He is but whilst he's still at the club it doesn't make much sense to go for him.
Jones + 20m for Ramsay? Wouldn't excite me too much but I guess it improves the squad.
Midfielders other than Bellingham
- Thread starter rurikbird
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Jones + 20m for Ramsay? Wouldn't excite me too much but I guess it improves the squad.
So much doom and gloom recently.
I mean have a moan I get it. But then I think of the number of times we’ve been here in the past and we’ve still won trophies. Then I look at teams like Napoli for instance. Completely dismantled one season and a season later they are on their way to the scudetto.
In other words, all is not lost. Maybe an end of an era but there’s always hope. It’s how we roll.
I mean have a moan I get it. But then I think of the number of times we’ve been here in the past and we’ve still won trophies. Then I look at teams like Napoli for instance. Completely dismantled one season and a season later they are on their way to the scudetto.
In other words, all is not lost. Maybe an end of an era but there’s always hope. It’s how we roll.
Might be something to do with the majority of of the recruitment team leaving in successive summers. Managers do not have time to be regularly out there assessing alent. Nobody really doubts Klopp's ability to judge a player, but he needs the right short list to assess and pick from. Let's not forget that neither Salah or Mane were his first choice. It's about having the right two of three players identified for each position that need filling. Compiling those shortlists at this level is multiple peoples jobs
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However, the recruitment team need to have influence. Do you think those with the data would back a Henderson renewal ahead of a 22 year old kid with the right stats?
Klopp tumps everyone but seems to have pissed off the recruiting team.
Do we know if it’s true he pissed off the recruiting team? Or was it…
- They just got wanted a break and maxed out. For e.g. Edwards still hasn’t found a new role still year on
- Did they leave partly due to being under funded compared to other top teams by those above them?
- Were they just mostly another BS black box data scientists who don’t know what they were doing (like the ones that used to work with me) anyway since losing City’s login to their scouting database?
he’s cheaper than Jude, it’s all that matters
Gravenburch Gallagher and Mount for 100m sounds about right.
Btw anyone watch Wolves 2nd goal today? Look at Nunez on the right wing how he gets away from 2 players and pulls the ball back on the byline. Something none of our midfielders could dream of doing...that's the quality he has on the ball...always looking to get away from players, dribble out of tight areas or player closing him down.
Btw anyone watch Wolves 2nd goal today? Look at Nunez on the right wing how he gets away from 2 players and pulls the ball back on the byline. Something none of our midfielders could dream of doing...that's the quality he has on the ball...always looking to get away from players, dribble out of tight areas or player closing him down.
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Mount is minimum £60m, Gallagher £40-50m and Gravenbach is £40m, so you're looking £140m.
Wasnt he only 18 when we played Ajax at Anfield? He was a standout that game for me. Could be a great signing.
Gravenberch is a fine talent. He's struggled to get a look in at Bayern, but the most impressive quality from his time at Ajax is that he had clocked 2 full seasons worth 3000 minutes each, which is very impressive. Those Dutch-Surinamese midfielders are famed for their endurance and longevity - Rijkaard, Davids, Seedorf, Wijnaldum. The early signs are that Gravenberch is similarly built. Very few teenagers can take on the physical demands of first-team football and churn out 3000+ minutes.
As a player, he has wonderful feet and is very press-resistant. You could think of him as a taller Wijnaldum in some ways, but with less goal threat, and more playmaking.
While I'd be totally on board with signing him, I'm wondering how we're imagining the new look midfield.
From my perspective, we have 3 CM slots - the LCM, the DM and RCM/CAM. I think our biggest issues frankly now are with DM and RCM/CAM - basically Fabinho and Henderson, who've declined so badly that you genuinely think if they are going to really be useful going forward. Maybe a reduced 1500 minutes role would see them provide some value, but they are in no position to play 3000 minutes and provide what we want.
I feel that our need for an elite DM and an elite RCM/CAM is more at the moment. Signing just those two players would cost about 120 million.
As a player, he has wonderful feet and is very press-resistant. You could think of him as a taller Wijnaldum in some ways, but with less goal threat, and more playmaking.
While I'd be totally on board with signing him, I'm wondering how we're imagining the new look midfield.
From my perspective, we have 3 CM slots - the LCM, the DM and RCM/CAM. I think our biggest issues frankly now are with DM and RCM/CAM - basically Fabinho and Henderson, who've declined so badly that you genuinely think if they are going to really be useful going forward. Maybe a reduced 1500 minutes role would see them provide some value, but they are in no position to play 3000 minutes and provide what we want.
