you won't have thaigo. its only a question of how little we will get form the minor clubs snifing. realistically only fabinho is a loss. the others are extremely expensive physio room experts or old stagers. we will be light on options for europe in the main. I am now wondering about morton going on loan or staying til january. If we get lavia i am almost, almost at the point of being more worried about CB situation again.
Considering kids getting older and wiser and half the players leaving didn't play much, I think one more midfielder (a #6, whoever it is) would be enough. I don't think we need a 4th new midfielder... I'm still concerned about RB though.
With younger and fresher legs, we can now manage Thiago a lot better. Even if we can get 60 mins a week from him, it will be a massive plus for us.
Midfield one: Szoboszlai Lavia Macallister (all klopps choices we assume) or Midfield two: Elliott Bajcetic Jones (children) We can bring in Morton into this if we want to. this has gone form having 9 players to 6. Now as we all agree 3 of those were virtually useless (ox, keita and thiago were always injured) There is probably room for one more. With europe being europa there is scope for midfield 2 to play a good amount with the couple of cup games as well. any injuries though guys, any at all and we are up **** creek.
No just merely pointing out the uneducated that the fee is a mere 50 mill which is pennies to you guys and a vast sum of money to us,so as I say if want him just pay the fee.
You have to be fairly unlucky to get much more travelling than in CL last season it was fine unless you got Qarabag (Azerbaijan) as apart from that furthest east was Moldova I didn't include Dynamo Kyiv in this as i have no idea where they played their games Edit actually Finland might be 2nd furthest someone should make the effort to find out #oldlazybatard
I'm unsure why people think one more midfielder is enough. We have lost 6 midfielders, Yes 2 of them hardly played, but that in itself was an issue. Possibly do you think we get so many injuries is because we've not got a big enough fit squad to rotate? Or are we hoping for a miracle that we don't get any injuries all season, the first 11 play every game?
group stage draw is September 1. Liverpool, West ham, AS Roma, Villarreal, Bayer Leverkusen and Atalanta are in Pot 1; Sporting CP and Rennes will be in either Pot 1 or 2; Real Betis in Pot 2 or 3; Brighton, SC Freiburg and Toulouse in Pot 2, 3 or 4. There remain 20 spots yet to be confirmed and could be Pot 1, 2, 3 or 4 depending on their coefficient. Play-off round (are waiting for teams form other comps to fall in to play these) Netherlands Ajax 89.000 Austria LASK 36.000 Belgium Union Saint-Gilloise 19.000 Ukraine Zorya Luhansk 16.000 Scotland Aberdeen 8.000 Serbia Čukarički 6.475 Switzerland Lugano 6.335 Slavia Prague and Olympiacos are in the 3rd quali rounds waiting to see who they get. From me at this point theres some big enough teams inthere that assuming children can play is not realistic but theres few enough really bad trips that i can see so far. we need the other clubs to come in here.
I think Jones has come of age in the last few months, really stepped up like he believes he's a first teamer (whether he actually is or not is another matter). MotM in the Semi and Final of the u21 Euros. More than an adequate replacement for a perma-crocked AOC or Naby Keita. TBH, we needed to move on some players if we wanted Jones and Elliot to get more game time. Bajetic looks like he could be the real deal, but too early to tell. So all in all, if we get a proper number 6 in to replace Fab, then from a purely footballing point of view I think the midfield is ok. However, i'm more worried from the leadership vacuum in the squad with Milner and Hendo leaving in the same window. Yes, we have other leaders in there, but who knows how well they will step up.
