I would have been happier with two. It's clear Lovren isn't good enough at this level, he's capable of some great games but is never going to be consistent enough. I would actually level the same at Matip, I think we'll eventually replace Lovren then we'll find ourselves looking at the other half of the partnership. Don't get me wrong, I think Matip on a free is and was still a great deal.
There's a lot of individual errors happening at the back that suggests the personnel isn't good enough. Klopp seems content to wait for the big pieces of the puzzle rather than make incremental changes in quality, which is fine so long as it doesn't cost us a place in the CL this year. There is a school of thought that suggests that Klopp is content with the squad, but I'd contest that all this chopping and changing in the back five (keepers being messed around especially so) points more to the fact that he doesn't trust what he has there at all. Every position in the back five is up for grabs it seems, with perhaps only 4-5 of the front six set in stone.
He deserves far more time, that shouldn't even be in question. We've improved in a lot of areas, the main bug bear is that the headache from Rodgers' time is still there
Good summary. There's just one bit I'd put slightly differently, namely Klopp not trusting the squad at all. My guess would be he sees it as an OK basis pro tem, knows full well that it needs further improvement but isn't going to succumb to the "Do something - anything" school of thought, i.e.change for change's sake which doesn't actually improve things in the end. I suspect this is why we didn't go for any other CB when the van Dijk fiasco occurred and, if it is, I support him over it.
I don't think it's that he doesn't trust the squad at all, but I do think that only Matip has nailed down a place in back five so far.
He doesn't feel like the quality in the market is good enough to be an improvement, so is sticking to what he has. That's fine. But I think the amount of rotation in the back five suggests he doesn't feel like what he has is good enough either. He's used a different back five in every league game so far, that's 10 changes and eight goals conceded in four games. The reasoning behind dropping Mignolet for the Arsenal match doesn't stack up either.
If you look at his lineups so far this year, you could easily make a case for the following being definite starters:
Firmino
Mané
Salah*
Henderson
Matip
The rest seems up for grabs, with Can and Wijnaldum at risk as soon as Lallana and Coutinho are fit and available. I can't think of another team that has a different keeper for each competition. Nor do I understand why Milner is suddenly out in the cold and Moreno is first choice at LB.
*this would have been Coutinho without the Barca debacle. The assumption is that Coutinho would be a dead cert for a midfield position, but we won't know for a few weeks yet.
So you agree that the only viable, quality option to strengthen our central defence - in the world - was Virgil Van Dijk?
Go for better now, or go for best later? How can you believe that Klopp genuinely thinks there are no better CB in the world than ours?
He's set a transfer target and is looking at it long term.
If the question is whether another squad option coming in would have been better, which I'd agree with, then it'd make sense.
He's set a transfer target and is looking at it long term.
If the question is whether another squad option coming in would have been better, which I'd agree with, then it'd make sense.
Go for better now. Not reinforcing that CB position over summer was fucking criminal. And, as we have already seen, we're shipping goals at an alarming rate, conceding an average of TWO goals every single fucking game.
You like to use this 'average' stat don't you.
By the same token, using stats to suit arguments, we've kept clean sheets in 50% of our league games so far.
Defending is obviously a problem (but it's not just the defenders, the midfielders have been shite at covering). But you don't half go extreme to make your point.
But in the case of van Dijk we publicly ended interest and it was clear we would only come back to the table in the event that Southampton invited bids from us.
So are we to believe that we'll only ever address the CB problems should Southampton decide to sell? Or are we waiting for van Dijk's contract to be up?
In this instance there simply had to be other targets identified - that's what makes it 'criminal'.
I don't think it was a shambles, far from it. I think we were about 75% of the way there this summer, but there's one very large blot on the club's copybook.
The club released the statement publicly ending their interest on 7th June, then, it appears, sat on their hands. That decision - regardless of who made it - could define our season and be the difference between making the top four again or not. We've conceded 13 goals in seven games in all competitions so far, five against one of the PL favourites and three against Watford.
The 4th place last year raised expectations, in the same way that Klopp's arrival did (I believe he also said he'd have a league title in three years in that first press conference). Klopp has also said that we are going after the league this year, but surely anybody can see that that defence (and elements of the midfield) are not up to snuff.
To be clear, I think Klopp should stick around for a long time yet, but there's no denying that the one key decision to not sign a CB over the summer could well set us back another year because the only thing our current back five (any permutation) is good at is leaking goals.
None of them could do it with our limited budget except maybe Rafa. But would you want to watch us.
In that climate at that time we'd have to pay about £56m for a decent squad player. On top money Not worth it.
I really think that, these days, Rafa, when he doesn't think his team has a chance of winning anything, actively seeks out arguments with his board - not to achieve anything positive but just to exercise his intellect. It's a perverse kind of displacement therapy. If he worked under FSG he'd be staging rebellions for the media within about a month of arriving.
That's a little bit unfair to him really.
