Post Match: Liverpool v Fulham (ELC 10/1/24 8pm)

Was ridiculous that, and if it was a head injury as it looked like why wasn’t he made to go off the field when play restarted

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He was made to go off the field, and wasted about 5mins moaning about it

https://twitter.com/AlexWatt187/status/1745181136261632180

Curtis is really stamping his name on the starting 11 when Klopp has everyone to pick from. Excellent performance from the young lad last night.

Mac - Curtis - Dom would be my preferred 3 in the midfield and Trent doing his RB / MF role.

Oh interesting, me and the people around me missed this then as we were all wondering why he didn’t go off. Looked like they were at 11 men when play restarted

It was the second incident where the ref made him go off and he threw and extended strop. The one where he blocked a shot with his back, then went down like he’d been shot once the ball went out a good 10-15 seconds later.

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I know I went for a drink had a chat with my mum and I still don’t think the game had restarted.

It’s tough to be up for every match in a peak way, but we were good enough for the win, and probably should have scored a third to all but end the tie.

Nunez added a heck of a lot when he came on. Until then it looked too conformable for Fulham, and I thought - even though the goals aspect has been done to death, that he gave a good account of himself.

Nice to see a couple of youngsters see some good action too.

But that goes fully against everything that Klopp is saying. He says that Alexis is adapting to everything he wants him to do.

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People don’t want to believe it but this is the type of versatile midfielder we need to play the 6. The more players on the pitch that can play that final pass the better we are as a team.

The defensive side will come with time, which was always going to be the case for a midfielder who previously played as an AM or even CF for Brighton.

It’s just an adaptation period and I feel like we’ve already seen pretty significant improvements from him.

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I am glad that we won. We are missing e very good starting eleven /without a goalie :)/ - TAA - Matip - Bajcetic - Robbo; Endo -Thiago - Szoboszlai; Doak - Salah - Tsimikas.

Fulham have a very good end experienced team and they used their experience really well for almost 65 minutes. Our first 45 minutes were not very good, but that was expected - tired legs, crazy 40 days of football, missing a lot of quality because of injuries and crazy tournaments in the middle of the season.

Second half started much better, Harvey had a very poor 45 minutes, but a slight change of his positioning was hellpful and we started to dominate, then the double substitution ruined our rhythm for around 10 minutes. Gakpo started as the third midfielder, but looks like it did not work and Klopp moved him on the right wing. Macca and Jones played as the two in midfield, Nunez on the left, Jota was still our forward, while Lucho played more centrally, more like a number 10. And that worked pretty well.

Nunez with two assists, Jones scored the hugely important first goal, Gakpo scored in a 4th consecutive League game and he also has 9 goals and 3 assists in 27 matches this season, not too bad for a player who is not a starter and was used in midfield pretty ofteh this season.

Special mention to our smartest forward - Jota. He was instrumental for our goals, in ice hockey players get an assist for what he did. Especially for our 1st goal, outmuscling Palinha, then winning a tackle and passing the ball to Darwin. What a fighter…

Bradley did not start well, unfortunately slipping for Fulham’s goal, but grew into the game and deserved his MoM award. Fantastic defensively and offensively, that ball for Nunez was something that could make even TAA proud.

Gravenberch with another subpar performance, same is valid for Elliott too. Hopefully no more injuries, because Jones was holding his leg /Klopp said it’s dead leg, but we are really unlucky with injuries this season and I will wait for the official confirmation/, while Gomez was hobbling after he was tackled in Fulham’s penalty area at the end of the match.

P.S. Still don’t understand why the club recalled Beck. At the start of next month Tsimikas and Robbo will be back in training and looking at our next 4 games - Bournemouth, Bristol Rovers/Norwich Chelsea, Arsenal, Owen could realistically start only in the FA cup, but later with the competition of Robbo, Tsimikas, Bradley, TAA and Gomez it will be very hard for him to play. And if he plays even one minute in the FA cup, it will mean that he won’t be available for another loan move this season. That will definitely stop his development and he finally found a good place in Dundee, while loan periods in Famalicao and Bolton did not improved him as a player

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I think you have to mention Gakpo as well.

In fact our first decent attack came as they were taking off their training kit to come on :joy:

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… and …
I mean why are you telling me that?
I don’t choose where he plays.
I can only judge him on where he actually plays and how well he does it.
It’s evident he shouldn’t be where he is even so that doesn’t negate that he’s too slow and can not hold the ball, it doesn’t matter where you put him positionally those physical deficiencies will remain.

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If he plays for us, he can still go back on loan to Dundee. I believe that is the plan. To be available as emergency back-up until the end of January and then go back to Dundee.

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We don’t have another left back and Gomez is injury prone. Beck can play in the FA cup game to give Gomez a break. And can send him back at the end of January once the returns of Robbo/Tsimikas become fixed.

Injuries are sometimes difficult to gauge with respect to the recovery time. Same injuries clear up quicker than expected in some cases or might take some more.

I assume there’s no fair valuation in the transfer market right now for a LB who’s substantially better than Tsimikas , leave alone on par or better than Robbo. Which is possibly the reason why the club decided on this approach.

It’s a better option than us doing emergency CB hires in the previous loan windows.

With Chambers going out on loan it makes slightly more sense but I do hope we send him back to Dundee or find a permanent deal with Celtic/Rangers once Robertson is confirmed as being close to fitness again.

I’ve seen a lot of Beck and while I admire all our young players and would love for all of them to make it here I simply don’t see the required level of talent.

I think Klopp’s idea for this season is to attack as fast as we can, skipping any complicated build-up. Then we cannot afford someone just playing safe passes; everyone needs to be able to start transitions and take risks. Then we don’t have room for a simple passer who only cares about defending. Endo is a perfect example of it. It’s super easy to find someone much better than him in the physical side, but his risk-taking mindset, forward thinking, is a must-have quality that Klopp needs for his defensive midfield.

Imagine me auntie’d had bollocks, she’d have been me uncle!

We have the same saying in my country, but with grandparents… :joy:

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Well, if my grandmother had 8 legs, she’d be a track star.