Yeah , and he looked pretty good too. That injury must have set him right back.
Me too. Bad enough that we’re seemingly mightily struggling with adding some midfielders who are sorely needed
It was a big ask for him to come in last year from scottish football as a kid and deputize. After having missed essentially a year of football because of injury it’s just not a reasonable ask, so a loan is the right move for him, especially with Bradley growing as a player on his loan last year.
Pun intended?
Down to 4 central defenders, Gomez is crap, Matip old and injury prone, Konate ok but injury prone and Virgil have slowed down a couple of gears. We need two new ones.
We’ll wait until next season to sign 2 once Matip’s contract is up and we can finally get rid of Gomez (or maybe we might just sign 1 and keep Nat/Sepp). We were never gonna address all our problems in 1 summer, it’s not really our thing.
Next summer maybe we need to replace Salah and Vvd, Roberson too. Rebuild never end.
lol …no
Yeah it’s very possible, Robbo’s deal runs till summer of 2026 but we’ve got some massive decisions to make between now and next summer for our 2 biggest star players under the Klopp era. Do we give them new deals? Would they even be willing to accept? Do we let them see out their contracts? Or if the opportunity comes do we do what we did Mane or Fab and get back the money we paid? (In Virgil’s case most of what we paid and in Mo’s case about 3x more)
Since we have crossed the threshold in selling players to the Saudis, and since they especially want to sign big names, Salah and VVD would be very desirable to them.
Salah still has plenty of time left on the clock, but he possibly looks ripe for a big sale next summer to the Saudis. As a Muslim and Egyptian Arab, it wouldn’t be as much of a cross cultural move for him either. We would get 3-4 times what we paid for Mo. It might not be bad business to sign someone like Veiga now, and loan him back, just to help future proof us, somewhat.
VVD would also command a hefty fee, if under contract, though not nearly as much as Mo, but more than Fabinho, but he may or may not want to go there. I’d be fine keeping VVD for longer, so long as he starts getting rotated a bit, especially in future, with a player of the level of Konate, who could replace him in time.
I think we need to get on it with signing another central defender, and it is a bit concerning to hear reports that we might not do that this summer.
A good defensive midfielder will help tighten up those gaps, and that has to be top priority, asap.
Peak VVD was still better than the Konate we see now.
True. But peak VVD was older than Konaté is now. I have every confidence in Ibou becoming the best centre half in the world, fitness permitting.
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Peak van Dijk was one of the best defenders in Liverpool’s history. Current Konate is just a very good defender.
There’s no comparison between them.
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I cannot watch Joe Gomez and Joel Matip anymore at this club and it’s not since yesterday.
Nothing against them personally, but they’re not good enough anymore and I hope it doesn’t block us too much this season for our goals.
How our defense looks, no matter who is in it, goes up and down based on how well we use the ball. When we’re sloppy with it we struggle. When we look after the ball and only lose it in the right places we look fairly well plugged up, even with an inexperienced 20 year old involved
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They have both played their part in us having a good start to the season, with both Van Dijk and Konate missing some action so far.
Matip is toward the end of his career, it is what it is, but he will play out his last season with us and do well for us when called upon. He is obviously past his peak, and is down the pecking order now. We need a younger replacement, and I’m sure it’s coming.
I can’t get on board with your view of Joe Gomez. He is good enough for us, imo. Debatable if he is good enough to start regularly, as he used to, since he may have slipped back a bit from that level, but even if he has, he is plenty good enough to be a back up. He has already covered both cb and rb with aplomb this season. As a rotation option Gomez is more than fine.
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Agreed. Gomez is a good backup CB. At RB I’m just not so convinced.
Obviously he’s not been a regular starter since a good few years (his last top period and his best one for us was probably, to this day, the start of 18/19), so I’m saying what I am considering what he is for a good few years now - a backup player. Not good enough even for that. I don’t want him to get to the age of 30 on the basis of being homegrown and able to cover a few positions (highly questionable how good). At some point the club will say thank you, but it’s been enough and move onto other players.
Neither player are very good but you’ll get people on here defending anyone. It was Henderson and Fabinho last year, regardless of how poor they played.
That said, Gomez was decent for parts of the second half. Matip looks done, physically. Quansah had a very good game.
He’s OK at RB but he isn’t Trent and we need him to do what he is good at, not try to be a supermarket own-brand version of Trent.
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