Do you mean in Jan or summer?
Pre Match - Crystal Palace (h) - Mon - 20:00
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That logic is flawed for me. It's like saying "my car's got a fuel leak, but don't worry, I'm planning to buy a new one next year".
Clearly, we knew we needed a midfielder as we went after tchoumeni. I get this "get the right player" thing, but what happens if that right player didn't want to come here next year?
We don't just have a list of one for targets
My take on the game...
Nat Philips was solid.
The Zaha Goal. From the footage after the goal looked to me that it was VVD who was playing him on.
Darwin Nunez. still learning as is his team mates his movements and runs.Had a few chances.For the most part unlucky
The sending off... Don't think that he actually headbutted the player,more of that thing they do when they stand face to face with their heads together.
Player when down like he was hit by Mike Tyson clutching his face when the contact was with his lower jaw. would like to see these soot of incidents reviewed by VAR before a player is red carded...
Diaz.... Play fantastic all game. Ran players down won back the ball, Magnificent game.
REF and overall game... These new directives the refs have been given is, and will cause more frustration amongst players and Managers. The thing that were seen as fouls last season are being let go this season. Expect a lot more of players being on the end of what was a foul last season lashing out, being booked, and being sent off on till these new directives have bedding, and expect some of those directives to change
This season will harder for all the top teams. It seem as if the lower team now know how to get points from them and can do it too. City will lose points and be frustrated by these team too. If it is to be City,Liverpool, or Chelsea it will not be no 90 points plus winning season. Low 80's at best
Nat Philips was solid.
The Zaha Goal. From the footage after the goal looked to me that it was VVD who was playing him on.
Darwin Nunez. still learning as is his team mates his movements and runs.Had a few chances.For the most part unlucky
The sending off... Don't think that he actually headbutted the player,more of that thing they do when they stand face to face with their heads together.
Player when down like he was hit by Mike Tyson clutching his face when the contact was with his lower jaw. would like to see these soot of incidents reviewed by VAR before a player is red carded...
Diaz.... Play fantastic all game. Ran players down won back the ball, Magnificent game.
REF and overall game... These new directives the refs have been given is, and will cause more frustration amongst players and Managers. The thing that were seen as fouls last season are being let go this season. Expect a lot more of players being on the end of what was a foul last season lashing out, being booked, and being sent off on till these new directives have bedding, and expect some of those directives to change
This season will harder for all the top teams. It seem as if the lower team now know how to get points from them and can do it too. City will lose points and be frustrated by these team too. If it is to be City,Liverpool, or Chelsea it will not be no 90 points plus winning season. Low 80's at best
Except we don't have a fuel leak.
I would like now but if it's Jan then that's fine too
It's like going back to a couple of seasons ago when there were discussions about whether to strengthen our options up front.
And just because it (waiting for the "right" player) worked previously (VvD) doesn't mean it'll always work.
We were lucky that despite taking a long time to find an alternative at LB, we eventually did get the right one in Tsimikas. What if Robbo had suffered a long term injury?
If Spurs didn't move for Diaz in Jan, we probably wouldn't have signed him at that point too. Who's to say he would definitely have chosen to join us this window?
When Gini left, we lost a player who average 36 league games over the past 5 seasons.
Fimino featured 1804 mins for us last season - in previous seasons he always hit 3k mins.
(19/20) 3921
(18/19) 3406
(17/18) 4188
(16/17) 3463
On field success can paper over any cracks but doesn't remove/solve them.
Wow - so this wasn't epic (crowd was utter shite. Had they already given up the league after Fulham draw?), Palace didn't leave us space but Diaz did give us a moment of magic.
Why did we leave Gomez and Henderson/Keita on the bench for the second game of the season? So many of our issues stemmed from having a lack of composure on the pitch. We had new players who are not yet part of our 'mentality monster' group in Nunez, Diaz, Elliot. We then also had some experienced players still being naive in their approach (Trent) and we tried to force the game from about 15 minutes in.
We created enough chances, but also pissed away countless more opportunities to make more chances. Absolutely zero leadership demonstrated in that team yesterday, and it was capped off by Klopp trying to be smart and playing our fifth choice defender who's unfamiliarity with our system (terrible offside trap) led to their goal.
This team is in trouble if it can't find some composure ASAP.
Having a fuel leak would suggest we have petrol in the first place. Millie is coal.
Waiting for the right player(s) has worked more often than not under Klopp.
It's the whole foundation of our recent success.
Phillips played him on.
Not blaming him though.
Even if the Nunez red card was reviewed by VAR. Because Nunez leaned in, it was always a red card, regardless of how hard the contact was.
He lost control.. literally. Tierney didn't need an excuse to reach for the red.
Might be boring to you but it's the reason we're struggling & not able to find a cutting edge.....running the same 8-9 players into the ground for 5 straight years.
