Manager having a different view of the game Vs the fans. That’s new!
Ah, forget it.
If he won the title with Klopps team…
Then he has a couple of seasons with his new team. Everyone else has a couple of seasons, he surely has the same?
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This kind of rationale is ridiculous really.
Jurgen’s squad was getting old, and it did need refreshing. There were players like Quansah and Elliott who made very little contribution to the title, players like Trent and Diaz who actively wanted to go, players like Nunez that everyone wanted to see the back of, and one who died.
We needed to spend that money.
The only players the club sold and we are now missing, is Luis Diaz, and if you think we should have forced him to stay, you have not been paying any attention to his this club has operated for a decade.
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We miss Trent, as maligned as he was. Kinda reminds me of when Sterling left and people were saying Ibe was as good, if not better. Well, in my view neither Bradley or Frimpong have shown they can do that job. They need a bit of time and consistency, and maybe it will work out. At the moment its a real consideration for Slot.
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Sterling and Ibe were at least comparable players. And to be fair Ibe did look like he was on a Sterling-esque pathway. It doesn’t help that the lad suffered a huge mental health breakdown. We’ll never know what he could have been, and I don’t like the way his problems are subtly used as a stick to beat him with. Rob Jones is treated as a ‘what could have been’ story, because the injuries were physical. Jordan Ibe doesn’t get the same fondness because his injuries were mental.
We were always going to miss Trent. But not because he was a good RB. Because he was the main creative force in our team. It is unfair on both Bradley and Frimpong to suggest they were ever going to replace that.
I would go as far as to say Trent was a poor right back in the traditional mould. But he offered so, so much more than that. The team is now having to adjust to his departure by restructuring the whole way we attack. This was never a Bradley v Trent thing.
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Whoa there…
No using anything to beat Ibe with here…If you want to talk about that as a general topic then don’t include me in it. Problems aside, he wasn’t ever going to be as effective as Sterling was.
But my point is you can see why people thought that about Ibe. He looked really good and he played in the same sort of way as Sterling.
Comparing Bradley to Trent is chalk and cheese. They are just totally different players. They both played RB, but they interpret the role in completely different ways. Trent is a more orthodox full back. Trent was the team’s main player, and indulged to not have very much defensive responsibility.
If you want to compare Trent with his successor, you need to have a conversation about Florian Wirtz.
What Ibe went through came after Liverpool. When Sterling saw that Suarez left, Gerrard was getting old and leaving, Sturridge rarely fit and that his team mates on the wing or players who should be competition are Ibe and Markovic, no wonder he wanted to leave. That BBC interview, possibly told by his agent at the time, was stupid. We got a very good fee, but no running away from the fact that it was a blow for us. The only 3 players who were on level in that 14/15 season were Henderson, Coutinho and Sterling. Rodgers went into Amorim mode that season, Sterling played anything from single striker to RWB.
So naturally there will be a lot of fans that are a bit butthurt when big players leave (something we’re not used to a lot in recent years, but it happens). Usually, as we’re a big club, there will always be new big players. Sometimes not immediately. The fact that Klopp got rid of Ibe after one season and we had zero pace in the team he inherited, speaks volumes. There was no extra patience needed, because the level, potential and limits were obvious. It wasn’t Liverpool material. I bet he would’ve loved to inherit Sterling (who had his weaknesses, but still went on to produce high numbers in another top side, albeit having a weak shot, but learning how to get into goalscoring positions).
As for Trent, Bradley showed promise, but looking overall at player qualities, there is no doubt that individually, we’ve regressed so far in that position and it’s up to Bradley, Frimpong or whoever else to become a new mainstay at RB for Liverpool.
It’s a bit more complex than just looking at individuals and their skills. Our defending starts from the front and our pressing isn’t where it should be. Our build up shouldn’t depend so much on having a special player like Trent somewhere in our first third of the pitch either. It helps if you have one of course, but we gotta do better with what we have and that’s not directly replaced by having Wirtz receiving and being a key player between the lines.
Part of your point related to Jordan Ibe being judged by his mental health issues. And I am not doing that, never did. Why you choose now to mention the lads problems is a mystery.
Bradley, Frimpong are Trents replacements, and yes they are different. My original point is that we miss Trent in the current set up as we are not building play from the back like we did last few seasons.
