Hard pass. Said numerous times I don’t get the fuss with him at all. Other then taking a good free kick, the guy is a very average mid table prem player.
Looks like it’s on though. Klopp loves a hard worker and a leader - he is both of those things and an excellent free kick taker but whether he’s good enough in our system is questionable, as you say.
If it was a free transfer at the end of his contract then I could kind of understand as a home-grown squad player with leadership abilities and a decent set piece, so similar to Milner, but surely he's too expensive for that, and not good enough with little development potential to make him worth the money.
Is his leadership ability even that good? He lead saints to relegation. Not to be disrespectful to him, but theres a difference between being a leader to bunch of players fighting for survival to leading players like vvd TAA Robbo etc. not suggesting a leader has to be the best player, but you surely have to be able to command respect partly from why you’ve achieved in the game with your ability as well as other attributes. Just don’t see that being a thing for him. A decent kid table prem player. But can’t see him being anymore than that.
No idea tbh. I was working on the premise that that would be a reason to get him. How much it's true I can't tell. Presumably some of our England players and maybe ex-Soton players have more of an idea.
To be fair, the comments about JWP seem to be similar to what was being said about Henderson... and whereas Henderson has his detractors has been a solid player for our team, if not ever an actual star for the team.
Henderson was 21 when we signed him and cost 16m and has grown into a leadership role and played a part in a functional midfield with his energy. JWP is 28 (1 years younger than Fabinho) and being touted for 50m. In a year or two we’d be talking about replacing him with someone younger who can offer the legs that he won’t have.
That's a salient point, I actually wasn't aware he had grown that old already, he's one of those players who for some reason grow older, but I still remember them as youngsters.
