It is relevant. Honestly though, Coates isn't rated by the manager to be even counted; he almost sounded relieved he got injured which is terrible. Wisdom is not in same managers opinion anywhere near ready for our team and wants him out making his mistakes & learning elsewhere on loan. He'll maybe be great but not yet. Kelly is recovering from not one but two years pretty much screwed and shows he's weeks off. So we have 3 that the manager considers worthy of first team (counting skrts!) and one probably has a weeks off injury. So we're down to two. I'll accept your CB argument with the LB position: just damn bad luck and hopefully C will recover quickly. Still need a proper "now" CB Another RB According to manager LW According to manager CF That's money needing spent not waved arsenal like at teams half heatedly shrugging shoulders as they don't take us seriously....
So you expect squad depth to mean us using a hat full of experienced established players? I agree our CB's need upgrading but I was pulling up the incorrect claim that we have no depth at CB when clearly we do, in fact it is our most in depth area of the pitch! Agger: Vice-captain and not going anywhere. Very good on the ball but loves to dive in which can cause problems. Injury prone. Toure: Been excellent since joining. Good in the air, quick, can play the ball. Injury prone. Skrtel: Good experienced player but needs someone to hold his hand and tell him what to do. Not great with the ball at his feet and appears to be unwanted. Very good fitness record. Coates: Not good enough but we're stuck with him due to injury. Prior to injury, he had a good injury record. Wisdom: Very promising player who I rate above Coates and Kelly, suits the style more than Skrtel too. Had injury issues but I'd put this down to playing RB. Kelly: Very promising player but reletively untested at CB at senior level. Injury prone. If all fit and ready to play, no one would be saying we lack depth there. The fact that Skrtel and Coates have been frozen out, Kelly and Coates are suffering from injuries and Toure has just been stretchered off is effecting peoples brain cells!
Let's wait until we hear how long Toure is out for. He might be fine for Sunday for all we know. #PrayforToure
With the position the club is currently in, do you really expect us to have more than three establish players at CB? not sure we have that anywhere on the pitch. The squad depth is being made up using youngsters because we can't afford or attract players to do otherwise. If you're not counting Coates, Wisdom and Kelly then I guess we only have one RB too!
BR said that Skrtel should be fine for Sunday. Rodgers said: "Kolo Toure, we need to assess it. His groin opened up a wee bit. He overstretched his groin and it doesn't look so good, to be honest." Skrtel has yet to feature this season due to injury but he could be back for David Moyes' first trip to Anfield as Manchester United manager. "Yes, he will be fine," said the boss. "Tonight was too soon for him but he's been back training for a few days."
You can't call that depth G. 2 players that wouldn't be at the club if the manager had the chance, 1 (very promising) but that's been continuously injured for 2 years, 1 youngster that is stated as not ready enough to be normally considered for first team. That leaves 3 real first team squad players at CB. The youngsters may squeak in up front like that but can't at the back yet. I mean I watched the under 21's the other day and saw a half decent 16 year old that in 7 years could be the next Gerrard, if we bring him up to the team before he's really ready like wisdom does that mean we're covered in that position? Again, I'm all for saying 5 year plan, we'll not get anywhere this year or next or probably even the one after that. Maybe a cup. But I can't keep hearing BR say we're looking to bring in the quality again tonight, when no, we're not because we refuse to pay for it when the price is stated. Or the owners saying (nobody made them say it) we'll be competitive in the transfer market when clearly it's bull. If they said what you and I said then I can put up with the unrealistic whinging of those expecting us to bring in messi but the club isn't helping with its rhetoric. In short I can't be bothered with the club talking up to the deluded (christ i hate that word) amongst us and then it's us that have to listen to them scream resentment when the bubble obviously bursts..... I'm getting old and intolerant
I'm backing Skrtel to get man of the match against United and following that, all the Tutle haters will crawl back out their shells and claim how they always liked him.
He could be MOTM for a dozen games in a row, if he still does the things I dislike and rate him poorly for, he will remain in the same position in my mind. The only difference would be his value.
We are talking about two different things here. I am saying we have depth (at CB) in numbers but you're arguing the quality of depth. They are not good enough IMO and we need a Papa or Sakho type player.
Glad you know what I'm talking about I'm lost... But yes, we're back to that point buried among my waffle. Live with 6 with only 1 maybe two good enough in reality (at moment) hoping the youngsters become 4th spot grade and better ahead of schedule (which I'm personally fine with under Daves self sustaining plan by the way) Or spend money. We're doing the first in reality while claiming we're capable of doing the other. It's not fair on the youngsters. They're getting slated for being not good enough (of course they're not ...yet), the manager gets slated for not making miraculous buys that get us champions league players, without champions league while trying to pay 7th spot wages and fees. It's just silly. We're a 6th place team in reality with the prospects if nurtured, injury free etc in our youngsters that could gets us higher in three years but also might not. Then we sack the manager for not doing the miraculous.....
