How do you come up with the “One to watch” markers? I see he doesn’t have one. A one to watch almost seems like the kiss of death.
Do you mean in the wrote up on the site (for 2021/2022) or the one in the google doc (2022/2023)?
I try and pick players based on who I think could impact the first team in the coming season. Some years I’ve excluded loanees but I go back and forth on that because I end up missing some players I want to talk about.
In 2021/2022 I didn’t think Bajcetic would impact the first team, he’d barely arrived at the club and only had 4 U18 appearances to his name. If memory serves my 3 to watch for us were Leighton Clarkson, Sepp van den Berg and Kaide Gordon.
2022/2023 it was the pre-season trio of Bajcetic, Clark and Mabaya. I think this years group was a little more telegraphed because of how pre-season played out. Generally I struggle with my Liverpool picks more so than other clubs, I think its a case of knowing them too much that I can make cases for and against basically everyone whereas other clubs players I just pick a few people who I’ve seen play well and look like possibly breaking through.
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The site version. I like the writeups, I can never find them thou. I end up having to use the search function.
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I’m working on yet another presentation style for next year’s preview which will hopefully make everything easier.
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Another start, another tidy performance. An early card yet again (where was Conner Gallagher’s cards last week?) and still lasted most of the game in a high pressure position.
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Yeah have to give the lad credit for how he goes about it.
I do hope he continues to put in a show and isn’t learning bad habits from others.
Yeah, he managed to keep things clean and simple, one of the rare ones to do that today. Getting more and more satisfied with his off the ball work, how he covers the ground, reads things, steals balls, how aggressive he is. You see immediately his composure on the ball (first time I saw him play was United last pre-season), but to play the single pivot role here you obviously need to be very good defensively.
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We got to look after this boy. 
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He was actually one of the ones who tried to avoid the pinball fire spell.
A breath of fresh air this young man, Klopp subbing him off early to protect him is good.
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The biggest positive to take from this season. If he’d been putting these performances in for a midtable team in a minor European league, bellends on Twitter would be demanding we spend £60m on him.
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Not as good as his last 2 but another bright performance, few needless fouls but he just gets stuck in and applies himself like a DM should. Could he go on to be a regular from here on in and save us spending 40-50m on another midfielder? Who knows. Certainly doing himself no harm.
The ball (bar once and he had gone off then) hasn’t been going straight through the centre since he came in.
If he continues to play as he is or generally as well even with a few dips I can’t see why he can’t make it and shouldn’t be considered a first Teamer on the commencement of next season.
After all he’s only 18 and yet two early cards and he has been able to play without a further one for 50/60 mins, shows a grown up attitude.
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That’s been the most impressive thing for me.
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I’ve not seen him play due to my general post world cup apathy but I can appreciate that you all are impressed with the lad.
But I look at the video posted above and if he’s honestly the best player on the park for us at the moment then I have to ask what the fuck are the rest doing? He’s had some touches, a few decent passes and looks like he’s happy to get stuck in as best he can but it raises real concerns in me about the rest of the team.
Still I should watch a game I guess but …
Yeah those videos never tell the whole story. His positioning and tracking ofnrunners is lightyears ahead of Fabinho. It won’t show up in highlughts packages because he doesn’t touch the ball but he stops attacks happening by checking so many midfield runs early on.
No problem with letting Bajcetic claim the starting shirt. No problems with him being pancilled in as a starter next year either. We as fans always marvel at players like Gavi, Pedri and Bellingham etc making it as a teenager at a big club - don’t know why we always assume our own teenagers are not ready or cannot be relied upon.
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A combination of too many false dawns and too much expectations from fans? I once said that we should close our academy if we didn’t get a top class player out of Ibe, Ojo, Wilson and Kent. The only mitigating factor for my brain fart is the fact that our club got a fair wedge of money for these four.
I hope that our fairly recent “splurge” on specifically targeted youngsters will start paying dividends relatively soon. If I remember correctly, it started when Bajčetić arrived alongside a lad from Birmingham, Scanlon, a left back, I think, and it continued with the likes of Gordon, Doherty-Kone and Doak. Developing these (and the other) lads from academy might go a long way towards saving us the funds to get Bellingham on loan from Real Madrid in a few years…
Joking aside, we’re definitely bound to see more and more of these lads get their chance - and hopefully grabbing it. A teenage Trent Alexander-Arnold fought his way to become a mainstay of the team that went on to win literally everything bar Europa League (they might have a chance for that soon, though). Bajčetić will likely need more time because the team isn’t functioning as a unit and because he’s a bit slow off the mark but I think he’s played himself into Klopp’s plans for the next season at least.
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He needs to improve on the ball to stake a first team place (long term) for me.
Defensively, he’s already there. Really impressed with his anticipation and ability to get the ball back.
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First team place long term he’ll have to improve or confirm himself in all aspects.
Klopp said before one of the last games that he was impressed with his aggression/ability to actually win the ball in the final few steps, sort of that was the area where there were/are still some questions.
He’s just turned 18 I’m sure he will improve. He has come in and done one thing we were seriously lacking.
If truth be told I feel it’s why we are limiting teams, yes the flanks are an issue, though a bit less so than they have been. But stuff was just going through the middle and I only saw that once yesterday.
He is beyond where I would expect him to be and I would be confident that he is given a proper chance to develop. He also fills one of the midfield places and does it justice.
It’s also another reason why I wouldn’t dump on any Europa league football. Arsenal have used it to good resource.
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