• You may have to login or register before you can post and view our exclusive members only forums.
    To start viewing messages, select the forum that you want to visit from the selection below.

Wijnaldum - the £25m footballer.

Forums Unread posts
Status
Not open for further replies.
Frogfish said:
Or maybe he's just knackered. Is it a coincidence that the players having played the most minutes for us by far (bar Clyne who is Eveready's poster boy), Firmino, Wijnaldum and Milner, are those whose games have fallen off a cliff ?
Click to expand...

You've churned this out a few times now, as though he hasn't repeatedly put in those types of performances throughout the season, or we haven't slipped up in similar games all season. It's a lame excuse. His form has been patchy since he got here, whatever the reason.
 
God help these poor bastards when we're playing European football, they'll be fucked by September.
 
mark1975 said:
You've churned this out a few times now, as though he hasn't repeatedly put in those types of performances throughout the season, or we haven't slipped up in similar games all season. It's a lame excuse. His form has been patchy since he got here, whatever the reason.
Click to expand...

He has been inconsistent, but he has also been excellent and was probably our best player for a good few months. People magically forget that after a few poor performances.
We wouldn't be 3rd/4th without his contribution to the team.
 
It has been said a few times but he is a bit of a luxury player who helps a team with good form, tempo & rhythm do so even better. However, when the chips are down he lacks the ability to change a game by himself.

I think he is mostly being let down by the mix of 2 players bereft of creativity behind him (Can and Lucas) and lack of movement ahead of him (Coutinho and Firmino having to come deep so often gives him fuck all options)

When he has another attack focused midfielder (e.g. when Lallana is playing in that 3) he comes into his own a bit more.

In a line up like yesterday, he has limited role.
 
Yeah i agree with that.

Wijnaldum wouldn't look out of place in better midfields than ours but he's not so good that it doesn't matter who plays with him.

He's the perfect third man in the midfield trio but that trio has to have Lallana or Countinho in it for Wijnaldum to show his best. It also has to have Can / Henderson as well.

Lineups like yesterday never seem to suit him
 
If Henderson could just get properly fit, I'd say move Henderson further forward into the 'Number 8' role, and sign a really good defensive midfielder. Wijnaldum can seemingly play in a few positions, so keeping him around would be useful.

But again, this is Liverpool. We seemingly don't believe in signing defensive midfielders.
 
Dreambeliever said:
Knackered?

We've played f&ck all games this season and 1 a week for ages.
Click to expand...
Go check your facts on 'minutes played'. The number of games a club has played has SFA to do with how much a particular player has spent on the pitch. Added to which we played 11 games in January alone - I'm guessing he played in the majority.

Those stats are naturally enough dominated by goalkeepers and maybe not surprisingly by players at smaller clubs not in Europe (Burnley in particular). However Firmino is 23rd, Milner 25th and Wijnaldum 46th (sounds low but it's not in terms of actual minutes played, under 200 mins less than Firmino, and that there are only 6 players from other Top 6 clubs (exc. GKs) above him.

NB. As I mentioned Clyne is a fucking dynamo. He's played the 8th most minutes in the PL.
 
Last edited:
mark1975 said:
You've churned this out a few times now, as though he hasn't repeatedly put in those types of performances throughout the season, or we haven't slipped up in similar games all season. It's a lame excuse. His form has been patchy since he got here, whatever the reason.
Click to expand...
I guess in your book ' a few' equals twice.

You're right, he didn't start off brilliantly but seemed to settle in and then went through a 3-4 month spell where he was consistent and sometimes superb. He's dropped off this past month, I wonder what factors could be affecting that.
 
Brizzle said:
It has been said a few times but he is a bit of a luxury player who helps a team with good form, tempo & rhythm do so even better. However, when the chips are down he lacks the ability to change a game by himself.

I think he is mostly being let down by the mix of 2 players bereft of creativity behind him (Can and Lucas) and lack of movement ahead of him (Coutinho and Firmino having to come deep so often gives him fuck all options)

When he has another attack focused midfielder (e.g. when Lallana is playing in that 3) he comes into his own a bit more.

