Liverpool Discussion

[LFCMike]

Just now, Stan said:

Jota come back just at the right time.

Would be nice to be able to get one back and not lose another though

[CaaC (John)+]

1 minute ago, Stan said:

Jota come back just at the right time.

Knowing Klopp and Liverpool's luck this season he might get injured again. 

[Dr. Gonzo]

1 hour ago, Scouse_Mouse said:

Rafa didn't have much more depth at CB, his CB were more dependable injury wise though. But take Rafa's first three CB out and you are getting into playing youngsters or Gerrard out of position a la Fabinho.

I was more talking about the rest of the squad,  I'd like to see a quality striker to add to Mo, Bobby, Jota and Mane

We've got lots of depth in MF but can always add quality, as was the plan when we signed Thiago.

I'm not saying we should stand pat in the summer, we don't need a massive rebuild, I'll be excited to see Elliot back, the emergence of Curtis Jones huge too.

I know we are at either end of the positive/negative spectrum, it would be great to have two quality players for every position but we've never had that mate and with our financial restrictions we probably never will.

Under Rafa, for many years we had: Carra, Hyypia (imo the best CB we’ve had in my lifetime til we signed Virgil), Agger in his prime, and Skrtel in his prime.

That’s 4 top level CBs for 2 positions. And out of them only Agger was a sick note like Matip & Gomez are, so the odds of all of them being out were pretty low.

Under Rafa we also had 4 of the best CMs I’ve ever seen at the club at once. Gerrard, Alonso, Mascherano and Sissoko was unreal depth. I can’t remember when Didi left us, but we also had him around too.

We had serious depth in the spine of the side. Whereas now I think we’ve got a great XI, but not much on the bench to call on when we need to change things. Or in our situation now, in an injury crisis at the back... the midfield has fallen apart and the entire side has unraveled as a result. Seems tough for me to say this is the “most depth” we’ve had.

[Scouse_Mouse]

1 hour ago, Dr. Gonzo said:

Under Rafa, for many years we had: Carra, Hyypia (imo the best CB we’ve had in my lifetime til we signed Virgil), Agger in his prime, and Skrtel in his prime.

That’s 4 top level CBs for 2 positions. And out of them only Agger was a sick note like Matip & Gomez are, so the odds of all of them being out were pretty low.

Under Rafa we also had 4 of the best CMs I’ve ever seen at the club at once. Gerrard, Alonso, Mascherano and Sissoko was unreal depth. I can’t remember when Didi left us, but we also had him around too.

We had serious depth in the spine of the side. Whereas now I think we’ve got a great XI, but not much on the bench to call on when we need to change things. Or in our situation now, in an injury crisis at the back... the midfield has fallen apart and the entire side has unraveled as a result. Seems tough for me to say this is the “most depth” we’ve had.

I'm not necessarily disagreeing mate, I just feel that depth wise our squad is as deep now as it's ever been, I agree about the sublime midfield Rafa had (Didi if I remember correctly was pretty much done for us when Rafa took over though) 

Just like the sublime forward line Klopp has.

Rafa as I said had more dependable CBs, but didn't have more than three quality ones at any given time, iirc Sami was  pretty much finished for us when we signed Skrtel? if we'd lost Carra, Agger and Skrtel for a season we would have been pretty much in the same shape as we are right now.

Anyway as I said, not necessarily disagreeing I just don't see any more depth in Rafa's day than what we have right now, more quality in midfield for sure but not as much depth imho.

 

[Rick]

Are we talking about depth purely in a numbers way, or quality? Because the quality in the squad apart from the first 11 leaves a bit to be desired. 
 

Shaqiri, Matip, Milner, Keita & Jones are the only good options in the rest of the squad for me. Two of those are injury prone and the other is nearing the end of his career. Think they are all quality, but it’s obvious we have a fair bit of re-tooling to do with this squad in the summer. Really don’t want to go into next season with Origi & Ox on our bench. 