- The DM covers for our high press, and Fabinho's defensive numbers have tanked. If we're going to persist with experimenting with Trent at this wing-half position, we need that DM to be an elite defensive player. Someone who can drop back comfortably to either CB or RB during transitions and defend comfortably in space. Given what we've seen with Fabinho this year, I don't think he has it in him to do that anymore. We need to be looking at Rice, Tchouameni, Caicedo or Florentino Luis - basically pure DMs with top-level physicality and athleticism, and who like to defend first and foremost.
- The RCM/CAM is also going to be crucial going forward, especially now that the attack itself is not going to be as self-reliant as Mane-Firmino-Salah. We need more chance creation from midfield. Henderson of course doesn't cut it anymore, and Elliott has really been uninspiring this year. You need to get our version of KDB or Gundogan there. From the PL, as I've mentioned, MacAllister is the best bet - he's very skilful and positionally intelligent. He's been playing a more defensive role at Brighton this year, but I believe he started originally as an AM. Mount would be interesting, but not my first choice. I would actually love Szoboszlai. Would be on board with Barella as well.
I feel that our need for an elite DM and an elite RCM/CAM is more at the moment. Signing just those two players would cost about 120 million.
Caicedo/Mac Allister for 40m ? I reckon that's the best part of 120m or more for the pair.
WTF is our throw-in coach doing? We clearly hired the wrong coach !
Don't most players have 'relegation' clauses nowadays? Since they are going down half the first team will likely leave.
Right profile, age and experience. A much better suggestion than the young Turk linked to above ... when and who was the last Turk to take the PL by storm? It's rare that players from minor footballing nations make it at the top level.
So you missed Trent's assist last week then?
That takes me back to when I lived in Amsterdam (ca. 1970-72) and had a Dutch-Surinamese girlfriend. She had stamina too. Those were the days. Sigh
[article]
Michael Edwards was in a garden centre when he took the call telling him that Liverpool would have to break a world transfer record for Virgil van Dijk. He was businesslike, not wanting the person ringing on behalf of Southampton to know his true feelings, but was silently punching the air, standing there amid the birdseed and potted plants.
That was Edwards at the top of his game. Liverpool’s former sporting director possessed detailed reports on 30 centre backs and had analysed the market. He knew that Van Dijk, by a distance, was the best Liverpool could sign and a price of £70 million plus £4 million add-ons, although unprecedented for a defender, would soon be regarded as a bargain.
So it proved. Joining on the first day of 2017-18’s winter transfer window, Van Dijk became the colossus Jürgen Klopp constructed a great team around. Before long, Manchester United would be paying £80 million for Harry Maguire.
Van Dijk’s home debut was the same game in which Trent Alexander-Arnold began his run as Liverpool’s first-choice right back. That was Klopp at the top of his game, re-imagining a youngster who played in the midfield for Liverpool’s under-18s as a buccaneer who would spring forward from his back four.
To return to where they want to be, Liverpool need to return to what they were. Which, for a time, was the smartest club in football. Never the richest but the smartest, whose ability to add value in recruitment and coaching won them every prize in a cycle that began in that 2017-18 season and ended with defeat in the Champions League final last May.
The club have not been portrayed as smart since Tuesday evening, when The Times’s Paul Joyce broke news of them withdrawing from the chase for Jude Bellingham. Supporters took it bitterly. Bellingham is that very rare commodity, a player whose ceiling is simply higher than the rest, giving him potential to transform any team. One imagines that in Liverpool red, he could have been Steven Gerrard-plus.
Aborting the Bellingham chase makes sense in the here and now but in macro terms the decision cannot be dressed up as anything other than a failure of strategy. While it is a misconception that Liverpool’s midfield rebuilding plans only ever revolved around Bellingham (they were close to signing Aurélien Tchouaméni last summer), it is true that Bellingham was near the top of their list for at least 18 months, and their understanding, earlier in the season, was that Borussia Dortmund would sell this summer for about £80 million plus add-ons.
However, Bellingham’s rapid development during a campaign in which he has become the Dortmund captain and starred at a World Cup — at a tender 19 — has redrawn his value and two clubs of a higher spending power, Manchester City and Real Madrid, are now strongly in the fray.
With Manchester United interested and Paris Saint-Germain (despite reports) also considered to be keen, Dortmund can anticipate an auction. Bellingham has no buyout clause and his price is expected to be north of £130 million once fees are factored in. However, his destination will be Bellingham’s choice, not his club’s. It is understood that he would rather stay at Dortmund and reassess in 2024 than be pushed towards a move that’s not absolutely right for him.
