In my opinion, we already have several of the new faces we need for that. In terms of players, we have Núñez, Gakpo, Carvalho, Elliott, Bajcetic, Doak, and Jones, who played a limited extent of our games from last season or are completely new. They are able to inject that little bit of energy.
We have also seen good showings from Keïta, and to a more limited extent, Oxlade-Chamberlain. The main issues over the two of them is of course fitness.
I don’t see a sudden magical turnaround where we become the steamrolling juggernaut within a couple of games, but I think we can get there within a matter of weeks, if we keep working hard on the plan. I think we’ve already seen quite a bit of improvement, not just from the worst points, but generally from the post-World Cup malaise we found ourselves in.
It certainly feels to me as though the movement and passing has improved, as has the mentality. The latter to me is evidenced by us not letting our heads drop after conceding the goals.
If you go back to about summer of 2019 the issue I raised was that so many of our improtant players were at the peak age at the same time, which was great for the immediate, but that if we weren’t careful the team would age out together. If we were not proactive about it we’d either find ourselves with a team who became old “over night” or a side that had to get ripped up suddenly, which we likely didnt have the money to do because it necessitates a lot of net spending. It is also an approach that risks losing the team’s identity.
The obvious middle ground was to approach the window as a way to build the side you want 2-3 years down the line. We have made some of those signings, Jota being a great example, but too many of our signings have ended up proactive. Diaz coming in because we knew we were losing Mane, rather than having players in place that would allow us to move on a formerly important player in the last year of his contract without having to do anything to respond to that situation. Critically, as has been examined to death, the midfield has been strangely over looked. There have to be reasons for this beyond people just dropping the ball, but I think it starts with Covid clogging the market at the point we were looking to do some refreshening (possibly affected an inflated sense of how good we were in the market and unwilling to take covid fees for players we wanted more money for) and then responding to the knock on effects of that badly.
Yep, personally I think Klopp is all in on Bellingham and has had enough encouragement he will stick for his man.
I think he now realises that that strategy i.e. Waiting and relying on the midfield he had was wrong but the players we wanted are all not available or now double price. Meaning not enough money for Bellingham so he’s double downed.
the owners are backing him, but he’s also responsible for the current midfielder situation as the only one he inherited from Rodgers is his captain, Henderson.
the other 8 listed midfielders are Klopps’ purchases and it’s likely he’s been told that until he frees up some space in the squad that he’s stuck with what he’s purchased/taken on loan.
It feels very American in it’s approach. People always talk about those NFL teams who are in a “win now” window. Most of the pieces are there to be true challengers but a couple big additions could be the tipping point between nearly men and champions. The Rams and Buccaneers being the prime examples of that recently.
The problem with this comes when you hit the end of that window. The big splashy signings on short term deals move on. There’s not the cap space to keep the all the stars you steadily built up and developed so you have to let some go. And everyone who hit their peak at the same time is now on a downward trend at the same time.
Feels like maybe Thiago was one of those “win now” signings. We’ve tried to maximise that window with players at their peak and unfortunately it hasn’t worked as we’d hoped due to a bunch of factors. Now we’re in rebuild mode.
The front line has had to be the focus due to the players ages and contract situations. I can’t see much more needed there for a while unless we choose to sell someone. The defence has a better blend of youth and experience and also doesn’t have all the contracts coming to an end simultaneously. That leaves the midfield. I doubt the rebuild to make us competitive at the very top again happens in one window though.
@rab just want to say welcome back. You are a well informed poster who writes well. Oh, and can I lend a tenner?
There are problems at the club, we can all see that.
I’m hoping that ownership issues will be resolved and the midfield will be refreshed. It might not solve everything, but they seem like two key issues that need urgent attention.
Someone was saying it was on Klopp that 300 millions was spent since we won the CL and only a handful of that went into midfield.
Looking at these figures, let’s make some smashing songs about FSG. They can never be wrong for some here.
Sometimes the lengths we go to defend owners here is extremely surprising.
One thing is clear though…the owners are never on fault here. They should continue to spend money on signing a contract of a player for 300 million in Red sox…but they won’t put the money in club even if we are in a free fall and will lose out on CL.
This whole 250 million to spend in the summer is farcical. We never had that much amount to spend with CL. God forbid…without CL what will we be allowed to spend. And I have no hope for the likes of Bellingham. We should start preparing a list of targets achievable without top four.
