I don’t think we’ll see too much of that to be honest. Maybe more like after 45-60mins if we’re chasing it in some games. When we don’t have Bobby for whatever reason or he needs a breather, I think we might see someone like Carvalho (or Elliott) as the attacking midfielder or supporting striker, whatever you want to call it. Not too different from the role had behind/alongside Mitrovic last season.
Hendo could also cover the right side of a midfield 4 if we want to push Salah up, maybe against some tougher opposition or in moments when we need to protect.
With the injuries we have I would like to see Harvey as the left or right winger in our 4-3-3
Harvey Bobby Salah
Really can’t see Bobby staying at the end of the season.
Salah has his position on the right.
Jota, Diaz, Nunez and Gakpo will battle it out for the other two positions.
From what we’ve seen so far Diaz on the left is probably the closest to a ‘guaranteed’ starting spot.
Gakpo played most of his football recently on the left wing but he can play across the line.
Jota has already played all three positions for us - might be the first backup for Salah but he’ll surely get more games at CF and on the left. He was such a good finisher when he arrived.
Kind of expecting Darwin to be our first choice CF.
Will be very difficult for Carvalho to get minutes in attack now.
Diaz Nunez Salah
Gakpo Jota Salah
I don’t think Gakpo in necessarily means Bobby isn’t staying.
As for Salah’s backup, we don’t need strictly one, because we rarely need it (though in final months of last season he deserved to be benched more). Would depend on the moment/game, who’s fit, who can do it, who’s in form, style, etc.
And as for Carvalho, yeah, we’ll see if we’re maybe considering loaning him out by next summer if we feel he’s a bit off for our level right now and could do with more PL game time.
Doak doing himself no harm as being the right sided under study. Ofcourse, cant have any major expectations of him yet.
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Important - I don’t want us to remain with all forwards who’s main quality is to go in behind.
The side is always evolving and players will get better in certain aspects, but the balance will still be important.
Just look at our structure yesterday, it wasn’t our usual 4-3-3, it was somewhat different. More double pivot, Hendo tucked in on the right, Ox playing deeper in the left half space and basically two pacy forwards in Salah and Nunez.
Both Jota and Diaz did well so far, but there are no guarantees who’s got which position. Only Salah is basically the automatic starter in his position. The rest will have to battle it out.
We’ll see if Gakpo can first prove he can be a quality player here, then it’s up to them who merits the most game time and years at Liverpool.
We went a couple of season with Salah, Mané, Firmino.
Sturridge, Origi and Ings were barely available.
Klopp still prefers to make little changes between the games.
Doesn’t make two changes in attack unless injuries strike and never makes three changes in attack unless the changes come for a lower league team in the domestic cups.
So Bobby staying would mean one ‚expensive’ attacker would be unused in every game.
Can’t see that happen.
That was more due to our situation, certainly not what we wanted.
Which we proved with years, finally getting that strength in depth and at times even having more numbers than ideally needed really.
With Gakpo in, we will currently have 28 senior players. We have quite large squads in the last few years. We will naturally look to lower that number in the next two windows and then add a midfielder or two.
Bobby staying isn’t 100% until it’s confirmed, but somehow I doubt Gakpo signing means something broke down in our negotiations with Bobby.
Besides that, I’m not sure Klopp would feel at ease letting Bobby go, looking at the styles of other forwards.
Think he will still want to have something a bit different, though that’s also maybe part of the reason why we’re getting yet another player who’s best position is more or less Jota’s and Diaz’s.
Nunez is a work in progress as he battles to become our main central guy and Jota can be very invisible when he plays centrally. Good finisher, but often weak in the involvement part.
First things first, let’s see what can Gakpo do between now and next summer and how that does potentially affect other player’s situations.
Yeah I wonder whether Bobby or Mo could leave in the summer.
Mo extended his contract recently. Going nowhere.
Bobby is out of contract.
Mo extended for 1 year only. So he’s out of contract in 18 months (I think?) and if there isn’t new funding coming in w.r.t the equity sale and we received a big offer, I could see him being sold to fund squad renewal.
Great! For some reason I thought he’d only added an extra year, not two.
Still wonder whether - in the circumstances above - he would be one of the easiest to sell to generate funds for a rebuild. We shall see - hopefully he regains his top form, stays and we can fund our squad renewal elsewhere.
I think he’s going nowhere.
Getting back to his best lately, role isn’t changing (much), I think he’s here to stay and hopefully keep his fantastic numbers up.
He’s our only automatic starter in the attacking positions, the next part is to see how we can work out involving a Nunez in an attack that already has Salah doing his stuff and/or then see what to do with other players.
The only way to go part way to appease the fans if MO was sold… would be to bring in Bellingham with the money generated
We should still be able to reinforce the midfield with 2 - 3 signings without needing to sacrifice any of our attacking players.
The players going out are on a sizable wagebill
Caicedo is on £3500 a week! Move Naby on and stick Moises on 40kpw! Problem is, Brighton reportedly want £70m for him. Fuck knows what they’d want for Macallister.
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