We're not re-signing Gini ever Stevie, get over it.
The midfield
- Thread starter Gary25
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Our first is definitely as good as theirs if not better when our first choice midfield is fit and on song. The problem is our first choice midfield is not available for quite a bit of the time which does make the difference with City in the PL.
Well if it was, we wouldn't be complaining about our midfield and needing reinforcements. Resources and the quality of the squad is closely linked.
By us.
I think they’re great but generally speaking they’re not rated as highly by other fans as they are by us.
I think that is BS
I wonder if it’s actually not Barella we’re trying to get …
Yeah they definitely are - ditto commentators and studio guests.
No to first, Yes to second.
But City don't have a perfect squad either.
I think we HAVE to sign Nunes. If we don't I doubt we will ever win another game again.
This madness is almost as bad as when we didn't splash out on Maguire when the Van Dijk transfer initially fell through. I'm still raging over that.
Tomorrow, when I have a bit more energy, I'm going to post in every single thread asking why we haven't signed Nunes or Ian Nolan yet
What will be interesting is to watch those teams that played the way Fulham did against us, how they approach City. Will they behave like west ham in the first 35 mins or will they go at their midfield like they did against us. I mean we are only 1 point less than city right ? Or do they have that secret Intel that tells them our midfield can be got at ?
You act like this is a knee jerk reaction to an issue that has just come up.
In terms of importance to our midfield:
Fabinho - PEAK
Henderson - PAST PEAK, increasing injuries
Thiago - PAST PEAK, frequent long term injuries
Keita - questionable, frequent short term injuries
Jones - questionable
Milner - too old
Elliot - questionable
Carvalho - unknown
Ox - glue factory
That's the way I saw it going into this season. You've got 8 players there who equal about 5 players who are durable. They are playing in a team hoping to challenge, who routinely go deep into cups, and play tons and tons of games. This team plays a style that asks its midfielders to run a lot, and sprint to cover.
We clearly saw a need too, because we tried to sign a good midfielder who has real quality and is in his early 20s on the way up.
So people who saw this as an issue weren't happy going into the season with their fingers crossed that somehow people would miraculously find durability they never had before. Then, the issue evidenced itself after one league game. There's no reaction here, there's no rush, or panic, beyond the rush and panic we saddled ourselves with by our manana type attitude.
Yes, such a correlation between not splashing out on Maguire when the Van Dijk transfer fell through initially, and the fact our current midfield is made up of ageing, slow, injury prone, not good enough/unproven players.
I think City will not be giving away the ball as easily as we did. That, in my view, is the fundamental difference with us. Have a go at City, if you are Fulham, and you will be shredded.
They don't but nobody thought we had genuinely good alternatives to our first eleven until we bought Konate and Diaz.
So it's only really since January when anybody thought we had squad that might rival City's.
Even if that were true, the first team was either better or as good.
Yes, but we make up with it superior pressing and effort. Which we can't do as well when our full backs and midfield age.
Look at Robertson. People talk about him like he's the best left back in the world. He isn't. He's someone playing to the best of their ability and being utilized perfectly. And he has total buy in to the system we play. That isn't a criticism.
Look at Robertson. People talk about him like he's the best left back in the world. He isn't. He's someone playing to the best of their ability and being utilized perfectly. And he has total buy in to the system we play. That isn't a criticism.
Who's Ian Nolan?
Or did you mean Ian Woan?
Edit.. every day is a school day. There was an Ian Nolan. As you were.
I was over re-signing him before he left.
I'm not going to go off the deep end. 7 weeks from now Thiago will be available, and then, when this crazy aberation is at an end, he will play consistently through the rest of the season. Now that we are in command of the facts of the matter we can make a sensible decision.
How do you know that he will play through the rest of the season, or that we won't have further injuries?
No-one knows.
But then no-one knows if he’ll have no more injuries and have the season of his life - I mean you can guess.
Like no-one knows if we’ll spend £40m on a new midfielder only for him to have a season ending injury after a few games.
If I were to predict anything this season - it’d be Harvey, Carvalho & Jones all step up justify significant playing time in rotation with the older players.
We probably won’t sign any midfielders this month - maybe we will in January and we definitely will next summer.
More like 8-10 weeks. He usually takes longer than most to ramp up to full fitness.
Fulham played that way the whole of last season so it should have been no surprise they continued in that vein. I hope they stay true to their style because it could keep them up.
Although there is logic to that post that is clearly not what Klopp & the stat guys see based on actual data.
I'd suggest what they see (not exactly what I see so not a personal opinion) is more like (and remembering that players are deliberately left out of games in 21/22 they were fit to play in for more favoured players) the following (and one would assume they don't disregard the potential for injuries) :
We played 63 games in total in 2021/22 winning 73%.
Fabinho - PEAK : 48 games (41 starts)
Henderson - PAST PEAK but integral : 57 games (43 starts). I would not be surprised if the amount of games he played last season, and the short holiday, is still taking it out of him.
Thiago - PAST PEAK but still world class : 39 games (26 starts)
Keita - Klopp sees him as an integral squad player : 40 games (25 starts)
Jones - Last chance saloon perhaps: 27 games (18 starts)
Milner - not yet too old, still a valuable player to come off the bench : 39 games (14 starts)
Elliot - Klopp undoubtedly sees him as a solid and improving squad player close to being a starter : 11 games (6 starts) with only an horrendous freak injury preventing him from quadrupling those games last season.
Carvalho - clearly Klopp sees him as a solid squad player and one of the first off the bench, possibly one of the starting midfielders for 2023 onwards : 38 games (35 starts) for Fulham last season.
Ox - I think Klopp still sees him as a solid squad player though dispensable : 29 games (17 starts)
I've omitted U21 players from this list though some will undoubtedly make appearances in the FAC / LC.
I've definitely come around to the fact we need another midfielder this season as well as (hopefully) Bellingham next. However were it not for this injury crisis it clearly isn't as much of an imperative as some are making out.
Just to add that those who think our acumen in the market is the equivalent of City's infinite pot of gold : we had to replace Mane and clearly didn't then have the money to secure Bellingham (if you believe BD would have sold if offered an acceptable fee).
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