The Central Midfield Thread

The Albert
510

Carvalho is more likely to play as an attacker than an 8 in our system.

Ox is permanently crocked and not really fancied when not.

Thiago can’t do more than 30-40 games a season.

Last season was Navy’s best for us in terms of availability by some distance and he still missed nearly seven weeks and 8 games through injury.

Henderson and Fabinho are prone to niggles.

Elliott and Jones are exciting but still far from the finished article.

Milner is 37.

It has never been about the number of midfielders we have. It’s primarily about the availability of those midfielders and then the relative inexperience of those coming through. A point that is already somewhat proving itself.

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511

The last time Liverpool made a desperation buy for reinforcements was when they were relying on Jordan Henderson to play CB. And only then for value-driven low-risk moves (Kabak and Davies).

I don’t think they’re in that position yet. The Thiago injury is very frustrating (for him especially, I’m sure), but they have enough quality and Klopp is creative enough to make it work until he’s back.

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512

I disagree, yes he has things to learn but everything now is about learning it on the pitch. My personal view is he is in that very small group of players who will be a first team senior by 19.

In terms of us signing anyone, I think it’s clear by now if the right player is available we’d do it, otherwise expect to see a youth player promoted. I also think Carvalho gets minutes. Desperately unfortunate for Jones.

513

Shh it doesn’t fit the narrative!

514

And Carvalho is a wide forward or a 10, a position we don’t utilise. So now it’s 6 for 2 positions.

That six is one perma crock, three who regularly pick up niggles and knocks, a 37 year old and two relatively inexperience, albeit exciting prospects. Oh and Fabinho can’t play every game so someone from that 6 also needs to be available to cover him from time to time to.

The fact Stefan Bajcetic was on our bench for the season opener and we then lost Thiago too should really be a pretty clear indicator all is not well in that area of the pitch.

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515

Didn’t we have 9 subs to choose from? Furthermore, didn’t Jürgen specifically want to include more youth players through this expansion of substitutes?

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516

Yes we had nine but I doubt the plan was to have an untried 17 year old on there.

517

I agree with @Draexnael, I thought Elliot was good against Fulham. He created numerous overloads on the right flank which allowed Trent and Mo (especially) more space and more opportunity to hurt Fulham. Finding those spaces and picking some nice little passes helped to open Fulham up.

Elliot does leave us a little bit exposed defensively, but that’s where a defensive midfielder is supposed to help mop up. I’d rather us err on the side of agression than playing it safe.

The Elliot, Trent and Salah combination could be very effective, especially for a player like Nunez who thrives off good service. Trent and Salah have immense delivery from those wide positions when they find a bit of space.

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518

That’s why I’m inclined to disagree actually. We’ve seen that Jürgen is fond of promoting youth players, and has a clear plan for their development. All these players are technically “untried” until they’ve been included in such a match. Morton was doing well in cup games, but nothing spectacular enough to say that he would be able to hold his own in a Premier League match until he was dropped in against Spurs. And he didn’t even do badly in that.

You’re also neglecting that we had Milner and Elliott for good midfield alternatives ahead of that.

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519

Can’t wait to see a midfield of Fab Hendo Milner for the next month or 2.

520

Who is this kid! We should sign him to sort our midfield problems.

521

You think Badjetic was there by design rather than necessity?

Yes Elliott and Milner were there too. Another kid with a little experience and a lot to prove and a 37 year old utility player. And let’s be honest here, he might well be approaching club legend status but he’s not a player to be turning to change a game, got 90 minutes a handful of times last season and most thought last season would be his final one for the club.

Again, it is not about numbers. It’s about the mix of durability, suitability and experience of the group we have. I remember these same conversations about going into a season with three fit centre backs and the suggestions of Fabinho being able to play there and youth players that could step in and it was a disaster.

It won’t take much more of what we’re already seeing with fitness and availability issues for us to be in the same boat again. Not sure how that isn’t painfully obvious to everyone.

522

At this point, it’s basically just moaning about how we don’t have a double digit number of midfielders who are perfect in every shape and form.

