Yeah, but when I originally made the statement I repeated in your quote, it was in the context of long term value to the club. CL participation raises your profile and income and allows you to attract better players. In the long run (sadly) it's far more valuable than the FA Cup.
Well ladies and gentlemen, an unbelievably simple end to the season. It's been a hard watch at times, but to get third is a quite amazing achievement. Loosing half your first 11 to injury was always going to be hard to cope with, but the by the end the team pulled through.
Can't help but feel proud of the players after being dealt with such horrible hands all throughout the season. Thankfully, something clicked 10 games ago and Klopp went all out and put Fab back in the midfield and got us attacking again at the expense of the defence. However some how, we managed to not concede many goals! Klopp and the players turned this around in spectacular fashion. We were at our lowest point and I really didn't think we would get top 4 but once again, they prove me wrong. To finish 3rd after going through a period where was on 3 PL games in 14, losing 6 home games on the bounce, having no senior centre backs for over half a season, for having a patched up midfield which was missing Fab and Hendo, Klopp and Allison losing loved ones ... it really was a big achievement to end up where we did. I genuinely believe we would have won the league had we had our senior centre backs fit. And for that reason alone, I couldn't be more confident going into a new season. Famous last words, for sure, but we're such a strong team even at our weakest. And big up to Gini. He's been a crucial player for us in the Klopp era and played a significant part in our recent success. His physicality, reliability, consistency and his ball retention was world class. I will miss him and wish him all the best.
There are two ways of looking at it. One way: this was an amazing achievement in getting top 4 with so many key injuries and when 5th or even 7th at worst beckoned. The other way is but for a self inflicted dip in form caused by breaking up a solid section of the team to repair a weakened one we could and should competed to retain the title until the end. No reason why this current team couldn’t have been played right at the outset of the slide and that’s not with the benefit of hindsight as some here had recognised this even at the time.
Question ... did we really miss Hendo's leadership after all ... Looking forward to seeing Hendo x Fabinho x Thiago next season though, but Fabinho is the MVP for me.
I hope I am wrong but Wini was our MVP and might be missed next season. He needs replacing with someone of similar quality.
I disagree that Gini was. Yes, he was important in terms of being fit and able to play most games, but Fabinho was the one who gives us that balance in midfield both going forward and defensively. Will miss Gini though
I don’t think we would have had enough to properly challenge for the title if we had played Phillips and Williams at CB all throughout those times. In some of these 10 unbeaten game we got a bit lucky and on another day coukd have drawn or even lost. We’ll never know for sure. Whose to say Phillips doesn’t get injured and we don’t win 8/10 at end of season. think it’s certainly taught klopp a lesson which all good managers learn from and that weakening one area to try pitch up another only makes both areas weaker. if our midfield is the best it can be, they stop half the balls going through to the defence anyway
That's utter bollocks I'm afraid. Nobody disagreed with putting fab at the back, it was the logical thing to do.
Yep, hindsight is wonderful but moving Fabinho back into midfielder sooner rather than later could have paid off more. But it was a horrible choice that Klopp should never have had to make in the first place. I'm just glad that eventually did change things and it paid off
Not remotely logical. But even if it was, it became obvious after a few matches that the strategy was flawed. Come on. A run of 6 defeats in a row when we had almost 4 years without a single defeat? Is that even remotely normal? Not even a loss of a few key players can explain that. It was obvious to those who wanted to see that players needed to be played in their right positions. If we had reverted to the current formation a few weeks earlier no doubt we would have been at least a dozen points better off. Last season we went half a season dropping 2 points only and at the end of this we went 10 matches dropping only 4 points. So this is not just dreamland. But agreed. we managed to retrieve the situation just on time.
Yep fair point. I was critical of Klopp as well for not changing things up sooner but as I say, it was a tough period for everyone and these weren't easy decisions to make. Klopp and the team worked miracles to turn this around. The owners should one building a statue of Klopp because we were in a defensive crises in January and the owners refusal to spend any significant money on proper defensive options should have cost us top 4.
No way would Klopp put that sort of pressure on 2 youngsters, he’s always the sort of person to get people training and understanding what he wants first - even with premier league experienced players like Robo or seasoned players like Fabinho. It wasn’t naivety or a mistake for me, it was exactly what he should’ve done and we just about had enough time to make it work
To be fair Fabinho played at CB before those 6 defeats so it’s not like he went back there and we immediately started losing. He was motm when he went back there in the chelsea game
