By the way, the two matches we’ve just drawn are the matches Fabinho was taken out of midfield and put back to centre back.
Obviously out of necessity due to the Phillips injury, but having seen better results with Fab in midfield, only to then dip again with him in defence, shows just how important a midfielder he is.
This season’s issues are clear for all to see;
a foreseeable central defensive crisis due to having only three centre backs, of whom two are injury prone.
our best midfielders having to be used at centre back, the rest of the midfield suffering the loss of their quality, and then the fatigue of overuse.
our forwards utterly wasteful. Even though Salah has scored nearly 30, his conversion rate of chances is shocking, and you have to look at the number of goals scored by the forward line and in turn the team as a whole. The goals are just bunched up in one player, who himself has missed way more than he scored.
I hope they never give up, and never give in, just let’s get rid of this shit season…Virg, Joe, Joel, Hendo all return fit and well…and Sadio, Salah, and Bob to find shooting boots again…pls.
Exactly. Hendo has been a huge influencer on the pitch and Virgil was the organiser at the back. They have been a huge miss to our team. Our Mo, Sadio and Bobby are exhausted. They have been playing relentlessly for the last 3-4 years. Maybe a missed European spot may help the lads some much needed rest.
Also, the UEFA lot will be happy, we miss a year of Champions league matches.
We can try finding silver lining in missing CL spot, but the cons outweighs the pros. We already don’t spend enough and a loss in further revenue on missing out the CL spot, FSG thus not spending whatever little they might have planned for the summer, us having the season with the same set of injury prone/ out of favor players without the upgrades we need, players still not getting rest which isn’t happening when half of the squad is injured and worse Klopp’s limited time with us being wasted with no CL or worse Europa league.
Was coaching my lads team this morning so missed this. They lost too!
Top four was long gone, but then hang on a minute, a couple of wins and stumbles elsewhere, and we were back in the conversation. Had we closed out our two games the past week, and/or finished better to be so far ahead that a late goal wouldn’t have mattered, we would have had six points, not two, and be battling for third.
With five games to go I am not willing to say top four has gone, but it does look unlikely now.
The finishing has been crap. We know all about the defensive crisis and a weak midfield, due to injury and shuffling them into defence to try to shore it up.
But what hasn’t been said much is the lack of passion and fight. That’s a basic prerequisite for any team, no matter what your aspirations. Klopp was starting to call that out after the game. He defends his players, possibly to a fault - almost an anti Mourinho on that score, but today his frustration with them was evident.
I hope we have enough money and moves in play to refresh this thing, as right now too many of them are stinking the place out. If we aren’t in the CL I really don’t want Europa football. No money, no prestige, but still lots of travel to the arse end of beyond, and we don’t need the extra games. Caveat: when you are on the way up, Europa is lovely. But when you have won the title and the CL, it’s very much the booby prize, and at that point I’d rather miss European football altogether to regroup and go for that title.
Gutted by all this. They are letting Klopp down too, which is criminal, when you consider what a great man he is.
Stressed, pissed off, sick to the stomach…a few more feelings and it hurts…Today I just wanted a win, to show the other top 4/5 teams we are still here…I wanted to feel like I did after every win last season…will we ever get back to the winning feeling.
Well, Henry should cough up £100m from his own pocket, especially after the whole ESL clusterfuck, and then the club can add another £50-70m (after taking into account selling some players) to this summer transfer budget.
I want a new attacker. Just someone who can shoot. I don’t care. Replace Gini aswell. Did he play today?
Seriously tho, we played well if that makes sense. Just the finishing my god embarrassing. We defended well but just lost our heads last 10 minutes or so. Missed Fabinho in the middle
Basically, they are injured or cannot recover their form post injury, so there is no way to someone will pay even a nominal fee.
One way is to subsidize a loan deal, where we still pay a percentage of the wages. The other is to keep working on the training field and make them at least a viable option off the bench.
I am not sure about the amount of cash that John Henry actually has, but from everything I have heard or read so far, £100m is possible. If possible, perhaps we should spend up to £200m - there are lots of positions that need upgrades, renewals or back-ups.
We spent £160m to massively upgrade our squad in 2018/19. We should have spent in 2019/20 leveraging our position as CL winner but chose not to.
And, on top of those big spendings, we should resign Suarez as well. He has scored like 19 goals this season so far - so he will certainly be able to contribute as sub, and at rather low cost.