I certainly wouldn't call them heroes. I've slated them at times for some ludicrous decisions. However they're exactly what I want from the owners. In fact, is prefer the club not to be owned by anyone but those days have sadly passed. Yes, they've made a mint from buying the club but I have no issue with that, good luck to them. If no one owned the club, it would be no different to how it is now despite the increased value.
So nobody would pay a couple of million for ox, keita or keita? Of course someone would take a punt, but we've hung on in the hope they miraculously become fit. Eating up wages and squad places.
Well lallana is 34 and injured alot so he'd fit right in. Especially will our penny pinching. I'm pleased your happy with the hole we are in though Looking forward to crowing next season about competing in the net spend trophy. Exciting times.
You’ve not actually answered the question. I’ll take it as a no. So you wouldon’t pay a couple mil for a decent but always injured player. Why do you expect another club to buy Keita from us for same thing?
We're not in a hole, we're in transition. One poor season after not getting your transfer targets isn't ideal but I'd much rather that than chuck money at the wrong player (s) and essentially waste it. If we're as poor again next season then it's a different matter
Transition is a lazy excuse for this season. Majority of our team is still the same, and no one was expecting us to be this bad. This season is poor because of poor squad management and lack of investment. Not transition.
It's the exact definition of transition FFS. The midfield is aged and in need of a revamp. You can blame poor squad management but you just think we should spend like oil clubs so...
Transition would imply that we have a plan and trying to implement it despite a few teething issues. We literally only integrated Darwin into the team - the rest of the squad is pretty much the same, yet the performances are clueless, boring and not bearing any result. Look at when Klopp first joined - we could at least see an identity with the way we played and we could see some progress. The midfield is old and needs revamping - we did not buy anyone who could fix these issues so how is that a transition? We have to actually buy the players and then ease them in - that's a transition. I doubt you will find a single person that would have said we were in transition at the beginning of the season ...
And no - I don't think we should spend like oil clubs. I want us to spend like we did previously where we improved the squad which brought us PL and CL success. Having a net spend which is on par with middle / bottom places clubs is not befitting of a club of our stature - and it shows now. Because our squad is old, inflated, on big wages. We held onto certain players for too long and given them long contracts. We say we can't spend like oil clubs then we need to be ruthless and generate funds in other ways. But if you dare suggest that we get rid of players like Milner, Bobby, Hendo, you get fans such as yourself complaining.
It isn't just us though. Apart from utd, who else is playing really well this season? Imagine how Chelsea fans feel. The poor timing of the WC has taken it's toll too.
We went from competing on all fronts last season to battling for 8th. The drop off is way too big to just put down to poor performances. Squad management, poor performances, poor tactical decisions, poor recruitment have led to this.
I was. I was saying before the season ended last year that we were not going to qualify for Champions League without major changes this year. When they didn't come in the summer I was saying we're going to have a difficult season not competing. Everyone was focusing on "doing the quad" and ignoring the fact that we were playing dreadful at the end of last season despite there being motivation to break the record and get the quad. We were playing awful (not much better than this season) but somehow getting results. I think sheer stubbornness helped us get a lot of results, stubbornness we've now lost. Despite the quad campaign, we were not a good team the last half of last year. We weren't a great team even the first half. We had been found out and our team had aged too much.
So if no one expected us to be this bad, surely you can’t blame for not massively investing. Hindsight is wonderful but given the performances last year, can’t blame Klopp or the club for thinking ok, we were great last year, we’ve missed out on our number 1 target. Outnumber 2 Bellingham isn’t available this year, let’s get by this year with same squad who were brilliant. Maybe we will need a bit of luck to challenge again but we’ll be there or thereabouts. Obviousky hasn’t worked like that and it’s made not getting reinforcements in midfield look even worse
Last season was the blip, not this one. We haven't been able to put 2 really good seasons together under Klopp. We've had a great season followed by a recovery season since he came. We're two transfer windows too late in our rebuild but I'm expecting it this summer. I also believe we are still on for a top 4 finish.
Not sure I agree with that - 18/19 and 19/20 were both great seasons, and the seasons before that had continual improvement that built up to it. Since then though it has been more alternate though. 20/21 felt like the hangover after finally winning the league (though we still finished third) and 21/22 was the last hurrah for the definitive Klopp team. Now this year the wheels have come off...
The warning signs were there. We didn't expect to be this bad but a drop was definitely coming and more importantly, it was avoidable. We never needed to invest heavily - we just needed keep supplementing the squad and trimming the fat consistently. It's so disappointing that we were on the top of the world and just let it slip through our fingers.