“Ahead of him was a 17 year old kid”, who literally got that start only once. I’m betting that had Oxlade-Chamberlain been fit for that match, he would have played it ahead of Gordon. Again you’re ignoring the part about none of the others being particularly suited to right forward, why? Because it doesn’t suit your point?
You’re choosing to see things in a very blinkered way, ignoring the point that Jürgen is very focused on balance of the team. We knew that Minamino’s not a right forward, so I’m not sure why you’re focusing so strongly on that point.
Infinitely preferable to being someone who thinks anyone who isn’t starting most of our games is a waste of space. And my participation in this thread originated from the point that many here are talking about how he doesn’t seem like he’s performing, and yet he’s not doing anything worse than what he did before when the coaching team was talking him up favourably. If he was as bad as most people are describing, then he wouldn’t even be getting those minutes.
Pathetic from you, but unsurprising considering that such jibes are usually your first resort to people who don’t agree with you anyway, followed up by surprise when people return the favour.
How do “games already won” change anything about his scoring? Do goals count less when they serve to extend our lead? Brentford are a team who have already put 3 past us this season, and people on here have constantly moaned about how 2-0 is the most dangerous lead for us to have. Just refer to the people shitting themselves when Crystal Palace got one back.
Likewise, for the League Cup, he can only score against the teams he gets to play. He scored one and assisted another against a team we failed to score against just a week later.
Again, none of the three of Firmino, Jota, nor Minamino play right forward very well. It’s just the way it is, and of them who would you drop?
So, looking this up, he missed 3 Champions League games so far this season, of which Minamino played the full game in 2. Meanwhile, in the league, he missed 9 games, of which 2 coincided with Minamino having injuries as well. Of the remaining 7, he was an unused substitute against Crystal Palace, which saw Origi come on as a substitute, and Wolves, which again saw Origi come on in place of him (scoring the winner), while he came on against West Ham, Arsenal, Southampton, Everton, Aston Villa (for which Oxlade-Chamberlain started in place of Jota who then replaced him, but Minamino came on as a late substitute for Mané).
In all of those games bar the Aston Villa game, the starting forwards were Mané, Jota, and Salah. Arguably the picture just shows that we’re heavily reliant on Mané and Salah, with Jota being in contention with Firmino for his position. Again, it’s nothing new that we didn’t know before.
He scored an open goal in an easy game after Firmino had done all the hard work. It wasn’t a huge contribution akin to Origi’s goal against Wolves, was it?
Just to clarify, I was countering the point that he can play across the front line and is a ‘perfect’ bench player. When that is his biggest contribution in the league or champions league, I find it hard to agree.
No one is expecting him to start ahead of Jota, Mane or Salah on a regular basis, only to be part of a rotation to provide them with some rest - but he isn’t even coming on to replace them in games to give them a proper breather. In league games he has had the following minutes this season - 3,10,14,9,2,2,16 & 30 most of which have been in a period where we have been missing at least 1 to 3 of our forwards. The only 90 minute games he plays are effectively dead rubbers, or of limited importance. While that has some value, having a player who can chip in more league minutes while also offering the same minutes for the other games would be better and shouldn’t be that hard for the club to achieve.
I think this actually happens less than most people think it would, otherwise one would figure that we’d see for example, Mané, Jota, and Firmino being rotated a lot more among each other than they currently are. In general, I think the rule for our coaching staff is, fitness permitting, Mané and Salah will play every single minute they can. Otherwise, in the “games we’ve already won” category, we would probably see them substituted a lot more often than they have been thus far.
Case in point, our 2 5-0 wins thus far this season. Arguably the games were well-won by 55 minutes, yet we didn’t see Salah get taken off. Mané himself came on against United after 77 minutes in fact.
The whole idea that we rotate players frequently for resting is a little overblown I think. It tends more often than not to (a) be midfielders, and (b) pre-planned based on fitness levels, i.e. if you’re fit enough you’ll play the full 90 anyway.
I take it Salah’s hat-trick against United was fairly meaningless then?
That’s hardly fair for two reasons: firstly, they need to be in the right positions to be putting those chances away to begin with, and secondly, we’ve often needed precisely that this season when we’ve failed to score. For the first point, I don’t think it’s as simple as that, as Minamino’s positioning to offer the option was vital. Firmino on his on in that situation may still have scored, but the chance would have been a lot harder. The goal itself was something that’s typical of Firmino’s goals anyway, tap-ins from balls supplied by others. In those games we failed to score on the other hand, we were often creating the chances we needed, just that we didn’t manage to finish them off well enough. Someone with the finishing ability in the right position could well have done something there.
