Probably cost, he also has said he’s a boyhood Chelsea fan so maybe he made it clear he had his heart set on that move.
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Fair enough. If he’s a similar level to Carvalho and he’s going to be brilliant, 20m doesn’t seem like a prohibitive fee. Also would have thought the chance of working with Klopp and actually getting minutes could balance out any Chelsea boyhood support. Oh well, there will be other options!
The other thing I didn’t mention is he’s probably getting paid significantly more at Chelsea than we would be willing to pay.
I could discover I was a childhood Chelsea fan if they offered me 50,000 a week.
I’d work for a year, retire, and spend the rest of my days on the Kop.
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We like our young players to be talented, and also hungry and humble. Purely speculative on my part, but possibly Chukwuekema didn’t pass the humility part. Maybe he has the talent, and maybe he knows it, but as yet it is a long way from being proven at the highest level. He is just starting out, and arguably he wanted financial reward based on where he will be, not where he currently is, and that was a little off putting to us? Maybe Klopp has been on the phone with Stevie and asked him what he saw, as part of the famous Klopp character test, and perhaps he didn’t pass?
Lots of ifs and maybes there, but he wouldn’t be the first talented young player that was getting a bit too big for his boots, if that is the case.
Then again, it might simply be he wanted Chelsea, or they offered more money, or whatever.
From all accounts, Jude Bellingham is a level headed person, humble, obviously good, but one who has the long term view in mind, and comes across as quite grounded. Maybe he’s the one for us, though it will costs a pretty penny.
But if we land him, and Elliott and Jones kick on further, and say Bajcetic comes through the ranks too, it’s starting to look like we have a really good crop of young midfielders to take us forward as the old guard start to age out.
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And there goes Thiago…
Surely now, we are going to sign a midfielder or two with 3 midfielders out for a long period of time.
Well, you know Klopp: it has to make sense both short term and long term. If it’s just a temporary situation, a few weeks, I doubt we’ll sign someone.
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We likely need two next summer anyway with Milner probably in his last season, Ox almost certainly off on a bosman and Thiago and Henderson another year older. Still nothing on Keita signing a new deal either.
One now and one next year makes sense if we can get one from the list of targets for next summer. It might not be Bellingham now but we’ll need more than just him next summer anyway.
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Of course, to us it would make a lot of sense if we could get one now who we already have earmarked for next summer - or of it’s a person of interest who happens to be available. I’m all in on that.
But do I believe Klopp sees it the same way? No, I don’t. I believe he’s done with signings this summer, and fully focused on the work. So unless Thiago is out for a very long time, I’m guessing he sees this as a temporary situation that doesn’t require particular action, and thinks they’ll get through a few weeks with what they have.
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That’s probably the case. And it’s foolish to second guess a man as successful as him. But, we’ve seen us do this once before and it wasn’t pretty. We also did look at short term solutions in that instance, albeit because the injuries were more long term.
However, it’s also a now or never (January) decision and all it takes is for that Thiago injury to niggle on a few weeks more than anticipated or another decent injury to occur in the first week of September and we’ve not got the option to go into the market to resolve the issue.
We’ll see how it plays out but it would be a shame to lose another season of the Klopp era for the sake of doing a piece of business earlier than perhaps anticipated.
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Don’t know if it’s been touched on above but are there any thoughts on whether we pushed our luck too far with the preseason we had? I have a silly theory that airplanes and athletes don’t mix very well.
This probably gives you where Klopp is…
I do think if Thiago is serious he may go to the window.
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I hope he does not, way to often not available.
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That means we need at least 3 new midfielders Milner, Ox and Naby replacements, FSG better have money 
Klopp would rather play a bubble wrapped Milner instead of panic buying. We know this too well by now.
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Not really we’ve already got Elliott and Carvalho the point is the reliance on them now not that they won’t become special players in due course.
It’s not the numbers that are the issue it’s the reliability of those, frankly we have enough CM. The fact that at least three of them spend most of the time injured is a factor not to mention the others struggle also.
Injury wise Milner is about the most reliable and then Fabinho and Hendo (and that is the issue).
Seriously? Not happy with the injuries we have so far?
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Mods, can we have title changed to “Liverpool pre & midseason friendlies 2022-23”