If you take a step back, can you see the problem with it? With respect to us spending money to build the squad, why is 2019 the relevant starting point? Is it not relevant in the period immediately preceding this we spend near enough 200m building up the squad that would go on to win everything there was to win?
This is exact same argument in reverse Utd fans used to use to justify them winning the league with low net spend given they started clock with their argument right after Fergie finished a 3 years spending spree that outpaced pretty much everyone in world football.
That’s an interesting take. The structures of American sports tend to necessitate successful teams being broken up in ways that dont apply here, but it’s an interesting idea that the thiago move was the fruit of this sort of thinking…what is the best move we can make to maximize our chances of squeezing everything out of this group now.
If that was the case you’d imagine Klopp would have been even more conscious of the likely drop off that was coming this year. A lot of people have assumed he was taken by surprise with it, but some of his recent comments seem to suggest he was aware it was coming - to paraphrase him, “It wouldnt have been fair to walk away and leave someone to clean up it”. Is it possible this was a trade off he was willing to make for the shot at what we nearly did last year? That isnt to say he knew it would be THIS difficult this year, but that he was willing to go through a difficult rebuild for the sake of squeezing everything out of that side.
Big spending over a given period is more often than not a response to having already spent poorly and throwing good money after bad in an attempt to fix things. Very few teams who are successful spend big year on year, but tend to do so in chunks. If you put even PSG on that list they are right in the same region as us for the same period. Of course, with the period preceding it including the purchases of Neymar and Mbappe.
I dont follow US sports closely but i thought the red sox cut a number of its big stars to help pay for that new signing?
As for our anticipated spending in the upcoming summer window, its worth remembering that our wage bill will have fallen due to fewer bonuses being earned and several players likely leaving, freeing up more cash for spending than we would normally see.
With all due respect, Arsenal, City and Newcastle from that list have already justified money spent and well spent. Even Chelsea and United will get there too.
If you truly keep your hand on heart and believe that Klopp would not like to have a better squad or more world class players at his disposal with money to spend, then I have nothing more to say…
What do you think the squad needed in the summer after the disappointing end of league and CL last summer. The players needed a lift with a couple of world class signings that we can go again. Not a potential signing and asking the crazily strechted squad to believe and go again with nothing left in tank mentally.
And, so as to stay lower in this list, we should not spend that rumoured 250 million in the summer as well.
Here’s the link for the article.
The first line says the boston red sox put the money where the mouth is…
My simple ask is why can’t they spend some money equally here in January to stop the rot. I fear summer may be too little too late and especially if Klopp pays the ultimate sacrifice.
If you include wages alone it does take us to about 5/6th in the table, 4th highest wage bill in the Prem over the last 3-4 years is definitely something that needs to be looked at moving forward…only 2-3 players have earned their weekly wages out there this season and even when you discount Bobby Milner Naby and Adrian and bring no one in we only drop 1 place in the table and would have the 5th highest in the league.
The most interesting part is that the so called real fans love to attack Klopp and somehow never criticize the owners. It is pretty funny, because Juergen is the only person that really cares about the club and at the moment is alone fighting in a battle that is impossible to win, while the owners are in Boston /looking after their shiny toy Red Sox/, Gordon is there too and the recruitment team is leaving the sinking ship /Edwards, Ward for a start/.
Juergen is the best thing that happened to LFC for the last 30 years, but even a genius needs the support of the owners.
Arsenal spent more than 500 mln. pounds for the last three seasons and they needed 3 years of huge investement to qualify for the CL /looks like this year it will finally happen/. And in the process they did not have to sell thier best players to buy other top targets for example. A luxury Klopp never had. If he wanted to buy a top player, he neeeded to sell a top player.
And that is fuckin Arsenal that haven’t played CL football for 7 seasons. Manure, Chelsea and City spend even more and their wage bil is also bigger than ours. And only city are more successful than us on and off the pitch /but they still haven’t won the CL/.
I wonder what will happen, if Klopp says enough is enough and decides to leave the club and with those penny pinching owners at the helm the future won’t be rosy.
We need new ambitious owners, who will be 100% ready to support the best manager in the modern game.
It is a move coming on the back of things like this
They have gone backwards with players to put themselves in a position to move forward again, and the fans have not been happy at all in the intervening period, demanding more investment and demanding they stop paying all their attention to “saccer”
