Post match: Man City v Liverpool (EPL 1/4/23 12.30pm)

That’s not what I said or did.
That’s a silly comment!

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Maybe the part where Minamino, Origi and Mane leaving in the same window ( with Firmino likely not signing an extension) coupled with injury to Luis Diaz and Diogo Jota played a huge part in that decision ?

As for Sangare, his rumoured transfer clause is 29.9 million pounds which is not a lot and is still quite a risk for FSG to splash given the financial situation of the club.Only Klopp knows how much he is given by FSG to start the rebuild.

There’s a lot of motion about him but little movement.

His greatest attribute was a total vision of the defence and control of the dangers. Now he’s not affecting anything…

I have made the point before that the dynamic between Klopp and the team run by Edwards/Ward would naturally change once he’d built his side and it was not a given it would work as well once that side had been built and the questions they are trying to collectively answer would change.

If you go back to the beginning he came into a side where few of the players he inherited were fit for purpose. It was reported at the end of his first year that there were only 3 players he was completely sold on as being able to play his style at the required level (Lallana, Hendo, Bobby). By as early as the 2018 CL final he’d already turned over the team to the point that only 4 players remained from the one Rodgers had (including Trent as a new player). That was a dynamic in which the only questions being solved were who to bring in. It’s still not easy, but it’s fairly one dimensional.

By the end of the Edwards era the dynamic is a completely different one. We had by then built the side and so there were new dimensions to the dynamic. It would make sense that Klopp would have more voice on which of the players he already had he wanted to keep because its him who picks the team. I think the big saving grace we have with this season is that with as badly as its gone it simplifies the dynamic and takes us back closer to the beginning, to one where we know the set up can deliver.

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Well you asked what wouldv’e happened if Salah found the pass to Jota (Bearing in mind Jota still had to finish the chance off) to make it 2-0? And I said probably wouldv’e lost 5-2.

Was that the moment heads started dropping? No. Heads started dropping when we lost to Forest then Leeds then Brentford.

Sounds like he’s blasé about how things are going

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Ah now i get it…its an April Fool…todays match never happened…its all a dream…oh I do wish…

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Did we NEED Gakpo in January? No.

Have we NEEDED midfield reinforcements for some time now? Yes.

Money isn’t the reason we haven’t bought one. It’s been a choice.

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I think it’s really interesting that in Klopp’s comments after the game about the players simply not performing well enough, the only outfield players he name checked as good enough were Hendo and Fab. Is he lying, or hopeless blind? Or is it evidence that the failings of the side are more complex than the midfield has no legs?

Gakpo was also available.
From reading between the lines, our MF options were not available in January.

But I completely agree that our lack of reinforcement in MF over last 2 seasons was a matter of choice

I got to seventy minutes. There was a passage of play that lasted for about two or three minutes where they were just passing it around in front of us and you could tell we’d just given up. That was enough for me.

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Are you saying the problem is institutional, i.e. no one individually is responsible - rather the failure of the collective system as a whole? This is fine but it is a failure nonetheless.

I still do not understand the transitions between 21-22 and 22-23. 21-22 we should have strengthened in midfield. Yes we nearly went on to win the quad w/o doing so but then what? It was not a team that was going to stay together to win more and more over the next 2-3 years. There did not seem to be a strong plan towards 22-23 either.

This year we are just short - of everything except injuries and tiredness (mental and physical). Surely the failure of the medical, phyc and/or the coaching teams to see this developing has to be seen as a “bit” of a failure.

I’m on board with the signing of Gakpo. He’s a good player. I would imagine, along with Nunez and Diaz, he will be a key part of the attack moving forward. Even today, in a team that is having a bad season, Gakpo showed strength, pace and skill, and they pulled him back several times as he opened up the field of play. I’m glad we signed him, even if, as you say, we could have used the money to buy a midfielder to improve us.

The drop off in the level of our midfielders this season has been eye opening. We have a couple of good young players coming through, but the ones who might have been expected to carry the midfield have been unable to do so.

The midfield department has thus been mismanaged. I’m willing to accept it, as long as we address the problem this summer.

Those are the first two on my no-more-legs list :man_facepalming:t2:

I think a big part of why the legs of our midfield look so gone is the team as a whole as failed to shrink the pitch the way a successful high pressing team needs to. As a result they’re being asked to cover a lot more ground and getting exposed as a result.

My take based on nothing other than reading the tea leaves is one the reasons Klopp wanted to avoid making more changes in midfield this season was because of changes that already occurred elsewhere in the side that he felt needed players in the midfield who already knew the job and how to do it A case of using this season to get the new forward line used to developing the shape necessary to press effectively, and then once they have it down bring in the newer midfielders who can then benefit from that next season. Whether that is true is obviously open to debate, it is an explanation of how the issue is not quite so simple as thinking putting new legs in midfield will solve things.

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A couple of times TAA goes off on a mad charge forward to try and run down the ball all the way to their goalie - almost no one co-ordinates the press. On the face of it, it seems like a tactic to break up their play/rhythm and or to allow our system to re-set. It seems pre-planned but today there was an instance where TAA does that and throws up his arms - made me question whether it in fact is pre-planned or whether its TAA being TAA.

Or its that the trigger was in place and no one went with him.

Trying to play in a high press that isnt working is more emotionally challenging than it is physically. You can always rouse yourself for another sprint if you think doing so will help you win the ball back. Doing so with even a sliver of doubt that you’re going to be let down by a team mate not doing their part to step up to box them in is spirit crushing.

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@Limiescouse maybe my lack of understanding of the pressing structure but to my untrained eye it seemed Hendo and Fab were bypassed too easily in one-on-one situations, they didn’t get done by passing moves, more from their lack of lateral quickness

Yesterday on the BBC football site, a column by Danny Murphy highlighted something Houllier used to refer to about players subconsciously falling into comfort zones and thinking they’re better than they actually are.

Clearly Trent doesn’t read the BBC football site.

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I agree that the explanation is anything but simple. However, when I mention the system, I would refer to the set up from scouting, to buys to tactics and all the way to the various coaching teams. We had a long term plan and paid more heed to that than the shorther term needs that became apparent. It was a “stay the course, the storm will pass” rather than “can we change course to avoid the storm”…

Anyway, I of course do not know the issues that are on going internally and there may be a 1000 reasons why we will be ok - but it won’t be till 2024-25 at the earliest that we will see the pay off in terms of challenging on all fronts again.