In a line up like yesterday, he has limited role.
Click to expand...
Pretty much sums him up. Good post.
 
JohnnyRocket said:
If Henderson could just get properly fit, I'd say move Henderson further forward into the 'Number 8' role, and sign a really good defensive midfielder. Wijnaldum can seemingly play in a few positions, so keeping him around would be useful.

But again, this is Liverpool. We seemingly don't believe in signing defensive midfielders.
Click to expand...

Why would we? The team who always win titles and finish above us play with defensive/ holding midfielders, but that's irrelevant. Just like them having top quality finishers isn't important.
 
I have seen enough from Wijnaldum to believe he's indeed a player for the future.

And I think the analysis from posters pointing to the fact he's reliant on having the right players beside him are spot on. Some players can make a bad team good, others can make a good team great, and Wini is prob more a type that can make an already well-function team even better. I also think he suffers from fatigue as most of our key payers this season seems to do (either very tired legs and mind or injured).

Wini is a very intelligent midfielder I'd say, he's industrious, he's got great vision and when he's on song he can even dictate the pace of game. I really like him and think he's one of the very least of our worries for the next season so for me the fee paid is kinda irrelevant, he was a good buy either way.
 
Frogfish said:
Go check your facts on 'minutes played'. The number of games a club has played has SFA to do with how much a particular player has spent on the pitch. Added to which we played 11 games in January alone - I'm guessing he played in the majority.

Those stats are naturally enough dominated by goalkeepers and maybe not surprisingly by players at smaller clubs not in Europe (Burnley in particular). However Firmino is 23rd, Milner 25th and Wijnaldum 46th (sounds low but it's not in terms of actual minutes played, under 200 mins less than Firmino, and that there are only 6 players from other Top 6 clubs (exc. GKs) above him.

NB. As I mentioned Clyne is a fucking dynamo. He's played the 8th most minutes in the PL.
Click to expand...
So Gini is 46th with no european football like all the other top teams.

Fuck me the other 45 must be dead.

It's a rubbish claim as Firmino doesn't look jaded at all and he's 25th
 
Dreambeliever said:
So Gini is 46th with no european football like all the other top teams.

Fuck me the other 45 must be dead.

It's a rubbish claim as Firmino doesn't look jaded at all and he's 25th
Click to expand...
Firmino doesn't look jaded ? Are you watching re-runs of early season matches ?
 
The mins played by our players - at least the top 10 - are comparable to Spurs.

They play a relatively demanding style of football also under Pochettino.

Are there stats of no. of springs, distance covered and all the rest of it to complement the mins played one?

I don't know whether it's a case of confirmation bias on our part or not but the players do look jaded and tired and have done for a while now.

If there is genuinely a tiredness / fitness / whatever issue then it will mean we face a significant challenge in the summer in terms of striking a balance between building out the squad and buying in quality.
 
keniget said:
The mins played by our players - at least the top 10 - are comparable to Spurs.

They play a relatively demanding style of football also under Pochettino.

Are there stats of no. of springs, distance covered and all the rest of it to complement the mins played one?

I don't know whether it's a case of confirmation bias on our part or not but the players do look jaded and tired and have done for a while now.

If there is genuinely a tiredness / fitness / whatever issue then it will mean we face a significant challenge in the summer in terms of striking a balance between building out the squad and buying in quality.
Click to expand...
Spurs are an interesting comparison but they have no one close to Clyne's figures and only Eriksen slots in between Firmino and Wijnaldum though Wanyama, Dier and Lloris are not far behind. However Spurs have a much deeper squad so have been able to freshen it up with good players when injuries or fatigue has set in.

That said there were also Euro cup matches for the Spurs players. Both teams had deep cup runs too.

However talking about Firmino, Clyne, Milner and Wijnaldum and how fatigued at least three of them look ..... Lovren is next on that list (at #110) with over 400 mins less than any of the above. That's pretty indicative for me since fatigue doesn't really look to be a factor in our other players.
 