But slowly, the average age has caught up with us. Waiting works for only so long.
We've replaced half the first eleven that won us the league
Unless we have City's money, it's our only choice
From the XI that started Fulham, only 2 weren't part of that title winning squad.
We could definitely do with another midfielder, but all the players that we've signed to fill short term needs have been total disasters. What I think we will do is buy someone in January or next summer, and we need Jones and Elliott to step up, and Henderson to regain some of his form. I wouldn't hold much hope on us signing someone who would actually solve the problem.
We should be able to sign a midfielder too.
How many teams have 10 players (11 if you count Kelleher) on, or just returned in the cases of Keita and Gomez, the injury list just 2 games into the season? No other team is even close - even if some injuries were predictable. Give us 3-5 instead of 10-11 injured and we'd have 6/6 points and no-one would be saying anything.
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And how deep does the squad have to go? See image above. How many players is enough? How much do we spend and how do we keep them happy?
And?
Doesnt change that Konate, Nunez, Diaz will be regular starters and Elliott will be competing with Hendo. Plus Thiago replacing Gini.
Our first choice for starters is very different to that that won the league now. I've left out Jota as well and he's good enough to start as well.
Neville/Carra (I forget which one, I think it was Neville) said that Philips' body shape was all wrong, he was still facing the play whereas he should have been side on to Zaha to move forward or back as required. It sounds about right but also shows up Nat I'm afraid, he was only playing him onside by ½ metre that a sideways stance may have made easier to address.
You want proper attempts to win as much as possible? Or hope for excellent health to ensure we can compete in the two major competitions?
Last year was our deepest squad imo since klopp took over. I think what we saw was the result of that.
If you want a smaller squad, that's fine. There is no right or wrong answer here, but i dont get the need label those who see issues all the pointless names. The two results are unacceptable for a league challenger, considering how we started vs city, and I am worried one more injury to our midfield and well have a repeat of the vvd injury year (hopefully nothing has bad as klopp's final year at Dortmund which I hope is impossible).
(Note: worried for the team, as I said, I'm not really fussed ... life goes on)
Yep. Was a game I thought we should have started Gomez and gone to Phillips later on
Thiago is class.
We all agree.
Hes injured frequently though.
We probably have plans for his replacement within 2 years imo.
On that last point, I think we made the mistake of not signing Matheus Nunes he is a bit of Thiago, Fabinho, and Gini mixed into one. What a fucking mistake by the club. Just getting Jude next season is not enough.
There are an awful lot of 'What ifs' in that assessment. You could make them about any team / player / transfer.
Firmino missed 26 games (2,510 mins) through injury last season. Whilst he is undoubtedly on the decline his mins played would be an awful lot closer to his norm if he had remained injury free and it's also a fact that Jota was brought in, and played a lot of minutes, in his stead so we wouldn't expect Bobby to hit his previous average. He's purely a squad player at this stage.
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People may want another midfielder (I'd like to see one too - but not just another squad player) however to say the squad is weaker is basically ignoring the changes since May when we were arguably 16 mins from the Quad (the players have aged 3 months and undoubtedly the squad is aging, however that 3 months is not performance changing - the lack of a proper Summer rest may be however) :
Out : Origi (a non-entity as far as PL games go), Minamino (again barely relevant in the PL), Mane (replaced by Diaz last Jan). No-one else of any consequence or who had game time.
In : Diaz for Mane as noted (I have no idea why people ignore this transfer, probably because it doesn't suit the rhetoric), Nunez for Firmino (who now strengthens squad depth), Carvalho (getting a lot of game time already) and Ramsey (backup). One could also note that Elliott had a season ending injury last year.
In actuality we now have an even stronger squad, regardless of the fact the players have aged 3 months. There are still gaps but this is still a stronger squad than that which almost completed completed a historic quadruple.
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Which makes you wonder what is going on in the medical/rehab part right?
2020
2021
My posts were not only in reference to the dropped points in the 1st 2 matches. If you look at my earlier posts, I have been expressing concerns over the refreshing of the squad - injury proneness + aging (remember when we almost missed out of CL qualification?).
The 10 players included: Kelleher, Matip, Konate, Ramsay, Thiago, Jones, Oxlade-Chamberlain, Gordon, Firmino, Jota.
10 looks like a huge no. but Thiago, Firmino and Jota are the main ones that we missed.
Do we only plan/react when the what if happens - esp. when these what if's are not far fetch/ are highly possible?
As fans, are we not allowed to highlight vulnerabilities or underlying problems? There's a difference between listing out issues that should be addressed and looked into vs. pure whining and knee jerking.
I have never been one to over-react or be pessimistic but just because Klopp has been doing wonders shouldn't let us be blinded.
I'll rest my case. The injuries will clear up, the returning players will "feel like new signings" and everything will be back to normal.
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