Lol I just find it funny how we question what the club does but some of the default answers are 'the club has a good answer for this'. Of course there is an underlying reason behind these decisions but unfortunately we aren't privy to that knowledge hence why we have forums to discuss these.
I disagree on the sentimentality part. I think Klopp is a very sentimental manager - but it's one of the biggest reasons why we love him. He is very loyal to players, not just at LFC but also Dortmund. He has his favourites who he does not like to drop despite their form. As I say, it works two ways - it's not all bad. It's why players love him and want to play for him.
He's very sentimental (friendly and loyal?) to first team players but that won't get in thre way with squad players. Lallana, Ings, Can, etc
Wilson, Grujic, Karius for starters. Then you have the fringe players like Origi and Shaq - both who do get some minutes but they're simply not trusted to play. And now that Nat Phillips's value has gone up, we should look to cash in because he won't be playing any minutes once our defenders are back and once we sign new ones.
We lost Lallana on a free when we should have sold him sooner IMO. We held onto him for too long. Ings and Can both pushed for moves but Klopp really liked them and wanted to keep them. Just want to point out that the club have done really well with selling players over the years - look at the fees for Brewster, Brad Smith, Solanke etc. But there are also examples where we held onto players for too long or priced them out of a move. We're potentially losing Gini on a free as well. For a club that relies heavily on player sales, we need to do better.
Look if a player has value to the manager they get kept and kept. If they have no value they are ignored, loaned and worked by Edwards We have no capacity it seems to build a real squad. We bought well with alison, fabinho and VVD and it pushed us from goalscoring but flaky to trophy winning. But we make. No effort to build a squad. Origi will do. Ox will do Tsimikas is cheap enough and willing to sit on bench. That will do as we can sell him on. Minamino the same. Neco is enough Shaqiri has some value. None of this builds a squad but gives warm bodies that are of use to klopp on a few games. We are more than willing to play that 14 or 15 players and fill the gaps with ****e that wont complain and have some resale value eventually. When we compare this to who we have to compete with, it's not pretty but nobody can compete with Chelsea, city and slightly less utd. It's hard to see who will ever compete with fake money coming in. From 1993 to 2004 utd at least used money earned to dominate. The reality is only chelsea incompetence let utd back in for a few more years but for a very long time now it's the Chelsea and city show. In the next 5 years it will be the city show.
the first 3 you mention arent at the club? Origi and shaq have got minutes and although aren’t good enough, don’t think there are many coming in looking to buy them.
Wilson, Grujic and Wilson are all still on loan aren't they, so we still own them, somewhat unbelievably with the first two
Yeah all on loan. The point being that clearly we have tried to move them on, haven’t been able to do perm deals so have done temp ones
Which is obviously better option than them hanging about the club not playing, collecting wages and us not getting a loan fee but speaks volumes about how Klopp rates them too; he's gone on record to say he doesn't like players going out in loan, he'd much prefer to keep them close by where he can see and influence their training whilst they play in the clubs way. **** knows what's happening with Minamino though. Reality is, ge can't be overly loyal with every player, otherwise we either end up with a hundred player squad or never bring anyone new in.
Any road up, that's what we've got until the end of the season. No more Fab in the back four. That works next to Virgil, otherwise, it's taking our best DM and taking away from our midfield to only slightly improve our CB's. Phillips is better in the air than Joe, and possibly as good as Matip. But the ball comes off him at right angles almost as far as it came, so let's not get carried away. And Kabak - the only two CB's I've seen fully formed at 20 are Hansen and Ferdinand. If he's here next season, he'll greatly benefit by playing next to Virgil. But so will Williams, and Williams is better in the air and no slower. Whatever - but if we're not going to adapt the way we play, we need a quick cb in the summer, even if they're iffy in the air. But we'll see.
Out of interest, has anyone considered the thought that we actually could have done with grujic this year if fabinho played cb. He was a no 6 that would gave done more for us than having ox, Shaqiri, keita etc. Just a thought.
Yes, but he had to go out on loan because of registration rules. The Homegrown rule, gotta have those English players. Of course we decided to keep hold of Origi, Ox and Shaq as at the time we had loads of midfielders. Ox is done imo. Was only ever a decent player and he's barely played this season.
I've no idea why people think kabak is slow, he's got decent pace for a centre back, he's not gomez quick but few are. As for him being as slow as Williams, that's quite frankly ridiculous, I reckon I'd give Williams a race over 40 metres, dodgy knees and all. Williams makes maguire look mobile.
Yeah I think it came from the game v Leicester where Vardy got in behind but Vardy makes 90% of CBS slow so not a proper comparison. he’s not super quick but he’s not that slow as you say
Odd if that's the case, you can't catch one of the quickest strikers in the prem, ****ing cart horse I cant really remember him being in to many foot races which you'd put down as a good thing really.
The best asset for a CB is to be able to read the game - to know when to commit and when to stand off and shepherd the attacker into a less dangerous position. Fabinho has been such a success there because of this. Of course if a CB also has pace then that is a great advantage, but it isn't paramount for most teams. Sadly for us, pace is more important because of the high line we play. A defence that drops back and reorganises when it loses possession doesn't need the same speed at the back, but we get caught out by the long ball over the top - especially as both the FBs are so high as well. This is all fairly obvious I know, but I thought I'd say it anyway.
The high line is fine but it requires team work not just pace. The full backs cannot be doing what robertson is doing. You.cannt be behind the cbs. The two cbs need to step up together to play offside and imo we got done by villa for 2 reasons. First we fell into over relying of just stepping up and catching people off and second we allowed player after player to cut inside and shoot rather than send them outside. The issue with 270 cb partnerships in 30 games is they can't get organised to hold a line
Yes. Organisation is as important a factor as individual skill when it comes to defending. None of our combinations has had the time to really get to know one other well enough, and it seems no one individual has the qualities that VvD showed when he quickly stamped his authority on those around him. Fabinho is by far the most intelligent (in footballing terms) player to have been there, but we really do need him in midfield.