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Thinking of how disappointing Trent was at the end but how poor we were from about PSG maybe there is a connection.
Though I do feel the PSG game knocked a lot of the players for six.
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We definitely weren’t the same side after that week, but I don’t know if it was much the emotional impact of the loss per se, but more that our lead in the league was so substantial by that we didn’t have much to pick ourselves up for because we felt, correctly so, we could sleepwalk through the remaining league campaign.
Because he is the poster boy for failing to live up to the excitement fans had about him, whereas we know the lad was really struggling with his mental health.
He was always a really good prospect who looked impressive when he played. That he is now playing non league football doesn’t mean he was always shit really.
No, they aren’t. They play the same position, but they are not going to be replacing Trent.
Are you telling me Slot has sat down with Bradley, and said “OK Conor. You are replacing Trent, so I want to drifting into midfield, picking up the ball in the six position, setting the attacking tempo for the team, bring our main creative fulcrum, and spraying 50 yard passes to the wide players” ?
No, I’m not telling you that.
But I guess you already know that.
Using this as the requirement then it means Wirtz isnt the replacement for Trent either because that isnt what he’s been asked to do.
Wirtz was brought in because Slot wanted us to have more control in the congested areas of the final third so we could manage games better. There is trivial connection to Trent in this addition, other than mathematically you might hope that Wirtz makes up for a significant portion of the lost assists we’ll experience from Trent’s absence.
I get part of your thinking - that when you lose such a big player you don’t necessarily replace them with a like for like replacement, but this idea is really being stretched beyond breaking here.
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Just want to say Slot is great and he will get to grips with this season and the team will improve. Points wise we are a bit ahead of the performance, after winning five games on the bounce, several of them last gasp. So on the upside we are one point off top spot. It’s nothing.
On the downside, the performance level hasn’t clicked yet, and there’s a sense that it lacks some cohesion - the press isn’t the same, the system isn’t quite working, and a few players are off form.
I am fully convinced that Slot will improve it, and the team will rise up. Whether or not that results in winning the league and/or CL remains to be seen, but we will be there or thereabouts.
We made a lot of changes and they were all necessary, imo. The changes were made for the next cycle, not just the next season. It’s still early days and I think there is much more to come.
Arnie’s got this.
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What I’m saying is that Trent was our playmaker. Wirtz is obviously going to be the playmaker in a different way, but what I can say for sure is that neither Frimpong or Bradley are being asked to do that job. They are being asked to be full backs. Trent was only really a full back in the sense that that was where they put his name on the team sheet. Other people (Konate and the midfield) were covering a lot of his defensive responsibilities.
Like you say, you can’t just get a new right back to replace Trent. You have to change the whole way you play. It just isn’t fair on the lads for people to be be criticising Bradley or Frimpong for not being as good as Trent.
There is reality I raise quite a lot that managers who can succeed when things are working well are not necessarily equipped to figure out what to do to fix something that is not working. Slot was close to immaculate last season, but is now facing a huge challenge, some of it partially of his making, and last season’s success isn’t necessarily a guide for how likely he is to manage this.
What people have said is that we’re struggling because we lack specifically what Trent provided for us. We are now far worse at getting the ball into positions where we can hurt teams. Where Wirtz would be asked asked to impart his creativity…if we could get him the damn ball in those spaces.
Pointing to Wirtz in response to this and saying he is now our playmaker is answering a question in a foreign language…it just has no connection to the concern being raised. Whether it is reasonable to put any of this responsibility on Bradley or Frimpong is a reasonable question, but it doesnt change the reality of what we’re missing and the impact it is seemingly having.
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We really need to look beyond this season. As @RedOverTheWater wrote, the changes will most probably reap their fruits next season and beyond. This one is transitional, and we’ll look shaky at times. We have a lot of individual quality, and that might bail us out from difficult situations, like it happened during our first five games in the league. But we aren’t a settled team/squad yet, and should look at this season to bed in all the new lads, and possibly to complement them with one or two more players next summer.
Then, we might possibly become really strong again. The latter part of this season will show us where the train is heading to. But we can’t expect this current squad to immediately hit the ground running. It would have been wonderful if it had happened, but evidence suggests that it will need time. Patience is required.