Also we naturally have three coming off the books end of this season
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If everyone is fit our midfield three is still Henderson, Fabinho and Thiago especially in the big games.
Always wait for first choice. Until your first choice goes to Madrid, then you wait a year to maybe get your second choice.
Will we still be backing that approach if Bellingham goes to Man City next summer?
This whole concept of “they know what they’re doing” doesn’t invalidate people’s opinions. We as a club do get things wrong occasionally, it doesn’t make you less of a supporter to say or accept that.
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Pep mentions an alternative to Luiz in his book whoever that was he was seen as someone whose attitude was more suspect.
I do think we have alternatives. The only one that comes out of the book with no alternative is VVD.
Don’t watch a lot of European football do you . Your bias against Spanish officials when we have to suffer some rubbish in the EPL is quite unfounded.
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Doak is a bit tasty too.
I’m not saying it does. Disagree with them all you want. Point out the mistakes. But don’t suggest they don’t know what they are doing. That’s clearly not right.
I think it’s quite clear that something has gone wrong in preseason and our preparation. It’s not just the injuries. It’s also that we have lads who looked fucked, and players having preprogrammed subs on 60mins. L CL
I’m saying sometimes a decision can still be the right one, even if the outcome is not optimal.
We the information on the players they had at the start of the window (remember - a lot more than you), and knowing that their primary targets were unavailable, then deciding to go with the lads we had might have been the right one.
Even if it was a gamble. I still back that decision if it’s part of a wider strategy.
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Perhaps I see a lot more European football then you think and that is why I know how cocky those Spanish Match officials are but you are welcome to your opinion.
With Thiago back in training he will probably make the bench on Wednesday, depending on how fit Melo is he might start, things are starting to look better.
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Fabio Carvalho is a doubt for Napoli after being taken off in the derby with a dead leg. Curtis Jones will also be assessed after missing the game against Everton. #lfc [james pearce - the athletic]
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Be massive getting Thiago back.
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What the hell is going on with Jones? He played for like a minute in the Community Shield, had a reaction, was supposed to be back for Everton and now he is to be assessed again?
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Missed most of the Firmino-to-midfield follow up, read through as much as I could now, can’t quote so many things but just a few points about some things that were said.
Suggesting Firmino to midfield is clearly not the same with suggestions of Trent in Midfield or Midfielders in CB a couple of years ago.
Firmino is actually a midfielder that was turned into a false 9 by Klopp because of lack of competent strikers at the time, and he excelled there, but it’s not a transformation to actually play him in midfield especially in the suggested formation, where he’d be practically a deeper striker behind the spearheading Nunez.
Firmino was used at midfield in a few games at the end of last season and again now recently and suggesting he features there is not some knee jerk suggestion I made just now because of results, but something I was rooting for since last season when he dropped in form as 9, and even moreso as soon as we signed Nunez. Injuries in midfield may give the opportunity to test it further.
And of course, I was delighted to see him be in great form these past two games, and I hope he can continue to play like this, whether up front or deeper.
He’s my favourite player.
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Surely vice versa applies then too. It could be the wrong decision to wait for Bellingham until next summer when we needed someone this one summer.
They’ve gambled on injury prone players to get us through the season for the second time in three years. They might know what they’re doing but that decision is looking very wrong right now. The concern is this could be another season of peak Alisson, Virgil, Fabinho, Thiago and Salah gone whilst we wait for the right one and have to shuffle things around to cover gaping holes.
We don’t need to pretend every decision they make is right. We shouldn’t expect every decision to be right. And we’ll probably not know if this was the right decision until next summer and beyond. In the meantime we don’t have to pretend it was right when the immediate evidence says otherwise just because something else might happen in the future.
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That’s fair enough, and as you say, time will tell.
I think it depends on what you define making the right decision as. For me it’s a question of whether, given all the information they had, was there any other decision that was more optimal?
The results don’t really justify whether the decisions were right or not, given that everything is going to be shrouded in different probabilities of different events occurring.
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Napoli proved to be a tough opposition a few times we played them.
I remember that loss in 2018 at their place, we were terrible. I remember the only individual positive that night was Joe Gomez.
Want to see a selection and performance that is more compact and more together than the one we saw against Everton.
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Thiago back with the main group. No Fabio though.
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Here is another short clip of our training today, i wonder what happened to Jones, he somehow disappeared again?
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