Edited March 9, 2021 by Rick

[Dr. Gonzo]

13 minutes ago, Scouse_Mouse said:

I'm not necessarily disagreeing mate, I just feel that depth wise our squad is as deep now as it's ever been, I agree about the sublime midfield Rafa had (Didi if I remember correctly was pretty much done for us when Rafa took over though) 

Just like the sublime forward line Klopp has.

Rafa as I said had more dependable CBs, but didn't have more than three quality ones at any given time, iirc Sami was  pretty much finished for us when we signed Skrtel? if we'd lost Carra, Agger and Skrtel for a season we would have been pretty much in the same shape as we are right now.

Anyway as I said, not necessarily disagreeing I just don't see any more depth in Rafa's day than what we have right now, more quality in midfield for sure but not as much depth imho.

 

I think Hamann left us shortly after we won the CL - so you're probably right about him not being part of that midfield that had the greatest song imo ever written about it. Hyypia, though, put in top performances for us until he retired - even though he went from being a first choice to a squad player.

As a tinkerer though, Rafa usually kept us with some depth in the side which even if it wasn't the best quality... he'd still have options on the bench to be able to change things around. So I just think that while we have, definitely, a much stronger squad in terms of overall quality in our best XI... I do think Rafa's squads were better built for shite like unexpected injury criseses.

Easier to say, though, despite Rafa never really having an injury crisis like the one we're having right now. Us losing every CB we started the season with is something unprecedented (at least to me).

3 minutes ago, Rick said:

Are we talking about depth purely in a numbers way, or quality? Because the quality in the squad apart from the first 11 leaves a bit to be desired. 
 

Shaqiri, Matip, Milner, Keita & Jones are the only good options in the rest of the squad for me. Think the rest could easily be replaced with better.

And yeah... that's more of my lines of thinking.

And tbh, Milner's recent form since his last injury is a bit worrying because it looks like his age might be finally catching up with him. But hopefully he just needs a bit more time to get back up to speed. It's hard to say really considering how fucking poor we've been.

[Scouse_Mouse]

8 minutes ago, Dr. Gonzo said:

I think Hamann left us shortly after we won the CL - so you're probably right about him not being part of that midfield that had the greatest song imo ever written about it. Hyypia, though, put in top performances for us until he retired - even though he went from being a first choice to a squad player.

 

No doubt about that. I don't want to be greedy but the thoughts of having Didi in that midfield instead of Momo leaves me salivating.

8 minutes ago, Dr. Gonzo said:

Easier to say, though, despite Rafa never really having an injury crisis like the one we're having right now. Us losing every CB we started the season with is something unprecedented (at least to me).

 

Ive only been supporting them for 60 years mate but it's unprecedented to me too.

 

24 minutes ago, Rick said:

Are we talking about depth purely in a numbers way, or quality? Because the quality in the squad apart from the first 11 leaves a bit to be desired. 
 

Shaqiri, Matip, Milner, Keita & Jones are the only good options in the rest of the squad for me. Two of those are injury prone and the other is nearing the end of his career. Think they are all quality, but it’s obvious we have a fair bit of re-tooling to do with this squad in the summer. Really don’t want to go into next season with Origi & Ox on our bench. 

I can't disagree Rick, although I haven't given up on the Ox quite yet, I thought he was playing the best footy of his career before that last bad knee injury.

As far as the midfield goes I'd love to see Fab, Curtis and Hendo all starting with Thiago, Shaqiri, Keita and (maybe wishful thinking) the Ox as backup/rotation.......not too shabby backup imho.

[Scouse_Mouse]

Another, bit younger James Milner wouldn't be too bad either if he was out there.

[Guest]

Personally I think its unlikely liverpool would be on such a bad run if klopps mum hadn't died. A lot of klopps success is because of his charisma I think. He isn't the same at the moment which is understandable. It is probably affecting his decision making as well.

Not saying they would be top but I'm sure it hasn't helped 

[Cicero]

I don't think Klopps mom dying has any correlation to Salah, Mane, and Firmino looking completely gassed. 

