Not for the want of trying and good to see the same rules apply - the right player or no player, and that’s fine with me. Bit more fortune with injuries will be very welcome
I all fine until we are 6th or 7th sure. We know the intensity of the season coming is a big step up on a regular cl season. Zero midweeks off anywhere. I wait the crescendo anyway. I couldn't actually give a stuff is joe gomez goes as he's neither tall enough nor error free.enoigh as a cb amd he is just a cb playing lb or rb. while he is only ever filling in, he is club trained. Sell and we have a cb in konate who can't play 2 games a week, plus a young cb. No cover for vvd.at all? We have a unfit lb and a reserve who is absolutely bang average and has little positional sense. I don't think its a case of one player or no player at all. It's a case of a short list we have extensively researched
Not sure why we’d suddenly be 7th, I suspect Gomez goes no where unless something is lined up the other way. We have a decent squad and are on the look, clearly. But if a player bottles it last minute then that’s a pretty lucky escape imo as he wouldn’t have been 100% in
Don’t forget that we’re a bit less full throttle gung ho so in theory - less likely to burn through the squad fitness as much as we did under klopp.
I thought Gravenberch did really well yesterday as the 6. He was let down a bit in the first half by too many players losing their duels but looked relatively composed, then impressed in the 2nd half when the space was available. Sterner tests will come though.
Injuries? Increased competition? What's the absolutely nightmare scenario from here? Sell kelleher, use jaros ns this new keeper is sent on loan Sell gomez. Sell Diaz? (Rumoured too) Sell trent cos he's not signing a new deal??? Give our first 11 5 injuries and where are we at then? Oh yeah those kids who were all loaned or sold cos they are not good enough in isolation By all means sell what needs to go but replace with better. There's a lot of players we could have gone after that'd be an improvement on our joe. It'd be a shame to lose a club trained player but there you go.
Take Saliba Odegard Rice Saka & Havertz out of arsenal. Take Ederson, Rodri, foden, kdb & Haaland o ut of city. Yeah if you lose 5 first team players all at once then you’re teams going to be ****ed. Even city with their wealth would still struggle if you lost newrly 50% of your first 11 at same time. Not sure that’s really a valid argument tbh
Not if the "ideal" happens Say we replace.gomez.with a proper cb, not the type.of names now being thrown about. Say we do get a.cm. Say we do buy Williams for example as well. (That's realms of fantasy time) Then you can have your 5 injuries. Last year gomez filled in adequately,. Bradley filled in adequately (but was a bit young and needed more time to fill out) When macca was injured we had a massive problem. When salah got injured we had Jota but as soon as he went down we were tucked. If we sold kelleher.gomez, endo, 10 kids and bought a top cb,.cm and Williams I'm sure everyone should be delighted. If we sell kelleher. Gomez and the kids and just keep Endo we will be quite short on numbers imo
So Slot now the Greatest 21st Century Liverpool manager (for first games only)... ... And he couldn't even crack a smile for either goal or when the winning whistle went. Very different from Klopp (who had emotions and wasn't a Slot-Machine). Pretty clean game. I had no problem with the ref, I wouldn't have given a yellow for either player, thought a foul was enough... But meh no problem with the yellows either. Was glad to see Tsuper-Tsimi come on... Our Scottish hero is beginning to show his age. Slot mentioned individual duels in the first half, but I thought some of our passing was pretty bad in the first 45. Kudos to Slot though we were mediocre in the first half and he showed enough tactical knowledge to improve us for the second. I
I didn't read them all (shocker) but saw there were a few moans and grumbles And I'm not counting MITO in that; he moans and grumbles about everything
Cba looking back through all the comments, and I didn't get a chance to post myself, but I just have this question - am I the only one who thought Quansah was playing fine before he got took off at half time? No probs at all with Konate coming on, and he is our fastest defender now, but I thought we should have changed Gravenberch at half time yesterday, not Quansah. Sure it's already been said, but two different teams in two halves there. I feared a repeat of our opening game against Fulham two seasons ago - they just looked dead on their feet, especially Szobbo and Macca (I thought Gravenberch was what you'd expect anyway in that first half - a powderpuff show pony). It was a different team entirely in the second half, and I put that mainly down to Szobbo being the perfect no 8, as he was for the first third of the last season. That allowed Macca and Trent more space to get into the game, and yes, I was wrong about Gravenberch in that he thrived in the second half. Hope Slot can shake themselves out of this psychological dread of Saturday midday games. God knows, The Prem will throw as many of them at us as they can - we still got the lion's share last season even though we were playing on Thursdays during most of the term - whenever we weren't we almost automatically got a Sat midday KO. So they're going to have to start manning-up for them - with all due respect, not every team will be as accommodating as Ipswich were. it's the one area I think Klopp got wrong - these players are still dreading 12.30s. But overall - God, we need to keep Jota fit, DON'T sell Diaz (no reason on God's green Earth why we can't afford Gordon as well) and don't sell Joe - the guy can play everywhere in defence AND DM, as he was beginning to prove last season.
I don't think it was a reflection on Quansah as much as needing Konate to come on to win the duels vs Greaves - the only other realistic choice was to sub VVD
personally thought Gravenberch was fine first half certainly when compared to others and as for adding Gordon to our LW without selling someone is madness imo as there are other areas that need upgrades far more urgently . Oh and despite what so many say the PL have nowt to do with us being on at 12;30 regularly that is being down to us attracting the biggest audience for BT/TNT
At the defensive side of the game undoubtably. He suited Klopp's system of what he wanted from our midfield. But if Slot wants a player to be progressive from deep then I can see why he prefers Gravenberch.
You lot did well, you played clean, hoping you get to stay up and become regular fixtures in the PL. Oftentimes teams that have been out of the top flight for a few years resort to hacking at our players or playing negative tactics. You didn't, you played cleanly and as if you wanted to win rather than force a draw. It was nice to see and wish you well.
