At this stage I’d be perfectly happy going into the new season with the squad we have here. Providing we don’t suffer a similar injury plight as last year, we needn’t sell, and we needn’t buy.
We might still sell some players for a few peanuts, but it seems that the club has gone for stability. In that sense, the latest contract renewals are absolutely magnificent news, much more important for us than any new signing.
I’ve been hyped for the new season ever since pre-season started. Just can’t stand silly season and the negative emotions it engenders towards our own. In that sense, I’m with @Hope.in.your.heart .
Ever since the new management team (and I include scouting and recruitment under this umbrella) have been here I’ve not been that bothered about transfer windows. They’ve shown enough that the result will be achieved at the end.
I agree, I think last season was such a write off on so many levels it’s given a lot of people a warped view on the reality of how good this squad is… And not only that we have improved it from the one which brought us the CL and League. We lost Gini but have gained Thiago, Jota and Konate… Thats a huge net gain when retaining the rest of our world class team.
What a lot of people miss (mainly on twitter and a few on here) is FSG, Klopp, Edwards are all 1000% aligned in our strategy for making us competetive… It’s to buy players at the tier below the very expensive (we simply can’t compete), to coach them into the final tier i.e. Fully Elite, and then to retain them via a wage structure which is at the level of the very top. They took what Klopp did at Dortmund and added the ability to maintain a sustained success by enabling him to retain his best, rather than see them leave summer on summer.
There is no decline in any of our main players, the likes of Robbo, Mane, Salah, Keita (to name a few) all got a full holiday/rest and then a strong pre-season to follow. We have Van Dijk/Gomez/Matip all looking like they will return as strong as before (this was a huge worry for me).
This is a title winning team, fully rested and re-charged (both physically and mentally) ready to bask in the glory of Anfield once more… They look hungry as fuck… I expect us to go again.
Elliott not training, apparently. The commentator yesterday speculated he went off because of a slight knock. Walked off without any issues though, so probably nothing more than that.