[Guest]

6 minutes ago, Cicero said:

I don't think Klopps mom dying has any correlation to Salah, Mane, and Firmino looking completely gassed. 

Klopp is the manager. If he is not right that will affect the whole team. I said before the season I think liverpool may burn out this season and may not get in the champions league. You all called me crazy. So I think burn out is a factor. But I still think klopps mum dying is affecting him and the team 

[Cicero]

6 minutes ago, Gunnersauraus said:

Klopp is the manager. If he is not right that will affect the whole team. I said before the season I think liverpool may burn out this season and may not get in the champions league. You all called me crazy. So I think burn out is a factor. But I still think klopps mum dying is affecting him and the team 

I didn't call you crazy that's for sure. 

I was the most vocal about Liverpool's front three burning out back in September (before they signed Jota). 

[Guest]

4 minutes ago, Cicero said:

I didn't call you crazy that's for sure. 

I was the most vocal about Liverpool's front three burning out back in September (before they signed Jota). 

After getting 196 points in two years and winning the champions league players are going to be mentally burned out at least. 

[Devil]

They were talking on the radio this morning about a possible full rebuild of the front three. 

Personally I don't think that's needed I just think they all need a good rest, a proper summer break to refresh and get ready for next season. 

The other think with a full rebuild it would mean selling players, now the obvious one out of the front three of Liverpool would be Salah due to his body language and the fact he's said a few times he'd like to play in Spain. The issue with that is I don't think the Spanish clubs are going to be coming in for him any time soon anyway, Haaland and Mbappe are the flavour of the month and Barca haven't got any cash anyway. Liverpool would want in excess of 100 million for him so I don't think it's even worth discussing the possibility of him leaving Anfield any time soon so the media (talksport) may as well drop the subject and move on. 

[Mpache]

How to ruin someones childhood in a photo:

[Bluewolf]

Look Familiar????

Good to see that some players follow in the footsteps of the God's... 

Grujic

His God... 

[LFCMike]

He must only be in his 30s? Remember there being a lot of excitement around us signing him. He'd been decent in La Liga if I recall and had to wait for a work permit before signing. Sure he scored a goal on his debut in a Champions League qualifier. That was about as good as it got for him at Liverpool unfortunately

[Dr. Gonzo]

1 hour ago, LFCMike said:

He must only be in his 30s? Remember there being a lot of excitement around us signing him. He'd been decent in La Liga if I recall and had to wait for a work permit before signing. Sure he scored a goal on his debut in a Champions League qualifier. That was about as good as it got for him at Liverpool unfortunately

Holy shit, that’s awful news. He’s only 36 according to wiki!

I remember he had such hype around him but never really showed it - but regardless of how he was as a player a heart attack is always bad news. Especially when it’s so young.

[Mpache]

Oh shit, I remember Mark Gonzalez being a Bielsa favourite for Chile back in the day. I never thought clicking on this thread would result in me reading that.

Some further reading suggests he'll be OK, but it's awful news regardless.

[Harry]

When five thirty eight are writing feature articles on how shit you are you know things are going pretty bad...

https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/how-bad-is-liverpool/

[LFCMike]

I didn't realise this. I thought his contract was up at the end of the season. Surely Liverpool will look to cash in this summer with his stock being as high as it'll ever be

 

[Stan]

 

 

 

[Mel81x+]

I remember seeing some videos a while back with him supporting Liverpool didnt know he had become a partner. 

[Happy Blue]

Liverpool owners FSG to follow Man City’s lead with new £540m investment

https://www.mirror.co.uk/sport/football/news/liverpool-fsg-ownership-investment-redbird-23743784

 

 

[Scouse_Mouse]

4 hours ago, Mel81x said:

I remember seeing some videos a while back with him supporting Liverpool didnt know he had become a partner. 

I'm not sure what the "partnership" entails but Lebron James has had a financial stake in LFC for a decade.