Liverpool FC - Pre-season (Part 2)

Kicking Episode 1 GIF by The Simpsons

5 Likes

Leoni’s posture here screams to me ā€œDo you fucking know you’re taking a picture of here, hold that damn thing uprightā€

3 Likes

Yes that’s him. :heart_eyes:

What a lovely gesture.:heart: Those kids with a look on their faces speaks volumes, they must so happy and excited and will be talking about it to their school friends for a long time.:heart_eyes:

4 Likes

Italian Joe Allen

They are kneeling down, to be fair!

I wonder if him being agent to Leoni had anything to do with us signing Araujo, other than an easier relationship.

2 Likes

Yeah, I am sure it did. The speed with which he went from being told by Flick he was not wanted to being linked to us was incredible. It’s hard to think that would have happened that way without a direct connection, almost as if Hughes was Crnjar’s first call the moment Araujo told him he needed a club.

4 Likes

The Catalan press did report that it was the culmination of long standing tracking by LFC

1 Like

I do recall us being linked with him several times in the past.

1 Like

Sure, we wouldnt have moved on him so quickly, even on loan, without that. My comment was about the speed of the connection.

2 Likes

Tomorrow marks seven weeks since we had a bid for Diomande turned down and since then we’ve brought in a CB on loan and that’s it.

I don’t subscribe to the idea we needed a huge overhaul but we need to do some business and to give the manager the players to work with in pre-season so we can hit the ground running.

The three lads we have brought in have collectively had 30 minutes of pre-season action between them for one reason or another whilst our standout performances have come from two teenagers, one of whom we can’t use.

Seems all eggs are in the Barcola basket for now and we’re playing cat and mouse with PSG to see who blinks first on their valuation. Can’t help but think this is hugely risky. One, because we’ve seen this tactic fail before and two, if it goes down to the wire but we get it done not only has he missed pre-season but he’ll have missed the first couple games too.

I do wonder what Iraola is thinking. You get your big move to an elite club and then spend half of that first pre-season working with kids, half of whom will be loaned out anyway. Meanwhile the biggest hole in the squad remains unfilled deep into your preparations for the start of the season.

13 Likes

He’s probably thinking ā€œat least they didn’t sell all my best players, like my last clubā€ā€¦

4 Likes

Maybe Iraola wants to use what he has at the moment… see what tune he can get out of them as a measure of his own self worth and ability…
One thing about Jurgen was that he could never be called a check-book manager. When big money was eventually spent, it was more like house money he himself and the team winning stuff brought into the club. Unlike some of the other managers like Maureen and Pep who never thought twice about squandering funds, been thinking that maybe Iraola will want to play the hand he has been dealt, along with any new arrivals that were already in the pipeline… for the foreseeable future at least

3 Likes

https://x.com/LFC/status/2087483159067631820

1 Like

… because they already let them leave on a free :sweat_smile:

2 Likes

I know transfers can be complicated but this Barcola deal seems to be going nowhere.

Hopefully once PSG sign Torres we should see movement but if not lets move on as we have some positions to fill.

It’s really poor. 2 deals almost out of the blue all summer. Do they work harder on keeping things under wraps than simply getting shit done?

2 Likes

like another user had posted, maybe hes happy seeing what he has got…in the weirdest way possible hes kinda come in to a perfect moment, he basically just has to play interesting football and his first season will be a success… which must hurt Slot a bit, butthats where we are, 14 months on from winning the bloodly league, most of us would be happy with inconsistent results if it was achieved playing desent footy.

so hes got a year up his sleeve (ish) where if he doesnt spend another dollar, he can probably still clear the bar.

in someways going large on Barcola might work against him, raised expectations for immediate success etc etc

Enormous caveat to that if you talking about Guehi then we approached the deal that way because we were ok with the deal not going through and not adding to our ranks. That isnt the case with the additional forward we’re chasing.

I think if we’re looking for scary comparisons it is the Isak one.

2 Likes

Replaced them though. And with some pretty good players no less.

But he’s also publicly been saying we need more players and that currently he can’t implement the system he wants for 90 minutes.

No one is expecting Pep/Jose approach to spending. No one is expecting another Ā£400m outlay like last summer. But as fans we’re also not meant to expect us to go into the season short on quality, numbers or preparation and it increasingly feels like that may happen.

If we start this season with all three of Chiesa, Endo and Ramsey in our PL squad then we’ve failed to do what we need to. Two of them still in it would be disappointing and point to business needed not having been done. How long does Iraola need to look at Chiesa to realise he’s not a genuine option?

We’ve now less than three weeks to address the holes and then we’re playing catch up to get any new players up to speed.

2 Likes

Very true.

Especially risky as we can“t afford to not sign a quality wide player but PSG are already Champions of everything so Barcola staying another year is no big deal to them.

Also fair point on Iraola. I suppose Slot also had no signings really in his first year. So he is at least a little ahead on that but then we also lost Konate and Salah and Robbo so not quite the same situation.