The only small positive with tonights result is that it might force us to go out & buy the players we need. A dominating centre half (Sakho seems to be the linked guy?), a physical midfield player that can help out defensively & cover a lot of ground like Mascherano used to, a winger/attacking mid (Mkhitaryan/Costa type player) & another striker to make an impact off the bench. We need these for a realistic top 4 challenge IMO.
Not sure we need another striker as Aspas looks good and nobody will force Suarez or Sturridge out of the team. What we really need is goals from midfield. Looking at sterling in particular and Ibe tonight shows its the wings where we really need to improve, Yes they are good players for the future but not quite ready for the now, passing is poor and defensive positioning very poor, lost count of the times we lost the ball and both Johnson and Sterling where in their corner about 6 feet apart. I think Henderson can fill the role of the physical presence in midfield, looked decent again tonight and i believe skrtl is good enough cover for CB if we keep him but obviously if he goes or toure is out for a long time we need to look at that. So other than wings no realistic new signing is going to get in the first team and will just be squad players
Getting a bit fed up hearing this same spiel ...... Liverpool manager Brendan Rodgers is still looking for new signings before the transfer window closes. Rodgers said: "We're certainly looking at ins, we're hoping to get a few players in and that will continue right until the end of the window. There's no amount of players wanted, we're just looking to get quality players in and if we can do that, we'll be happy." And then seeing this FFS..... De Telegraaf are claiming that Tottenham have launched a bid for Ajax star Christian Eriksen - but it is reportedly well below the Dutch club's â¬15million valuation of the player. Still might get someone on loan if we are lucky! But then again.... Liverpool face strong competition to take Chelsea winger Victor Moses on loan with Newcastle, Everton, Schalke and AC Milan among those interested.
Tony Barrett and Dom King confirming that Rodgers wants Sakho and talks have begun. Would be a great signing for us if we can get him. With re. to Gez - you're half right about depth. We may have the numbers but we lack the quality. Wisdom and Kelly aren't ready yet for different reasons - Wisdom has a lot to learn on his positioning and Kelly needs to get fit. Coates is not fancied for whatever reason and he's injured. Out of the 6 CB's you mentioned, 3 aren't available and if they were, they are youngsters aren't ready for regular 1st team action. As we saw last night, Toure is now injured but I'm a lot less confident without him. I shouldn't be this worried if one player is injured.
We won't make anymore signings. The end of the window will arrive and they'll just say the quality wasn't out there. If we want CL we clearly need to start spending some money. Was feeling very positive about the season until the disaster that was last night. Alright, we ended up winning but the struggle just to do that against Notts County (no disrespect to them) a team who are joint bottom of League 1 and haven't even won a match this season was embarrassing, at times listening to our crowd singing our songs just seemed ironic and honestly quite sad, it pains me to see how far we have fallen in stature. Anyway, I hope that their good performance last night gives County some positive momentum as they are a prestigious side and important to the history of the game and deserve to be doing better. Our so called young stars have got so much work to do, Ibe and Sterling were shocking, no composure on the ball and easily bossed around, Wisdom looks stronger and more mature but we're charging him with too much responsibility. The less said about Allen and Johnson the better, Allen should be sold as soon as possible, I was willing to give him time to come good/adapt but it's obviously not going to happen, I don't see any great talent there, he's an average player when we need players now who will make an impact. Coutinho endeavored last night but was shackled by the lack of quality around him really, he did link well with Sturridge again. And then there's how wasteful in front of goal we still are, 28 shots on goal in normal time and we can only score two and on top of that let them score 2 as well. Leaky at the back, far from clinincal in the attack, we've been lucky in our first two Prem games and also shown some steel, but we'll come undone if we carry on this way. At least there were some small positives in Henderson's continuing maturation and Sturridge now proving he can score regularly, but I do wish he'd stop doing that stupid dance/celebration thing he does. Sturridge's comments afterwards speak volumes though 'we were a bit complacent but we just had enough class' (paraphrase). Clearly the players know that they need to be more alert and perform for the full match so they need to pull their collective finger out and start doing it, then there's the 'just enough', the club is working with constraints in terms of finances and personnel, hoping that by investing in the squad as lightly/minimally as possible and hoping that those players have a high impact we can get away with and scrape through the season. This is Liverpool FC not some just promoted championship club done well, our players' performances should be so much better than doing 'just enough', and that's against all teams we have to play, our management and ownerships' attitude should be so much more ambitious than 'just enough'. They need to start respecting the shirt, go back and watch the Craig Johnston, Rush, Dalglish team of the '80s, was 'just enough' acceptable then?
