Considering Klopp happily did without a 4th senior CB in order to sign Thiago, it would have taken Virgil’s stronger, faster, smarter, younger twin to convince him to off-load Gini last summer. But then I believe Klopp’s praise of Gini in his farewell was sincere.
Thought Gini was great for us, decided to move on - more money, the opportunity to learn French, whatever - and I wish him well and hope Jones is ready to take a big step forward to fill the gap. I also hope Ox and Milner stay healthy to provide depth and assume our starting 3 is Hendo, Thiago, and Fabinho, which is a very tasty mid-field on paper.
Klopp said last summer that he wanted 4 senior CBs. The fact he didn’t get a 4th one wasn’t what he wanted. Just what he had to cope with. The needs for more creativity in midfield, a back up to our only LB and a 4th decent attacker when we start with 3 were all long standing issues he’d been waiting for a while to be able to address. Those being priorities doesn’t mean a 4th CB wasn’t a priority just one we weren’t able to resolve, quite possibly due to money. Which is where a sale of Gini for anything over £20m would have been extremely convenient.
Which would have then left a fucking massive hole in midfield, considering Gini played every game.
And I don’t think adding another centre back is happy days, considering we had eight out at one point.
If you want to be a Hindsight Hiddink, then the mistakes are signing Tsimikas, who barely played a minute. There were options in the squad to cover that position, and if the last season has taught us anything it’s that full back cover is a bit of a luxury. And knocking back £13m for Wilson, which could have been recycled into a decent fourth choice centre back. That looks a massive mistake now. Either of those before selling Gini, which would have created more problems that it solved.
With Gini, I really don’t understand the debate. Gini has every reason to ask for a big contract given the number of minutes he played in a period of sustained success…his continued presence is de facto evidence of his importance to the side and its reasonable he should try to be paid accordingly. However, sports is cut throat and always has to be looking to the future, and it’s understandable why the club would not be on that same page given the age of our midfield and the need to refresh there. We can appreciate the value he has brought while believing that money is better spent elsewhere in the coming years. Gini has no responsibility to us to take whatever he is offered and we have none to pay him for past glories. Sometimes there is a natural parting of the ways and there will be other suitors who see more value in him moving forward than we do. Ce La Vie and thanks for everything, Gini.
Completely agree on the Gini points. Sometimes it’s fine for things to end like this, and I suspect everyone is fine with it.
Longer term, I really think it’s going to become a more common thing and I think we’re going to see playing signing a contract and then just seeing it through, and seeing what’s on the table at that point.
I’ve got an eye on Salah this summer. If he has a desire to finish his career at one of the European giants, there is literally no-one who can possibly afford him, bar PSG. If he signs a contract then he finishes his career here, and if he doesn’t, then I think he’s going on a free in a couple of years.
On Tsimikas, I agree with you, but the point was just in response to ARD who thinks it was a mistake not to sell Gini (or rather Gini should have consented to being sold) to fund a fourth choice centre back, which is one of the more interesting opinions I’ve seen for a while, considering Gini played in every single league game. There were clearly lots of other decisions that can be questioned before that one.
Were you suggesting Klopp sell Gini, and buy a centre back with the cash. I think that’s a new one. Mind you, we’d have been screwed if he’d done that.
You’re looking at him playing Gini and players missing from midfield due to covering in defence as why we would have struggled in midfield without Gini. We always had the midfield numbers without him. Without using hindsight the assumption was Thiago was the Gini replacement. Henderson, Thiago, Fabinho, Keita, Milner, Ox, Jones, even Shaqiri/Minamino/Firmino at a pinch. We had the numbers the issue was losing Henderson and Fabimho to the CB positions. Even then I’m not sure we ever played a game without at least 3 starting CMs and one senior CM on the bench, certainly not often. Also with reinforcements at CB allowing more rotation and resting maybe we don’t even pick up as many injuries there as we did by having to play injury effected players like Matip and Henderson for every minute of every game. Klopp had Gini, Gini is fully versed in the system and always available so Klopp played Gini. That does not mean we wouldn’t have coped without him.
And the Fabinho covering CB was once Wijnaldum was staying along with Thiago. But even then we still needed a more durable CB to replace Matip and our best youth option in Hoever to stay. So would have been stronger than we ended up going with.
No, I’m really not. He played the most minutes bar Robbo and Salah. We needed him regardless of buying a fourth choice centre back.
The number of minutes played in midfield wasn’t entirely down to our defensive crisis. Keita and Ox were write offs all season. Henderson always has an injury in him. Thiago was out for four months. Fabinho is no stranger to a couple of months off.
If it was a mistake to go into the season with Matip and Gomez as our defensive cover, then it would certainly have been a mistake to go into the season expecting a midfield of Hendo, Fabinho and Thiago to stay fit. When one of Hendo, Fabinho or Thiago inevitably do their Hammy, who’s coming into the side to cover? The promising but raw Jones? The perma crocked Keita or Ox? Or the 35 year old James Milner?
We had the numbers in midfield, but sacrificing Gini would be sacrificing the only one who is proven and can stay fit. I don’t think with the best will in the world you can include Keita or Ox in those ‘numbers’.
He played nearly 4000 minutes last year. 4000. You can account for some of those minutes with an extra defender (who presumably in this fantasy, wouldn’t have got injured like all the other fuckers) but not them all. Nowhere near.
Thank god the club didn’t decide to flog him, because we wouldn’t be looking forward to CL football next season, I’m sure of that.
Jurgen Klopp wanted desperately to keep Gini Wijnaldum, who was one of his vice-captains, but Liverpool were not willing to give Wijnaldum the terms, and crucially the length of contract, he wanted.
Always strikes me as a funny spin, could easily be written as Edwards and Gordon wanted to keep Gini, an important member of the squad but he wanted more years and money than market value. Far too much emotion on things like this made worse by social media and the new levels of clickbait media.
Anyone see the interview he did with the times (I think). Gave out about our online fanbase. That’s all I got from it from the comments as it’s asking for money to read
(lacking body).