Complacency alert. FSG are fine, but anyone not acknowledging an ongoing squad fitness concern are being unrealistic. The usual suspects are nothing if not consistent you’ll have to admit.
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We’re going to be missing 6 players through injury by my count (Kelleher, Konate, Ramsay, Jones, Ox, Jota), which means we’re likely going to be picking between VdB or Phillips for the last spot on the bench (20th player). We’ll still be able to bring on players as good as Nunez, Elliott, Carvalho, Naby, Milner, Gomez, Tsimi among our 5 subs.
City will have 3 or 4 kids you’ve likely never seen play on their bench even without any real injury absences.
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Be great to see us set down a marker like 0-5.
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Massacre them, they’re wank.
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Their best player now plays for us.
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I do think we will see some random names on benches of 9 throughout the league.
Wouldn’t surprise me if the 9 name is Bajcetic
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Look at City against us in the Community Shield, plenty of other sides will have the best academy lads on the bench taking 2-3 spots. It’s really what the new system is meant to do. Give more youngsters a chance. Let’s not be dramatic we won’t be using them anyways. For the first 3-4 games it’s only one game a week so little rotation needed and then most of our injured players are back and the academy lads most likely won’t be seen until the cup competitions again. Doubt Jürgen is worried
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With 5 subs allowed per game, as requested by Jurgen, we can press without fear, subbing tired players on 60 mins as well as older players like Thiago and Hendo.
All this when we have one of the best squads ever with Elliott, Carvalho, Milner, Kostas, Keita, Bobby, Jota, Ramsay, Jones, Gomez and Konate as back-ups to the first 11.
Really looking forward to this opening game!
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This issue comes up every season since Klopp took charge and we’ve still managed to challenge at the highest level possible so no worries but if there was one player that should have been replaced 2 seasons ago already, it’s AOC.
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Yes consistently negative, no posts when we win trophies, just wait for a couple of injuries to rant about squad depth.
This is one of our best squads ever and as near to complete against any in the league, it was finished nice and early so it got a full pre-season… You compare this to City who still are potentially losing players like Silva and need another fullback (o hark the irony!) and Chelsea who seem to have hit the “send me available players” agent button in Footie Manager.
We are in a very good position.
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I thought much the same last season but I was proved wrong. Another quality midfielder would have been nice to have but turned out it wasn’t essential. There will be times when the squad is stretched, like last season when we had covid outbreaks, but Ox wasn’t used at all beyond Feb and Elliott and Jones were regularly left out of match day squads even when fit. We’ve got the deepest squad in the PL, including City. The club obviously sees there is a quality issue in midfield which is why we tried to get Tchouameni but they won’t just get another body in. That’s not the way it works whether we like it or not. I’d like another quality midfielder but if not I’m fine about it. It’s not like going into 2020/21 with 3 CBs. That was just daft.
More concerning to me is how we approach the start of this season. I thought we started poorly last time out. Conceded too many goals and lost too many leads. Way too gung-ho and flaky at the back. Second half of the season we were back to the levels of 2019. If we continue that form into this season there’s no reason why we can’t win the title.
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I really resent this allegation. I post plenty of positive comments and am among the first to celebrate when we win, however I also reserve the right to express doubts when I think the club is making a mistake. I was among those who warned against starting the season 20/21 with only 3 centre backs, but others claimed that everything was ok because Fabinho could play there, while making the same accusations of negativity and half hearted support.
It is possible for me to be a loyal and passionate supporter for more than 50 years and still criticise moves made by the club.
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Easy to forget Virgil took quite a few months to get back up to speed, it’s pretty much unbelievable how quickly he actually returned to beast mode. Once he was was fully fit our defence was solid as rock.
That’s why I’m so optimistic, we look as a team full of hunger and fight.
Why are you responding to my post about MarcusBerglund? 4 out of his last 5 posts have been just negative about our squad depth. Within that period not a single post celebrating the Community Shield win where we smashed City around. That is the “negative only FSGout crew” I’m referring to.
It’s fine to have an opinion on squad depth, but don’t make it your only opinion, otherwise it becomes an agenda.
Current midfield;
Starters - Fabinho, Thiago, Henderson, Keita
Rotation Options - Elliot, Carvalho, Milner, Bajcetic
Injured - Jones (2-4 weeks), Oxlade (3 months)
Looks dam good to me.
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Yes, Virgil’s return to form was obviously part of it but JK said himself that in Jan after the Chelsea game there had been a ‘readjustment’ and defence came first. There was a different approach in the second half of the season and we looked much better for it.
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You were replying to a post by Fade to Black, who posted:
“Complacency alert. FSG are fine, but anyone not acknowledging an ongoing squad fitness concern are being unrealistic. The usual suspects are nothing if not consistent you’ll have to admit.”
You then quoted only the last sentence and wrote:
“Yes consistently negative, no posts when we win trophies, just wait for a couple of injuries to rant about squad depth.”
That sounds like you twisting FTB’s original post in support of the right to crticise, and turning it into a rant against your own ‘usual suspects’, who are those who dare to question anything that the club does. It doesn’t seem to be specific to MB at all.
This is why I felt personally attacked.
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