Skrtel and others

Prior to him signing a contract extension I was going to do an article on him but now he's signed I can't really say much.

But I'm still gonna!!

Skrtel has been at the club for a very long time, every season we argue over whether he's that good where he has his fans who will say how good he is and the rest saying otherwise. Same with most players tbh.

My opinion of him now is, prior to this season we weren't in the past five seasons of Champions Leagues and that's with him as our main defender. I beleive that his level is below Champions League now and should not be relied on to deliver us this.

I don't understand why we are keeping him on when we know we've got the best from him, he's been good to the club but isn't the quality we need. If he's seen more on the bench next season then fair enough but it looks like we will see him start for a lot more seasons.

And now onto my others, Sturridge.

He's english, he's good and hes a striker but if a offer comes in for him should we sell?

I love Sturridge but this season has been very worrying, the fact he went to England and got injured from doing something he's not comfortable with should ring alarm bells because we have a player who mentally can't handle something different.

Would a top team come in for him? Unsure, Man City or Arsenal I can see it. But would we sell?

We would get a top top price for him and could secure a striker who isn't injury prone and similar to the way he plays, because let's face it, he's not a work horse so we're looking for a striker who's quick and skilful.

 

Skrtel is not a priority to fix. If someone is in better form he is a decent sub. He's almost never injured.

 

Skrtel, we keep him cause he's the only defender we have that can a) stay fit for most of the season, b) isn't an utter disaster in every game (Lovren, Toure).
But yes he is an average CB and really we should have moved on from him about two years ago but we have only addressed the CB issue by buying Sakho and Lovren. One who plays half the season and the other shouldn't even play half a season. If we had bought two quality (or just one) CB's Skrtel would have been sold by now.

Sturridge, get him fit for next year and he'll be fine. We've got one striker as it is lets not go selling him.

 

You can blame Skrtel..No nonsense defender above average.

 

Happy enough with Skrt's as one of our four CB's.

Gotta replace Toure though

 

I said sell to Torres and Agger because they were so injury prone and I think Studge is even more injury prone than the pair of those so I can't really say anything else can I?

As for Skrtel, we shouldn't sell him, not yet anyway. As I always say, buy to improve the first team and the squad takes care of himself. It should be a convayor belt system; worst is first out. Skrtel is in no way our worst defender.

 

My view on skertl is that this is a business decision.

On the balance sheet I THINK he has been with us so long that he is in effect amortized in therms of fees? so giving him a new deal is a very cheap was of having a CB on the books especially when his wages are prob similar to Tour who is going and was so slow he could not do much

I think if we have an agreement in general that the lad just is not top 4.. .which he is not I agree then we still need 4 CBs. This guy plus lovern plus sahko are 3. we have a couple young lads floating about like ilori who is the great hop of some, wisdom who rodgers doesn't fancy.

Sure it'd be nice to buy yet another CB who in fact was top 4 quality.

 

on the wages he's on now.... well i cannot see an offer coming in frankly... if we were to be fit for an entire year next year and scores 20 again.. yeah i'd be thinking hmmmm if someone bids i'd sell at the right price..

 

said it better than me...

its a free player, winston reid contract was 80k so is skertl wrose than west hams guy? no so yeah part of 4

 

So you don't think Skrtel is even good enough to be third or fourth choice?

(ignoring wages here)

 

Personally I want Skrtel on bench next season. He's not vice captain and doesn't seem like he will ever get that despite being the oldest in the squad next season, we need to start looking forward because Skrtel isn't the answer.

I want to see Ilori with Sakho next season or a back three of Ilori-Lovren-Sakho.

 

Depending on how much you rate Sakho, Skrtel being on the bench could mean we need to sign two quality CBs this summer. Brod has already stating he wants to sign two strikers this summer and we clearly need something in midfielder since we were short before Gerrard went **** and confirmed his impending departure. Some would say we need a keeper too but I don't see us moving away from Migs so it would only be a back-up keeper IMO (not my preference)

 

I must be watching a different player. Skrtel has always been prone to the odd howler throughout his Liverpool career and could not be relied upon. I have been critical in the past of him as a player but to be fair to him he has been great this season and deserves the recognition, if he can keep this form going he will be a very good player for us.

 

he was decent last year too when we conceded a shed load.

He is best coming forward attacking the ball not stepping in reading play and making interceptions. once he's in a place to come and battle a target man in the air he improves a lot... thats not to say a good target man can't school him though... unlike hyppia he's not the be all and end all in the air.

the thing is lovern last weekend had **** all to do when west brom were so defensive but every time it came near him he did it... so is he great as a result... nope... if anything both lovern and skertl want to play the same game and that is not a good thing... If we want eithe rof these hounds in our team... and a shako too we need a ball reader type in the team to sweep up behind them

All 3 senior cbs we have want to go attack it... none have the game intelligence to read it well... rodgers had skertl and bout the other two.... oooops.

Finding a varane in european football is not easy

 

We potentially have one in Ilori - hopefully we bring him back next season and he can get a few games back.

Back to the OP:

I'm not a Skrtel fan and I would be looking to get rid of him in the summer - having said that, I would have no issues with keeping him on the bench.

Sturridge is a good striker - he was heavily overhyped when Suarez left and many felt he would be the one who could step up. Even when fit, he has struggled. He needs a partner and he can't be the main man simply because of his injuries.

 

He still has serious flaws to his game which annoy me every time I see him play but at the moment, he's better than any other option.

 

As long as Sakho steps up again next season with A N Other of our current defenders, Lovren maybe but god knows with him, and we get some more quality in at the back to play with him Skrtel will be alright for a bit longer. He's not the best but he's reasonably consistent and, as others have said, fairly hard. Consistency, or inconsistency, is one of our biggest problems with the players we have.

Wouldn't be averse to us selling Sturridge as long as we have business in the pipeline for deals to improve us up front. All the time we seem to be selling strikers and in crisis mode when they're gone about who to buy. This season off the back of Sturridge's good 2013/14 was the first in a long time we didn't have that problem but it came to fruition anyway when he got injured and there was no transfer window left to sort it out. We have to get business done quickly in the summer. Got to shift 2/3 of our forwards and buy 1/2 who are proven qualiteeeeeee.

 

I'd like to see ilori complete a proper preseason with us and by proper i mean a good training period not ruined by tours focused at melwood and/or hot weather camp and then friendlies in europe.

I'd then like to see him fit at start of season and if he is ready to play.

we will have to see......

not writing him off but he's been injured too much to be given more than 4th spot.

 

Wouldn't be selling Sturridge. Quickest player to 50 goals wasn't he? Yes he's been injured but let him have rest of the season off and be 100% fit going j to pre season and see what happens. With our curent strike force, no way can we even contemplate selling the only player who has looked capable of putting the bal in the net.

 

Selling Sturridge now is stupid in terms of value anyway

How much can you get for him and who can you buy who's better with that?