I know you are trying to present the other side of the argument rather than necessarily stridently believing this but I’d suggest that:
Keeping Diaz for the season would have meant we probably couldn’t afford (justify) both Alex and Hugo;
Elliot - Arne doesn’t fancy him and with Flo, Dom, Curtis and Alexis all clearly ahead of him he wouldn’t be making any difference even if we kept him;
Quansah - Absolutely more experience than Leoni but not good enough for 3rd CB. The issue wasn’t selling him it was not bringing in a significantly better player. The mistake (in Harry Hindsight’s opinion) was allowing Guehi to go to the final day. We should have found a price to do business before the community shield (and Eze) and if this was too hard told Parish to piss off and signed someone else.
We’ve done okay so far this season. We just need to keep in touch at the top of the PL and once Isak and Wirtz settle we’ll be significantly stronger in the second half of the season.
Fair enough about Trent, nothing which could have been done. Same for Jota of course.
Diaz’ departure could have been avoided though, or at least postponed. In the end, it was a matter of do we give him an improved contract or not. The club decided against it. Despite of that, he was an important member of the team, and we feel his absence right now.
Quansah was a good fourth CB option, we decided to let him go. Maybe he’ll benefit from being sold to Leverkusen on an indicvidual level, but we miss him right now in terms of squad depth. Leoni’s injury is unfortunate, but even with him fit, we would have been too thin at the center back positions. Gomez’ and Konaté’s potential health problems are like a Damocles sword hanging over our necks.
On Nunez, I’m not sure. But I don’t like to see a winning squad being dismantled, so I’d have kept him for at least six more months. The months our new players would have needed to properly find their way into the first team.
You forgot Tsimi, a reliable and capable squad option who was perfectly happy here and by all accounts, played a big role in maintaining a good squad harmony. He was loaned out to the first available bidder.
Anyway, I don’t expect to convince you, mate. However, everything which happened wasn’t down to bad luck only. Especially with Jota’s tragic death, I feel that the club was a bit too reckless in the way they got rid of players in order to replace them with new blinky toys. And those toys are struggling right now, as could have been expected, as are our remaining players (a result of instability). The club has to shoulder a responsibility in that. Maybe it will eventually turn out allright for us, but for me, it was too reckless. A question of timing: everything happened very quickly, the arrivals and the departures.
Edit: we both forgot to mention Harvey Elliot. Another one who was shown the door this summer.
Szoboszlai - I was defending the lad a fair bit last season where at least several posters suggested selling him, he’s been our best player bar Alisson and Grav.
We’ve gone 2-0 and then rescued late on, have we in those games not dominated for periods? It’s about putting our foot down and seeing these games out, we were effective last season at that. Our second half was decent on Saturday. Players are finding form, Frimpong previous to his injury was being praised and now we want Trent back even though Trent was as bad last season.
Replacing Nunez who clearly hadn’t worked with Hugo and Alex seems so unarguably an improvement that I’d suggest you’d be hard pressed to find many who think we should have held onto Darwin.
Yeah there is a lot of reactionism. I think the jury is still out on some players and systems and I’d have loved Flo to have done more and Alex to have had more fitness but I’d remain confident that both will shine. Kerkez similarly has shown enough already that he should be fine; if anything my concerns are more around reducing Mo’s minutes and managing our CBs.
You’re talking about potential here. We don’t know yet how these two transfers will pan out. Good players without a doubt in terms of potential. But I could have lived easily with Hugo coming in this summer, Nunez staying a further season, while biding our time with Isak.
The irony is that last summer, we didn’t bring in anyone but Chiesa, who played a bit-part role. We finished champions at a canter. Nobody among the so-called pundits saw us doing so well at the start of the season. This time around, we’ve done the exact contrary, spent like drunken sailors before getting rid of many players deemed surplus. The result is instability and I freaking hate this.
Yeah there are players who are playing at a far lower ability. Salah is in a rut of form and I don’t think it’s entirely his age, you don’t drop off that badly so he will probably have a better spell at some point but I think give the guy some rest. You can use Frimpong or Chiesa.
Wirtz will come good but again it’s going take time, he will probably be better in Europe in the first half of the season.
You underestimate the effect of so much upheaval in the squad. The remaining players have to find their feet within the new set-up, same as the incoming ones.
Sure but the squad has to be turned over. The problem with onyl bringing in Chiesa the previous summer is that it necessitates more changes in future seasons. Ideally, as I’ve said many times on here and been queried, we’d be bringing in 3-5 players every single season and helping the squad turn over a little more incrementally. The reality though is that the right player and deal won’t always be available and things will have to be a little more lumpy at times. If anything our issue this transfer window is signing one player too few
Had to be done at some point, like the CM two seasons ago. The criticism at Klopp was he held on too long to players and that was certainly the case with Fabinho and maybe Henderson.
I totally get the point on Diaz and I would in hindsight have kept him, especially with what happened to Jota, but I really don’t see any point in keeping Nunez. Not even sure what the argument there is.
I’d say three players max each season, with maybe one or two squad players or youngsters. But yeah, that’s the idea. I understand that it isn’t easy to do that on a regular basis, for various reasons, but for me, this time around, we got rid of players who showed they were good enough to be champions, for potential upgrades who will hopefully show their worth, after the unavoidable adaptation period. Maybe we’ll be unstoppable during the 26-27 season, who knows…
Harsh - I think he was panicked by Mateta and made a couple of bad mistakes but otherwise has been (below par) but okayish. Love Grav but I’d like to see someone (Macca?) help out and provide more protection when he gets isolated by a powerful fwd like this. I really think Alexis form/low energy/fitness/recovery has really weighed the team down and I’d love to see Arne drop him until he recovers as he’s making everything harder - with him and Mo it’s almost as if we are playing with only 10.5 players at times.
Konaté is a weird one indeed. Has maybe his heart set out on Real. But again, why did the club not secure a new contract earlier with him, or put more energy into getting Guehi before the deadline? Let’s not pretend that the club reps are infallible. They commit mistakes like anyone else.
Well then any player in our (or any other) squad that plays games in a team that ends up champions has ‘proved themselves good enough to be champions’. Okay if that’s your definition but what is this actually meaning? It doesn’t mean that they therefore deserve to stay with the team; football is continually improving and teams that stay at the top have to keep evolving to do so.
It’s squad chemistry. Not only individual quality, but making the squad better than the sum of individual qualities. That’s a psychological thing, and Klopp was an absolute master in that. That’s why Slot got such a good squad in the first place when he came in and could become champions with them (not diminishing his own work to make the squad tick as well as they did last season).
This time around, the chemistry doesn’t work yet. Yes, we have to evolve, but this summer looked more like a revolution than an evolution if I’m fair.