Yep, Papa suffered a couple of serious knee injuries. He;s struggling to get back to full fitness and it's worth avoiding. Our policy last summer was ambitious - we targeted Mkhtiaryan, Costa and Willian. 3 players who would have acted as the focal point for us. Then we resort to Lallana, Lambert, Lovren. It just smacks of Rodgers being given more power after finishing 2nd.
Can also throw Salah and The Plank in there too. Given the choice out of those five right now, Costa is definitely the one!
Costa was actually a big risk at that time - he was seen as a decent player when we were in for him. £24m was a big risk but it's one we took with Torres and Suarez. As you saw last season, and already this season - he's a real beast of a player. Mkhitaryan is a very good player and one of Dortmund's stars - I think we should really consider poaching some of their players given their poor start, and low salaries.
The general opinion on Henry Ryan over here is that he's been ok, but not as good as they were hoping/expecting. Dortmund could be ripe for poaching, but it's unlikely we'd be the only team in for the decent players - could we hold our own?
Isn't Costa sort-of a Balotelli who tries? Think Willian would do a decent job for us - energy, pressing and passing. Not many goals though.
Costa's movement is excellent - he's like Suarez but without the quick feet IMO. He's strong, pretty quick in a long distance, fantastic movement.
He's not been bad by any means, but not world class either. I think people were basically just hoping for more.
One fantastic striker would completely change the game for us. I'd rather get one world class player in January than 4 decent players. Build slowly and upwards... not quickly and to the side.
We're not going to spend in January unless we sell first. I'm also not even sure if Rodgers will get much money in the summer unless things improve quickly. He needs to show that his signings this summer weren't duds and that he can be trusted to identify talent on a regular basis and, above all else, get them to play well without a certain Uruguayan.
Do we really trust Rogers and the transfer team anymore and I don't just mean identifying a player to buy but also in getting the man. Think we all know that we've been playing it closer with the wage's, not wanting to pay a player a ridiculous wage. I've no real problem with that, this only attracts mercenary players and footballers wages have become obscene. But I also mean in selling the ideals of the club and the benefits of playing for Liverpool. I also have a concern about the reputation of Rodgers in European Football. Nobody will have heard of him and we all saw last year the problems of trying to get top class players with a relatively unknown manager with what happened to Moyes at Utd. Players today don't just want to play for a club, they also want to play for a manager. I do worry that until Rodgers achieves something in Europe or wins the league (very far off at the moment) he wont have the name to bring in the top class players and we just end up with more 'potential' star players.
Interesting points - I think the summer just gone smacks of Rodgers having more control over sayings which is plausible given he got us back into the CL. The pursuit of Lovren and Lallana - both key targets and we were willing to overspend for them. But I do question the committee as well - I want blame them for the sh*t like Alberto, Aspas etc because we were out of the CL and didn't have much money, so the target pool was at the low end. But they pushed for Mario who simply does not suit our style. Moreno, Manquillo look astute signings and I think Sakho could be the rock we build our defence around but Rodgers isn't keen. I sense that the targets between Rodgers and the committee are not aligned - perhaps we do need a DoF to facilitate things?
What frustrates me is that we had Agger and Sakho for LCB spots. So what does Rodgers do? Buys another LCB. It's make no sense and I do question how the money will be spent. And we'll probably won't even buy a centre back, he'll end up playing Gerrard there.
Alex Teixeira,luiz adriano,douglas costa of shaktar imho we should go for at least 2 of the three, they must all want out as they are currently living in a hotel due to the war in the ukraine.
One striker. One ready-made good striker! That's what I want. Just someone who can score goals. Forget all this "at Liverpool we develop our talent, we don't buy it". We can't wait for someone to develop. We bought players to "make not buy" last summer and it's got us nowhere. I agree with buying young promising prospects before they hit their peak... right now we need someone good and ready made. Forget making stars... buy one. Just one. Even if we don't buy anyone else- get a striker who can score goals so we're not gormless up top when Studge is injured. / latest transfer rumors I've been reading are for full backs!
Totally agree. Rodgers got lucky last season more by accident than design. I said in July and August that we couldn't rely on Studge staying fit and also said please dont sign Ballotelli. We were light last season up front but got lucky but this year its come home to roost. Would rather have had Remy or Bony than Bagosh!te.
