Sadio returning to Liverpool as Champion of Africa and seeing that he has been replaced.
Jokes aside.
Díaz for now is one thing and one thing only - an upgrade on Origi.
Player seems to be versatile like Jota, Mané and Salah.
Don’t think it necessarily means anyone is leaving in the summer. Could aswell mean Bobby leaves.
But I would be totally ok if we go into next season with Sadio, Salah, Diogo, Bobby, Luis and Kaide.
Question about that versatility because 95% of the time in his senior career so far, he’s played on the left. That can change of course, but until we see it…
Do you not remember the second guessing when Mo arrived and the then perceived drop off from Mane was because he wasnt as good on the left? I didn’t see that then, but it’s a reflection of how comfortable and effective he was for us off the right.
Salah could be the one to leave. Mané goes back to the right and Diaz on the left.
Or Bobby leaves because he is our oldest attacker.
Like I said - we should not try to read too much into the Diaz signing.
Origi Upgrade All that matters for now.
I think Mane had more history of playing other than the right side. I’m just saying, Diaz’s played almost all the time off the left. Doesn’t mean it can’t change. But can’t call him versatile (in terms of positions) until I see it.
Ah sorry, I thought you were talking about Mane’s lack of versatility.
Portuguese football expert Filipe Dias:
“The deal is going through. It does appear that Luis Diaz – the best player in the Portuguese league – is going to be signed by Liverpool. I think this is the kind of player that Klopp likes.”
“Technically he is very, very gifted. I think he is bound for greater things than the Portuguese league, no doubt about that. He is the best Colombian player at the moment, the best player in the Portuguese league at the moment.”
“He can do anything upfront, he’s not a centre forward but he can do almost anything. This guy really has something special about him. There’s no doubt in my mind that if things go normally, he will fit perfectly in at Liverpool.”
That’s probably more referring to playing skills.
We’ll find out soon.
Just occurred to me that our biggest fear after the CL and PL title wins was how we’d go about replacing the front three that really spearheaded those two successes. That seemed to be an insumountable challenge give the historic performances of those guys.
And in the space of 18 months we’ve arguably upgraded on Firmino with Jota and now, although early days, potentially found an heir to Mane who looks like he was born to play in this Liverpool team. And that’s not come at the expense of other needs with Thiago, Konate and Tsimikas coming in too.
Credit where it’s due, that’s two huge pieces of Klopp’s first Liverpool team that potentially we could move on from and the sky not fall in on us. And if we can get Salah a new deal then our forward options remain frightening even if we did lose one of Mane or Firmino this summer. The thought of one or both of those leaving would have struck fear in us all a year or so ago.
One thing that really bugs me is the fact that the contracts of Firmino (2015), Mane (2016), and Salah (2017) all became synchronized and are all expiring in 2023.
They all signed new/improved contracts since they came.
I know, but the length should/could have been spread out.
It is the managers job after Jurgen to pick his own team…
might suit the new guy to have them move on at the same time
Just going to throw this here after reading the from @Sweeting re Carvalho and also the links with Nunez.
I’m just a bit confused more than concerned, but definitely interested in how it’s all going to work next year. Here are a few heatmaps I quickly grabbed:
Carvalho 2021-22
Diaz 2021-22 (Porto)
Jota (I think from his last season at wolves)
Darwin Nunez
Four players, although all substantially different, but all occupied similar areas on the pitch prior to moving here. While there may be bedding in periods for the new players, at the prices talked about for Nunez, you would expect him in the team sooner than later.
Just wonder if Jota will be continue being happy with his role and if Carvalho will get enough minutes here or if he will be used also in attacking midfield in a 4231?
The 5 subs will help with things I guess. The little concern I guess is Salah being out for a long period as we always look a bit less effective with anyone else on the right. Although we did well enough this season in his absence.
Agreed. It would make much more sense to sign someone who plays predominantly on the right.
I think that’s all fine.
Jota has much more possibilities in a better team than Nuno’s Wolves. But yeah, it seems like his best role is either a supporting striker in a two, the left sided one, or simply playing as the left inside forward in a front 3.
Diaz is a heavy left sided player, but we have also seen him a few times on the right for us. This summer Klopp has hinted that they would go into more depth and details what they expect from him in our team, pre-season will be important.
Carvalho playing as a #10, being a right footer and someone who looks to combine, it’s natural if he prefers that left inside channel, like Coutinho did. He’s still young, who knows what he’ll evolve into. Could be a forward player for now, but then long term slowly converted into midfielder.
Nunez perhaps loves attacking in behind players between the opponent’s RCB and RB.
It is true that we don’t really have a clear at least positional backup for Salah on the right side. Hopefully it’s still the case that we don’t need one for the large majority of time (even if Mo indeed deserved to be benched in my opinion for a few games when he wasn’t performing).
That could be on the agenda for the summer of 2023.
@deneb For what it’s worth: Jota played either as the left-sided center forward in a strike partnership with Jiménez OR as the left forward in a front 3, while Núñez played as the left-sided center forward in a 4-4-2. Díaz was a left winger in a 4-4-2 at Porto. I think the heatmaps are only superficially similar because of these differences in shape.
Edit to say: I think you can comfortably make the case, with those differences, that it should be possible to use all these players in combination with each other as well as in rotation with each other.
@rupzzz asked if we have improved this summer.
I have no answer to this question because Sadio was one of our all time greats.
But with Mo, Bobby, Diogo, Darwin and Luis we have the potential to outscore any Front 5 Klopp ever had.
In all competitions:
Salah 26
Darwin 18
Díaz 16
Diogo 13
Bobby 11
Actually tried to predict a ‘low’ number of goals for each of our 5 attackers but when sum up my above numbers I thought ‘holy shit that’s already 84 goals’
Don’t want to jinx them but this attack is good enough for 100 goals.
So, how many goals do you guys predict for each one of them?
Not going to lie, if it wasn’t for the injury I would have gone with Diogo being our second best because he’s our best finisher since Origi left IMO.