…because the alternative options in attack aren’t good enough to justify it. Wasn’t long ago when there was even less rotation up front and even when they were collapsing with fatigue Salah, Mane and Firmino played EVERY game they possibly could. Then we added Jota, who started by being a player off the bench for cover and depth, but quickly gave us an option to rotate a bit up top. Now we split minutes between 4 players with a tiny bit more rest getting spread amongst them. If Origi, Minamino or Ox were good enough or someone like Gordon was ready we’d again start seeing more rotation. We’ve seen Robertson rediscover his best form by being rested more than ever now we have a great alternative in Tsimikas. We’ve seen Matip playing out of his skin, could the signing of a really good Konate be helping that? There’s certainly a degree of rotation between them two. Alisson has rediscovered his world class form after a few unstable moments, just as Kelleher has been getting some game time and impressing to show we finally have a decent second choice. You could even argue Firmino has started performing better than for a couple of years now Jota seems to be getting chosen ahead of him too.
He’s a good lad. But he’s not good enough to be here, he isn’t offering much on the pitch, his technical and physical ability is lacking and he’s invisible on the pitch more often than not either where he’s supposed to be or tracking back.
Overanalysing the few contributions he has made to justify his inclusion and time here is pretty silly as that’s not the type of bench player we need. I’d much rather keep Origi because as frustrating as he can be, we know he has the ability as well as the physical tools and when the chips are down he will put a shift in where it matters.
Except I literally just demonstrated that’s not the case regardless. The only player seeing a difference in his minutes is Firmino. Mané is still playing all matches when Jota could be playing in place of him.
Maybe for Salah, but again I doubt it.
How has he been “rested more than ever”? He’s missed games only through injury and suspension. The only other games are the League and FA Cup games, and the two Champions League games that took place after we secured first place, for which we did play Minamino.
Or maybe he’s been at this level for a while, and it took Van Dijk being below his usual standards for people to start noticing. He was a mainstay in 2019-20 and he held our defence together after we lost Gomez and Van Dijk last season.
He’s always had those ebbs and flows of shaky moments and recovering his form. His debut season saw him make multiple daft errors, while his next season saw him get a red card for something equally daft. That was the reason why most people were reasonably impressed with Adrian until that calamitous game.
Or maybe, he’s recovering his form, like any other player.
It’s ridiculous to suggest on the face of it that these ultra-competitive athletes would change their mindset much just because someone’s been added to the squad.
Except for the miss against Arsenal he was in fact playing better than the other two. I won’t argue about his physicality though because it’s quite clear that’s one large thing holding him back.
It’s funny that you mention “overanalysing the few contributions he’s made to justify his inclusion and time here” as opposed to overanalysing the limited sample of the game time he’s gotten since he’s arrived. It works both ways as well.
I don’t understand how saying he’s not as bad as most people are making out, or that the coaching team who are working with him and choosing him for games value him higher than fans on here who are suggesting that he ought to be sold, is in any way a controversial opinion. We’ve been here before, although with players of higher ability, like Keïta and Oxlade-Chamberlain, and even Matip in fact. These players have often been, and are sometimes still, ruled out as offering too little for the game time they get, and yet they somehow remain in our team, and are still valuable members at that. Just the renaissance of Matip alone in people’s opinions when a large number of people would have had him sold ought to tell people something.
Your arguments are literally only convincing yourself but then you act like you’ve established cast iron facts in later posts built on the foundations of those earlier posts. You’re impossible to have a constructive conversation with when it comes to fringe players. You seem to Champion them and their causes in a strange (although quite admirable) fashion. But its tenacious, confrontational and comes across more like someone sticking their fingers in their ears and shouting the same things over and over again till the other people give up and walk away. Then whatever your point is you consider established fact moving on.
The fact is Klopp does not like much change in a squad. He also has a lot of faith and patience when it comes to players, far more than most managers. Additionally to this he’s the managers most likely to respect a players decision/desire to move on or stay at the club. Add to this the fact our club have quite a high base wage and have been working hard to eliminate the “transfer mugs” reputation by haggling buying prices and securing respectfully high fees on sales.
All that means we are a club very unlikely to see lots of fringe players coming in and out under Klopp, he will also never cast a player out onto the scrap heap unless they are a real bad influence and he’ll keep them part of the squad and even use them.
This does not mean these players are great, good to use as cover or wanted here or anything like you always try and argue.
Good cover is Jota and possibly Konate, a player who comes in and instantly performs meaning you can no longer tell who the starters really are anymore. Or Tsimikas and Kelleher, great player meaning we don’t suffer when the world class starter is missing.
Minamino will be here till its both convenient for us to replace/upgrade him AND a club he will want to go to are making an offer we will accept. That may mean he is here another year or so. But whilst he is here he neither challenges for starting roles in any of his positions or offers us cover good enough that we don’t miss the world class starter he covers for.