In further contrast to perceptions, there was never any indication that he preferred Liverpool. His father, Mark, is a Liverpool fan, but the player and his family have plotted his career to date flawlessly by taking all factors other than what is best for his development out of the equation. So, with no special levers to make the deal happen, Liverpool pulled out to avoid the risk of allocating a huge chunk of their budget and summer to a bidding war they were not favourites to win.
Doing so offers a good chance of delivering what Klopp wants: several signings that arrive near the start of the window. That’s the decision dictated by common sense, but would Edwards, with his knack for the market, have stopped Liverpool getting to this position?
We’ll never know. Much of the expertise that made Liverpool such good recruiters remains. A new sporting director is being sought but the outgoing Julian Ward (formerly Edwards’s right-hand man) is contracted until the end of the season and continues making plans.
On Tuesday, as the Bellingham news was emerging, a representative from Liverpool was arriving in Amsterdam for a meeting with Ryan Gravenberch’s father. Gravenberch, 20, is under serious consideration. An athletic and elegant midfielder, he can play at No 6, No 10 or even as a left-sided No 8.
Frustrated by a lack of game time since joining Bayern Munich from Ajax last June, he is valued at about £25 million and would leave Liverpool scope to pursue other targets, including Mason Mount, for whom Chelsea are likely to want about £70 million.
Liverpool are also now linked with both Alexis Mac Allister and Moisés Caicedo, both thought to be valued at about £80 million by Brighton & Hove Albion, and cheaper options such as Wolves’ Matheus Nunes and Chelsea’s Conor Gallagher.
Klopp is thought to be sanguine about the budget allocated for new players and though away form remains feeble, the fire of the old Liverpool has flickered at Anfield since victory in the Merseyside derby on February 13. That came after a week in which those close to Klopp saw him regather his energy, and he has cut a different, more optimistic, steelier figure since.
His buoyancy coincides with the return to day-to-day club involvement of the cerebral Mike Gordon, the president of the owners, Fenway Sports Group. Gordon and Klopp is the key relationship at the club, the one that underpinned the era of success. The news gives cause to think that renewed dynamism with decision-making is in store.
There is value for Klopp to add on the coaching side too. He and his assistant, Pep Ljinders, have a saying that “training is our transfer” and it’s time to show it with regard to Darwin Núñez, who seems no less rough a diamond than when signed last summer for £64 million rising to £85 million.
Erling Haaland scored more Premier League goals in August than Núñez has all season, and Klopp declined to start him against Arsenal last Sunday — just like in both league games with Manchester City and against Chelsea back in January. Moved to the left after appearing to struggle with the pressing work Klopp requires of his central forward, the Uruguay international’s future in a rebuilt Liverpool team is surely back in the middle, but Klopp faces either changing his attacking style to accommodate a striker who wants to gallop in behind, or adapting Núñez to one who can come towards the ball. Or a bit of both — like Pep Guardiola with Haaland.
The long-awaited return of Luis Díaz against Leeds tomorrow should be a starting point in the redesign. On top of the penetration and unpredictability he provides with the ball, the speed and aggression of Díaz’s pressing hauls team-mates up the pitch by making them go quicker and harder to keep up with him. Díaz is pivotal to a revamped Liverpool’s game. With Salah on one side and Díaz back on the other, Klopp can audition candidates to start in the middle of his front three next season, whether that is Núñez, Diogo Jota or Cody Gakpo.
It is time to reimagine Alexander-Arnold. After six seasons in defence he is still to develop basic elements of defending such as sensing danger and body positioning, and perhaps it is time to accept he never will. However, in possession he is more important to Liverpool’s game than ever. Per 90 minutes he has the most touches of the ball for the club and he still produces moments of magic, such as his nutmeg on Oleksandr Zinchenko and cross to Roberto Firmino for the equaliser against Arsenal.
The quality of Alexander-Arnold's passes – quantified in terms of expected assists – are consistent with recent years, however, his team-mates' poor finishing has cost him assists this year.
However, there is a shift in Alexander-Arnold this season. He has fewer touches in the attacking third than in any campaign since 2018-19, and more of his work is done in deeper areas (see graphic). This seems partly an effort by Klopp to use his long passing. In possession against Arsenal, Liverpool switched to a “box” midfield with Alexander-Arnold as a playmaking pivot alongside Fabinho.
Alexander-Arnold's share of touches in the final third this season are the lowest they have ever been.
