I don’t think any team could cope with losing their first three centre backs for 4 months which is potentially what we will have to deal with.
Considering VVD is also the worlds best centre back.
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I referenced the article in yesterday’s The Athletic in the Mo thread. Aside from the passive aggressive dig at Mo, it was an otherwise positive article about the players wanting to work harder for The Boss to turn this around. There is no finger pointing or turning on each other. It has not become a vipers den. The players are a bit stressed but everyone is committed to The Boss and the club.
The overall feeling is that the players are still galvanized and this period of turmoil will only result in Jürgen digging even deeper and wanting to come back even stronger next season. And that’s part of the reason he was quick to distance himself from the Germany job this week. The only possible speed bump would be if Flick takes the Germany job that Rummenigge would come full force to recruit The Boss away to Bayern.
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Still doubt he would ever manage Bayern, really never seen how he would be interested in it.
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My take on our squad is that as individual players they are overrated (with a few notable exceptions).
Klopp makes our team, greater than the sum of their parts. Thats why injuries have hit us particularly hard. We have had a makeshift team, for most of the year. The sheer volume of injuries has meant no consistency, and instead meant we increasingly relied upon individual talent. For me that’s been our downfall.
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I’ve been trying to say something similar in the how can we fix it thread, but couldnt find something I was comfortable with that wouldn’t result in people getting aggy over me denigrating our players. However, there are two ideas Klopp has shared that sum up our situation:
" Our identity is intensity"
“Pressing is the best play maker”
At our best, we suffocate teams with our intensity and then have attacking players with the traits that they can exploit the defensive chaos that creates. This year, for a variety of reasons, the intensity is down, teams are able to defensively reset against us and we’re left with the ball trying to break well organized defenses. For as good as our players have been, this is a different context than that in which they’ve thrived for the past few years, and it might be heresy to some to say this, but there are plenty of players in this league better suited to that challenge than the ones who play for us.
By the time next season rolls around, you’d expect all of the pieces to be back in place for us to return to that effective intensity, except for confidence. One of the biggest challenges with committing so much to playing on the front foot is the unwavering faith you need to have that your team mates are doing the right thing. When results start getting bad that is one the reasons you start to see presses fall apart - it only takes one player to second guess himself for a fraction of a second to leave half his team exposed. That is more than anything where Klopp will have to earn his money next season.
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Go and watch the show before it gets taken down. (I have not watched it yet.)
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Enjoy that very much, thanks for posting.
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My take is… We can’t only rely on pressing to be our playmaker… Because players get tired and injured. And when you press a Parked Bus. And they just decide to kick it down field if they can’t handle the pressure. And play long ball (i.e Before they lose possession from the press). Then they set themselves up and we have to bring back up the ball and break them down. Which we don’t do very well. As we don’t have actual individual playmakers to do so…
And also very talented teams can play under pressure. And if they break that press… It’s possible that we might be left exposed with our high line…
The point here is that we need to be more flexible. And capable of switching styles of play sometimes.
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There have been a number of times this years where my thought on watching us press has been ‘Hmmm. I’m sure these weren’t as good as getting around our press and playing out as this last year’.
I’m sure our press is less effective this year, due to fatigue and injuries, but I also wonder if teams haven’t also just got better at dealing with it.
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We’re obviously missing Adam Lallana. The pressing monster.
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Would fit in to the pattern of lack of rotation and injuries
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I definitely believe teams have gotten better at dealing with the press… They have had a few years now of seeing Klopps press to adjust to it.
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They will keep asking him this until he gets annoyed with it and then they will write that he snapped.
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Brilliant quote! 
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zikYYaISL3U&t=192s
Who is this presenter??? Why does she talk like a clown from some reality show?
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I don’t think whoever succeeds Jürgen Klopp will be as good as him in developing players.
Jürgen Klopp is expected to leave at the end of 2023/24 season, that will give him three Summer Windows to strengthen or refresh the squad. Will he just add the odd pieces to maintain our competitiveness or will he undertake an overhaul of the squad?
We know there’s a bunch of fringe/non-performing players who will be ditched the moment a decent offer comes in. However, even most of his core players will be in or past their prime by the time he leaves. In fact, only Kelleher (25), Trent (25), Gomez (26), Tsimikas (27) and Jota (27) will be in their prime. Robertson and Fabinho, both 30, too will have few good years left in them. However, there’s already question marks over Gomez (fitness) and Tsimikas (performance).
I fully expect 3-4 thirty-some players to carry-on in the post-Klopp era as well. Even then, we will need to add around eight players, over next three summers, to build a competitive squad. Adding a CB, a CM and a CF this summer will go a long way in squad overhaul. I think our next priority should be wing-backs. Whatever the reason might be, Tsimikas or Neco aren’t considered as proper backups and with devastating consequences.
We never really had much in terms of proper cover. While our core players are in no way showing any lack of commitment, I believe they lack proper competition and may not have the same fire they used have couple of years ago. Having to play week in, week out, season after season, didn’t help either. I feel we should have 18 players of similar level. That will allow them to breathe easy and feel someone breathing down their neck.
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The lad’s barely played. Bit early to say he’s crap.
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