So you’ll be having these arguments and rants for awhile.
Eh? All of the players above have delivered far more than Minamino in the league and CL even if it has not always been consistently delivered due to injury. Minimino’s limited time in the team has not been due to not being available for selection, it’s due to being not good enough. It’s a simple equation, really.
I’m talking specifically about that Arsenal game because it was when everyone really starting piling on.
Never claimed it was due to not being available for selection. We’ll definitely see him pick up more minutes in the upcoming weeks, especially with the tight fixture crunch, but I don’t think even the most positive about his abilities will say that at this moment, his other strengths outweigh the obvious lack of physical strength that makes him less effective than he would otherwise be. Given that we bought him in part because of his ability to keep buzzing and pressing, this lack of physical strength relative to the league is a large flaw.
I just think he shouldn’t be ruled out as an option, and that although many people here are saying that he’s not even good enough to be a squad option, I’m disagreeing on the basis that the coaching staff still call on him regularly.
Ironic coming from you, but unlike you I actually do have facts that don’t require selective interpretation through a particular lens. I notice that no one has rebutted the statement of fact that I made that despite Jota being more than good enough to play on the left in place of Mané and would therefore be ideal for a rotation pool of Mané, Jota, and Firmino, Mané has still played the vast majority of the minutes available.
I don’t disagree, but,
We’re not shy to move on players for lower amounts when we feel as though they don’t fit our needs. Case in point here is Lovren, at the age of 31 when leaving us, he was hardly at the end of his career, was he? Equally, Jürgen doesn’t give minutes to players he doesn’t think are worth those minutes. He’s stressed that point over and over again.
Jota I won’t dispute was a player who has delivered almost instantly, but he also had the attributes to do so. I suspect Konaté is a player whom many are overrating in part because of his relative age, the hype surrounding him, and the fact that he’s come into relatively good situations. I’m not saying he’s not got incredible potential, I just think that his present performances aren’t that noteworthy. Tsimikas and Kelleher themselves took a couple of years to get to the level that they’re currently at.
Am I arguing that Minamino is going to be a world-beater? No. I’m just pointing out that he simply isn’t as poorly rated as so many comments on here suggest. He’ll be let go quickly if he isn’t up to standard.
I’m glad to have these arguments where I see that fans are underrating players on our team, overreacting to particular periods of bad form/luck. It’s just a lot more noticeable where it’s popular to pile on some players, e.g. Origi and Minamino, whereas it’s a lot less noticeable when I’m defending someone like Oxlade-Chamberlain, Keïta, Matip, or even during his periods of bad form, Mané.
It’s ironic again because I view all this through the lens of everything that Jürgen has said about his philosophy and his players, including what you said about not liking much change, which is the implication of his belief that he can improve many players through working on training. So while individual players might not be showing their abilities in a particular moment, I’m not that quick to give up on them.
Jota has played more minutes than Mane now, yes partly due to AFCON but that comes into the planning on who to prioritise rests for on the lead up to AFCON.
Would have played more if fit all season.
Yes he was. Yet again you overestimating our fringe players. He went for £10m, to Russia. If he was still a good option he’d have gone to a better league or/and for a higher fee. He’d stayed at least a few seasons too long.
How many minutes did Enrique play for us? Completely disagree.
He’s always going to publicly support and talk up the players, even the ones he wants to move on. It’s what he does.
Not if we have a lot of other business to complete he won’t. We only do a certain amount of business and with the amount of players entering the last year of their deals (as it stands) this summer a cover option like Minamino will be low down on priority list. He could even be replaced by an academy prospect without it necessarily harming us.
Yet you’re selective in who you show support to I think you have a massive love for the underdog. You even aren’t that supportive of Konate who is already integrated better and performing better for us (so more deserving of thanks and applause) than you are of Minamino.
Be careful not all Klopp says will be 100% genuine he has motivation issues etc. to care about. He isn’t just going to come out and say “well there are players here not good enough, I’d get rid of them if I could but finding buyers is difficult sometimes so I can’t make room for better players to come in”!
Fair enough, I think you’ll have a very frustrating time defending players who never end up proving you right but it’s up to you how you spend your time. I just don’t think you should get so worked up over the vast majority not agreeing with you.
He has the touch of a trampoline, unfortunately and his movement and game play is nothing to write home about; he offers very little outlet up front and not much of a presence tracking back. This isn’t because he missed a sitter at Arsenal either, it’s because he hasn’t really shown much of anything. His defining moment will be a late equalizer against Leicester in front of the Kop. Good on him, it’s not something everyone can simply rock up and do an fair dues, he took his moment well. But that’s about it, really.
Seems I’ve gone into Taki bashing mode but it’s really not. He’s a good lad with some attributes but not enough for us. It wasn’t even good enough for Southampton.