One key signing has already been made in Jonathan Power, the new club doctor. Addressing the worst injury record in the Premier League this season is key to a rebuild and the hope is that with a fitter team, stalwarts like Andy Robertson and Van Dijk will find their old form. Just maybe, Liverpool can do the same.
[/article]
Michael Edwards was in a garden centre when he took the call telling him that Liverpool would have to break a world transfer record for Virgil van Dijk. He was businesslike, not wanting the person ringing on behalf of Southampton to know his true feelings, but was silently punching the air, standing there amid the birdseed and potted plants.
That was Edwards at the top of his game. Liverpool’s former sporting director possessed detailed reports on 30 centre backs and had analysed the market. He knew that Van Dijk, by a distance, was the best Liverpool could sign and a price of £70 million plus £4 million add-ons, although unprecedented for a defender, would soon be regarded as a bargain.
So it proved. Joining on the first day of 2017-18’s winter transfer window, Van Dijk became the colossus Jürgen Klopp constructed a great team around. Before long, Manchester United would be paying £80 million for Harry Maguire.
Van Dijk’s home debut was the same game in which Trent Alexander-Arnold began his run as Liverpool’s first-choice right back. That was Klopp at the top of his game, re-imagining a youngster who played in the midfield for Liverpool’s under-18s as a buccaneer who would spring forward from his back four.
To return to where they want to be, Liverpool need to return to what they were. Which, for a time, was the smartest club in football. Never the richest but the smartest, whose ability to add value in recruitment and coaching won them every prize in a cycle that began in that 2017-18 season and ended with defeat in the Champions League final last May.
The club have not been portrayed as smart since Tuesday evening, when The Times’s Paul Joyce broke news of them withdrawing from the chase for Jude Bellingham. Supporters took it bitterly. Bellingham is that very rare commodity, a player whose ceiling is simply higher than the rest, giving him potential to transform any team. One imagines that in Liverpool red, he could have been Steven Gerrard-plus.
Aborting the Bellingham chase makes sense in the here and now but in macro terms the decision cannot be dressed up as anything other than a failure of strategy. While it is a misconception that Liverpool’s midfield rebuilding plans only ever revolved around Bellingham (they were close to signing Aurélien Tchouaméni last summer), it is true that Bellingham was near the top of their list for at least 18 months, and their understanding, earlier in the season, was that Borussia Dortmund would sell this summer for about £80 million plus add-ons.
However, Bellingham’s rapid development during a campaign in which he has become the Dortmund captain and starred at a World Cup — at a tender 19 — has redrawn his value and two clubs of a higher spending power, Manchester City and Real Madrid, are now strongly in the fray.
With Manchester United interested and Paris Saint-Germain (despite reports) also considered to be keen, Dortmund can anticipate an auction. Bellingham has no buyout clause and his price is expected to be north of £130 million once fees are factored in. However, his destination will be Bellingham’s choice, not his club’s. It is understood that he would rather stay at Dortmund and reassess in 2024 than be pushed towards a move that’s not absolutely right for him.
In further contrast to perceptions, there was never any indication that he preferred Liverpool. His father, Mark, is a Liverpool fan, but the player and his family have plotted his career to date flawlessly by taking all factors other than what is best for his development out of the equation. So, with no special levers to make the deal happen, Liverpool pulled out to avoid the risk of allocating a huge chunk of their budget and summer to a bidding war they were not favourites to win.
Doing so offers a good chance of delivering what Klopp wants: several signings that arrive near the start of the window. That’s the decision dictated by common sense, but would Edwards, with his knack for the market, have stopped Liverpool getting to this position?
We’ll never know. Much of the expertise that made Liverpool such good recruiters remains. A new sporting director is being sought but the outgoing Julian Ward (formerly Edwards’s right-hand man) is contracted until the end of the season and continues making plans.
On Tuesday, as the Bellingham news was emerging, a representative from Liverpool was arriving in Amsterdam for a meeting with Ryan Gravenberch’s father. Gravenberch, 20, is under serious consideration. An athletic and elegant midfielder, he can play at No 6, No 10 or even as a left-sided No 8.
Frustrated by a lack of game time since joining Bayern Munich from Ajax last June, he is valued at about £25 million and would leave Liverpool scope to pursue other targets, including Mason Mount, for whom Chelsea are likely to want about £70 million.
Liverpool are also now linked with both Alexis Mac Allister and Moisés Caicedo, both thought to be valued at about £80 million by Brighton & Hove Albion, and cheaper options such as Wolves’ Matheus Nunes and Chelsea’s Conor Gallagher.