Sorry, not true. Rudiger moved to Chelsea for £34m early in the window and Sanchez moved to Tottenham for broadly the same later in the window. Neither the finished article, but both with huge potential for a third less than the money that VVD would have cost and both arguably better than Lovren already. Maguire moved for half that fee. There were CBs available that would have been an improvement now and in the future, but they didn't fit the criteria of 'must be VVD'.
Signing a player like the ones above would have been a longer term strategy for sure and we'd have had to wait for some development, but far better than the short term one we are currently employing of sign no one and rotate the shit we already have.
Would they have come to us for that price at that time in a bidding war with Chelsea or Tottenham London lights Coutinho money etc.I don't think so.
We'd have been competing with Chelsea for Rudiger, arguably that didn't have a negative impact when we were up against them for VVD early on or Ox late in the window. We'll never really know.
Sanchez moved to Tottenham very late, but again he was arguably available earlier and we could have secured him before Tottenham raised their interest. Again, we'll never really know.
Maguire (for completeness) signed for Leicester from Hull, neither of which had great seasons. The lure of Liverpool and CL was enough for Robertson to swap Hull for Liverpool, I dare say we'd have beaten Leicester to Maguire too. But Maguire wasn't a serious example, more an example of the fact that there were plenty of CBs who moved for less than the very specific fee of £56m for a squad player that you quoted.
There's an argument to be had that if top tier wasn't available, a high potential CB who could push Lovren and replace Klavan in the squad was the next best alternative.
Not what I'm saying. I think Klopp looked at the CB options that we (a) knew about and (b) could expect to get, and decided that none of them would strengthen us enough to make the signing(s) worthwhile. I also think he's likely to be in a better position to judge that than any of us are, especially against the background of LFC's less than glorious record of p!$$ing money away on back-up options (in various positions) and watching them fall short. Last but not least, I'm willing to bet nobody at the club really thought our public abandonment of the van Dijk signing would be the end of the story.
Is it? Do you honestly think his current strategy of poking Mike Ashley with a stick every few weeks is going to achieve anything constructive, other than his own dismissal? I certainly don't think Rafa believes it's going to result in anything else, and, with his family now rooted in England, he's resigned to the pointlessness of it.
No he isn't. He thinks Ragnar Klavan is good enough to play at CB against Man City. If nothing else he should have brought in a back-up CB who is better than that fucker.
And while we're at it, if he thinks there's nobody apart from VVD that would be an improvement on Dejan Lovren, he's fucking insane.
Regardless, for this summer at least, it was, and from the outside looking in it certainly appeared that all of the club's eggs were in that particular basket.
I think Kloppo is great, I'm glad we have him. His attacking football when we are on top form is bloody beautiful to watch. I've backed his judgement in the past on various issues, such as (but not limited to):
- Signing first choice (or at worst a top quality alternative cf. Mané v Götze)
- Keeping his powder dry in the first window to assess the squad
- Milner at LB until he could find a suitable alternative
- Firmino as false 9
- Signing Keita for next season when it became clear that he couldn't move this window
I'm not saying (neither BTW do I think Klopp is making out) that there are no CBs out there better than Lovren or Klavan. The question of value for money isn't that simple though. It's exactly because our budget, decent though it is, won't match that of the Chavs or City that we have to avoid wasting it on "anybody would be better than X"-type signings which rarely, if ever, turn out well over the longer term.
Incidentally, when I said I don't think we regarded our statement on van Dijk as the end of the story I don't mean that I thought we'd go after someone else. I mean that, IMO of course, we made that statement only to chill the fuss down and that we've intended throughout to go back in for van Dijk at some point. I wouldn't wager the farm on it but I reckon it's a decent bet that he'll be a Liverpool player by this time next year and, by extension, that this is one reason we didn't buy someone else.
Incidentally, when I said I don't think we regarded our statement on van Dijk as the end of the story I don't mean that I thought we'd go after someone else. I mean that, IMO of course, we made that statement only to chill the fuss down and that we've intended throughout to go back in for van Dijk at some point. I wouldn't wager the farm on it but I reckon it's a decent bet that he'll be a Liverpool player by this time next year and, by extension, that this is one reason we didn't buy someone else.
I get that, but there comes a time when the club had to seriously consider alternatives to a problem that they'd decided was big enough to spend £60m on - a transfer record for us.
Effectively, by doing nothing, we've played exactly the same game Barca did over Coutinho but in a less vocal way. We may have banked on them caving eventually, but they didn't (just as we didn't with Coutinho) and we had no contingency.
He may well be a Liverpool player next summer, but it's the season spent with no CB reinforcements that will harm us. That's the failure, not just not signing VVD but signing no cover whatsoever.
I think he'll be signed in January. Not ideal, but better than getting another Klavan on the books, isn't it?
Isn't the major criticism of the Liverpool transfer policy over 17 years that we buy anyone rather than *someone*. I appreciate the fact we didn't just buy anyone. There's always January.
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