You’re complaining about Elliott, who started 4 matches consecutively before getting injured last season, when everyone was raving about him (although his main attribute then for me was actually his consistency). Or Milner, who’s still more than capable of doing a great job in midfield.

It feels like so may of you are suffering from incurable PTSD from 2020-21.

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523

Not exactly aware of where we are in terms of injuries, but if I’m not mistaken, we currently have:

Ox out for one or two months. :see_no_evil:

Thiago out for at least six weeks it seems.

Jones out for a few weeks with a reaction to his previous injury. :see_no_evil:

Keita is just coming back from illness.

This leaves us with Fabinho, Hendo, Elliot, Carvalho, Keita (cross fingers) and Milner. Six players for three places. Losing Thiago is obviously a bad hit for us, but IF it stays like this, we should be able to ride this through.

One single injury more though (for instance if Keita can’t come back as quickly as expected), and we might get into the situation of the season before last, when all our central defenders were out for long spells eventually: the more players are out, the more stress you put on those who are still healthy, and thus the more risk you get that a new bad injury will happen.

It’s a complicated situation, but then again, Klopp is the best placed to assess it. For instance, if something happens to Fab or Hendo, how ready is Bajcetic to play a role, who was on the bench at Fulham?

Let’s face it, we fans can’t judge this kind of situation from the outside. It’s up to Klopp and his team to make the assessment, and act accordingly.

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524

No it isn’t. It’s highlighting an issue we’ve seen before where we leave ourselves short whilst hoping for the best.
Sometimes we get away with it, like playing Milner at left back for a season. Sometimes we don’t, like we had with the centre backs.

Difference here is we already know that area of the pitch will see consistent absences and availability issues throughout the season. Much like we knew Matip was likely to miss time during that 2020-21 season but we hoped for the best on that. The fact we’ve already got two medium term absentees and two short term absentees and we’re just two games into the season should be a clear indicator of the issues we potentially face.

Your dismissive attitude and attempts to ridicule doesn’t make that any less of legitimate concern.

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525

The point that everyone going on about signing a midfielder is forgetting is that we simply don’t work like this.

The club clearly really liked Tchouameni and would have probably signed him had he not been set for Real. They also obviously want Bellingham, but Dortmund have no intention of selling this summer.

There might be another couple of lads that the club enquired about but weren’t gettable this year.

But, as the club have shown over and over again now, they will not keep working their way down a list until one bites. This is not a matter of bodies in the squad. This is not Utd. Klopp does not work like that. The club do not work like that. They identify a perfect signing, and if necessary they will wait to get him.

The other issue is that we have nine midfielders on the books already. We need players to leave before we can add anymore. Yes, Klopp could pull some Barca level shit on Ox. Take his squad number off him. Make him train alone. That sort of thing. But he won’t do that, because it runs completely counter to his management philosophy.

You can think we should have bought another midfielder and go on and on about the players out there who could have come in and ‘done a job’. But it’s tilting at windmills really. The club have a strategy, and it works.

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526

Yeah agree with this. Sticking to one’s long-term vision is always better, rather than changing it in order to fix a short-term problem. Even if it can lead to a horrible situation like two years ago.

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527

That being said, it’s sometimes possible to advance one’s long-term planning if needed. Klopp did it with Diaz six months ago, so it’s not out of the question that he might try paying a bit more in order to get a long-term target earlier than planned.

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528

Think it sounds like most of our long-term targets aren’t available no matter the price?

529

I get the impression that whilst we do have a database on every single player in the world, it goes through many reviews before it lands on Klopps desk… When we are at this point it’s probably 3-5 players maximum, we then trim this down to a list of maybe 2 with Klopp. From this Klopp will get the opportunity to speak to the player and once the vision has been sold and the player bought in he is committed to that player, even if that means waiting.

Long story short, Klopp won’t whore himself out in a scatter gun approach. Frustrating I’m sure, but that’s why he gets players who will run through walls for him.

You could argue we have ran too large a risk on Thiago, Keita and Oxlade staying fit… But what happens if they did all stay fit? Where are the minutes for Jones, Carvalho, Elliot and a new player coming from?

Personally I’d be going back to market now and trying again for one of those players Klopp wants, I think that is happening but we will never know.

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