Klopp is thought to be sanguine about the budget allocated for new players and though away form remains feeble, the fire of the old Liverpool has flickered at Anfield since victory in the Merseyside derby on February 13. That came after a week in which those close to Klopp saw him regather his energy, and he has cut a different, more optimistic, steelier figure since.
His buoyancy coincides with the return to day-to-day club involvement of the cerebral Mike Gordon, the president of the owners, Fenway Sports Group. Gordon and Klopp is the key relationship at the club, the one that underpinned the era of success. The news gives cause to think that renewed dynamism with decision-making is in store.
There is value for Klopp to add on the coaching side too. He and his assistant, Pep Ljinders, have a saying that “training is our transfer” and it’s time to show it with regard to Darwin Núñez, who seems no less rough a diamond than when signed last summer for £64 million rising to £85 million.
Erling Haaland scored more Premier League goals in August than Núñez has all season, and Klopp declined to start him against Arsenal last Sunday — just like in both league games with Manchester City and against Chelsea back in January. Moved to the left after appearing to struggle with the pressing work Klopp requires of his central forward, the Uruguay international’s future in a rebuilt Liverpool team is surely back in the middle, but Klopp faces either changing his attacking style to accommodate a striker who wants to gallop in behind, or adapting Núñez to one who can come towards the ball. Or a bit of both — like Pep Guardiola with Haaland.
The long-awaited return of Luis Díaz against Leeds tomorrow should be a starting point in the redesign. On top of the penetration and unpredictability he provides with the ball, the speed and aggression of Díaz’s pressing hauls team-mates up the pitch by making them go quicker and harder to keep up with him. Díaz is pivotal to a revamped Liverpool’s game. With Salah on one side and Díaz back on the other, Klopp can audition candidates to start in the middle of his front three next season, whether that is Núñez, Diogo Jota or Cody Gakpo.
It is time to reimagine Alexander-Arnold. After six seasons in defence he is still to develop basic elements of defending such as sensing danger and body positioning, and perhaps it is time to accept he never will. However, in possession he is more important to Liverpool’s game than ever. Per 90 minutes he has the most touches of the ball for the club and he still produces moments of magic, such as his nutmeg on Oleksandr Zinchenko and cross to Roberto Firmino for the equaliser against Arsenal.
The quality of Alexander-Arnold's passes – quantified in terms of expected assists – are consistent with recent years, however, his team-mates' poor finishing has cost him assists this year.
However, there is a shift in Alexander-Arnold this season. He has fewer touches in the attacking third than in any campaign since 2018-19, and more of his work is done in deeper areas (see graphic). This seems partly an effort by Klopp to use his long passing. In possession against Arsenal, Liverpool switched to a “box” midfield with Alexander-Arnold as a playmaking pivot alongside Fabinho.
Alexander-Arnold's share of touches in the final third this season are the lowest they have ever been.
One key signing has already been made in Jonathan Power, the new club doctor. Addressing the worst injury record in the Premier League this season is key to a rebuild and the hope is that with a fitter team, stalwarts like Andy Robertson and Van Dijk will find their old form. Just maybe, Liverpool can do the same.
[/article]
I've been an advocate of more bodies in MF with Trent moving to the right.
Thiago has a year left and is perpetually injury prone, and selling him would be the preffered option.
I wanted FdJ, now I know why not many clubs aren't after him. He is making £20m per season, any move he would be looking for an increase.
We have forgotten about Ruben Neves, a player like Salah who rarely gets injured available for £40m
Tielemans and Kamada will cost only a signing on fee. Klopp has options even on a tight budget which doesn't include Mount and Ghallegher (one of which is over valued and other over rated).
"LESS" goal threat than Gini!?
Just exactly how old are you?
In fairness to Gini, he scores loads at international level and came up with big goals at important times.
This lad might be more on the Rob Jones level of goalscoring.
He was 10 years old when he lived in Amsterdam.
He also came from the Eredivisie as a attacking midfielder with 60 goals in 200 games.
Sitting midfielders rarely score. Thiago has like 3 goals for us in his entire time, and some 40 total goals in his career. Gini used to get us 5 a year, and of course he was quite prolific for the national team, and also at PSV and Newcastle (albeit in a different role).
Looks like Steve Cooper is slowly introducing Danilo, a player I was saying Liverpool should go for. Steve Cooper has proven he isn't a prem level manager.
https://www.nottinghampost.com/spor...ottingham-forest-danilo-scarpa-cooper-8237880
https://www.nottinghampost.com/spor...ottingham-forest-danilo-scarpa-cooper-8237880
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