Don't think Spurs have that much of a deeper squad in all honesty, but they have been extremely lucky with injuries this season.
 
A couple of the articles I read about Klopp before we got him made reference to Dortmund's on the field issues being directly linked to his physical trainer leaving.

They said that without him being there Klopp overtrained & overworked the players & in the second half, & in particular the final third, of the season, the players looked shattered & struggled to match their early season form.

I repeated this on here during our impressive start & said that our physical trainers may well have a huge impact on our season, sadly it appears that is true.

It's completely possible that as it's the first full season under Klopp that the trainers will now have much more data to work from & be able to use it to adjust training routines & minutes played by certain players to better manage the squad's fitness over the length of a full season. Alternatively, it's also possible that they aren't respected enough by Klopp for him to actually listen to, or actually good enough to manage the fitness levels effectively, in which case this will rear it's ugly head again at the tail end of next season.
 
davud graham said:
The question should be why is Klopp keeping him on the pitch for so long when it's obvious he's having a shit game? Grujic did more in 5 minutes than Wijnaldum did all game.
Click to expand...
I agree with this. Surely it was clear yesterday that Wijnaldum was struggling for form and lacked presence in the middle. Grujic is champing at the bit for minutes, get him on for half an hour.
 
Hansern said:
Don't think Spurs have that much of a deeper squad in all honesty, but they have been extremely lucky with injuries this season.
Click to expand...

Hmm, I was going to say the same, and certainly if you look at players like Kane and Dele Alli, there's no real obvious replacement for them (given Janssen is shite and Song MIn inconsistent), but they do have Dembele, Dier, Wanyama and Winks for CM/ DM, and while Sissoko and Lamela are both either injured or not playing that well, it's still two £30m attacking midfield reserves.

And they have two RBs and two LBs also.

So it's a bit deeper than ours in quite a few areas, apart from attack.
 
manwithnoname said:
Hmm, I was going to say the same, and certainly if you look at players like Kane and Dele Alli, there's no real obvious replacement for them (given Janssen is shite and Song MIn inconsistent), but they do have Dembele, Dier, Wanyama and Winks for CM/ DM, and while Sissoko and Lamela are both either injured or not playing that well, it's still two £30m attacking midfield reserves.

And they have two RBs and two LBs also.

So it's a bit deeper than ours in quite a few areas, apart from attack.
Click to expand...
Son has scored 19 goals this season, in all comps, at 144 mins per goal (Kane 107 & Alli 179). That's a bit more than inconsistent. He's a cracking backup to have.
 
Dreambeliever said:
So Gini is 46th with no european football like all the other top teams.

Fuck me the other 45 must be dead.

It's a rubbish claim as Firmino doesn't look jaded at all and he's 25th
Click to expand...

Firmino has been following his own training program for several days of the week for the last month. He's been exhausted.
 
Buddha said:
I agree with this. Surely it was clear yesterday that Wijnaldum was struggling for form and lacked presence in the middle. Grujic is champing at the bit for minutes, get him on for half an hour.
Click to expand...
For me good players want the ball even when they're not playing well but Wijnaldum hides when he's having an off day and sticks to square or backwards passes. He simply doesn't affect the game enough against mediocre opposition.
I wouldn't have minded yesterday if he was leaving the creative side of the game to other players as long as he got in the box to support the forward players or help us be more solid in defence but he did neither and just drifted about aimlessly.
 
so one million player came in and hit the ground running (mane) and then other one (gini) needs better players around him to perform. Poor excuse, and sort of stuff we would laigh at if said by other fans. Gine should at the very least be perfoming better than Lucas Im not lucas fan by any means but he has way more heart than gini.
 
Clyne is a full back you'd think he was box to box midfielder the way ye are talking about his work this season.
 
Dreambeliever said:
Clyne is a full back you'd think he was box to box midfielder the way ye are talking about his work this season.
Click to expand...
I'd suggest the modern FB has to do a lot more physical running than a box-to-box midfielder. Though I don't have the stats to back that up.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top Bottom