No 100% but we also might not have signed Nunez if we missed out on Tchouameni. The amount of moving parts in any clubs transfer business (bar the ones who don’t need to balance the books) are staggering.
Who do you think we should have signed out of interest when we missed out on Tchouameni?
Yes. A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush
Carvalho did get minutes in midfield in pre season.
Whilst I see some players available who look promising and could potentially improve us, some of the suggestions above are crap. Sign more kids to play instead of Jones, Elliot and Carvalho? Why? Renato Sanches, another crock? Fabio Veira who is 1) injured 2) extremely similar to Elliot?
How do Sangare or Kamara help us? We have cover for the 6 position, it’s legs/quality in the 8 we need more of, not a specialist defensive midfielder.
Pointless. Sign the right player, not just any player. For my money Matheus Nunes looks like the right profile.
They are just about the best in the game at what they do. But sure, you go ahead.
I mean, I love us to sign a midfielder, but I’ve learned at this point that if we don’t move right now there will be a good reason.
I just think it’s a really simple equation. If there is a player out there who meets the criteria, is available, and addresses a need, we’ll get him.
If we end the window having not signed a midfielder either there wasn’t one to get, or Klopp didn’t think we needed one.
What should be the case by now is that fans aren’t banging their keyboards accusing the club of being lazy or tight. We should really be past that.
No, 8-10 depending on how you view the squad. You’ll say eight because you don’t want to include Carvalho or Bajetic. I’d say 9 because I definitely would include Carvalho. There are plenty who think that Bajetic will get game time this year.
Depends if there is anyone available who meets our very high standards. As we’ve already established, and should be at this point abundantly clear.
A central midfielder. Because Tchouameni can’t have been the be all and end all of midfield options this summer and Bellingham the only option next summer.
Point out where I’ve said that? And please stop trying to belittle other people’s opinions by making out legitimate concerns are people living in FIFA land or some type of keyboard warrior. You said yourself you’d love a midfielder so you must share an element of this concern?
Well it’s 8. Carvalho isn’t a midfielder in the way we play. And I doubt most people could spell Bajetic let alone pronounce it two weeks ago. Now he’s an option based on a decent pre-season outing.
If you’re arguing purely based on number of options, which you were, then you have to accept that there was an willingness to add another midfield option to the squad give the pursuit of Tchouameni.
Carvalho is listed as a forward on the first team page (I just discovered with great interest)
Thing with Elliott is that he doesn’t quite have the pace to play wide and that he’s not really the kind of player who will waltz around defenders with the ball or break the offside trap to cut inside and score. Carvalho… Well, I think he might be a player who ticks a lot of those boxes, while Elliott will likely be the side’s creative hub in central areas.
This is a nice parallel at the end (and one that will undoubtedly start giving me nightmares because I hadn’t really thought about it until I saw your post) but I often thought that our problems in 2020/21 stemmed not just from our centre backs being injured for the season but because we subsequently lost the midfield with Henderson and Fabinho playing centre back and Alcantara/Keita being injured or ill. I’m really afraid that we will lose the midfield again without Alcantara unless Keita and Elliott prove able deputies - which is a bit much of an ask from both for different reasons.
First of all… having 8 options (e.g., Henderson, Milner, Thiago, Fabinho, Jones, Keita, Elliott, Ox) for 3 positions is much better than having 3 options for 2 positions like we had when we had with our CB crisis. That is 2.67X coverage compared to 1.5X coverage. The situation is not remotely the same.
Furthermore, if current injury issues force us to give Morton / Bajcetic 3 or 4 starts this season then I am completely OK with that.
At the same time, I’m also fully supportive of buying a top midfielder but I want nothing but the upper echelon of players. Otherwise, I would rather stick with kids who have a chance of being great vs someone we know won’t.
Spot on. And I believe that Jürgen and our recruitment team think the same way.
Probably has been said by others before: The “kids” have been well integrated with the way that LFC plays. We would not know how long the bedding in period for the new player(s) from other teams/countries, especially with the lack of pre-season training with the Boss and our boys. Remember how long it took for Fabinho to settle in with the way we play, rather than the double pivot he used to (as well as the high intensity and physicality in PL)? By the time the new comer settles in, the regulars would be back. Diaz is one of the few exceptions in adapting to our ways (does Porto play the same high pressing way?).
Shouldn’t you at least entertain the possibility that Klopp himself doesn’t even think it’s necessary to purchase a midfielder this season? What if he saw Tchouameni as an opportunity signing and, as Mascot suggested, purchasing him would have seen us actively moving on at least 1 existing midfielder? You know that that is likely the most scenario given we a) have not pursued another midfielder and b) Klopp clearly losing his shit when questioned about why we haven’t added a midfielder.
What is grating my nerves is that the squad we constantly compare to - City’s - doesn’t even have the midfield depth of ours, nor any other position either for that matter. And City is by far the closest in midfield depth. Most clubs don’t even have a fraction of that depth.
If we had sold Keita and bought both Tchouameni and Bellingham let’s say, giving us 10 midfielders, and we lost both Thiago and Henderson in the first match to injury, the club would be criticized for not purchasing an eleventh midfielder. Whatever happens with injuries basically the club can’t win because they ‘should have just bought one more’. It’s never ending. Now that we have removed the whipping boys like Lovren, Moreno, Gini, it feels like the criticism needs to be directed somewhere else such as squad depth and having 10 players for every part of the field. It’s tiresome. It was probably easier just defending the whipping boys.
The whipping boys are still here, mostly Keita and Jones. Occasionally Trent.
Play the kids instead of buying. Why not? After all, it’s what we used to do 5-25 years ago when we cleaning up the silverware…oh wait…jaysus.
What was opportunistic about our pursuit of Tchouameni?
There wasn’t a buy out fee like Taki or Konate where his value was capped under or close to our valuation.
He wasn’t leaving for us and us alone like Virgil.
He hadn’t just been relegated like Gini or Robbo.
He wasn’t in the last year of his deal and showing no interest in signing a new one like Thiago.
It wasn’t even like he’d downed tools and was pushing to leave Monaco at all.
And they didn’t seem to need cash in on him to balance the books.
So yeah, it’s possible it was opportunistic but I fail to see why. The only thing you can say is he was a great fit and we either had a go or watched him move elsewhere without putting our hat in the ring. Hedging our whole window on a fairly big long shot doesn’t sound like us either.
Not true. Twice there has been strong concerns of being short in an area, both times because we have players with clear fitness issues that we’re seemingly banking on staying fit. Those concerns have already come to fruition once making the concern it’ll happen again more justifiable I think.
It’s not a view shared by everyone and I get that. Time will tell whether the right decision has been made. But we’re going to need to not put all our eggs in the Bellingham basket next summer as we won’t be able to afford to do nothing if that doesn’t come off. And we’ll likely need more than just him too.
Not really. These lads know what they are doing. If it makes sense to wait for targets to become available, so be it. Maybe we’ll go for Nunes? Either way I fine with it. They’ve earned my trust.
Well it isn’t. Carvalho was used there in preseason, so it isn’t outlandish to suggest he is ninth - that’s ninth - choice for a midfield place.
Also, in an emergency, I think we could use Trent or Firmino as eights. Only an emergency, but still, we have that option.
Either way, we don’t only have eight players who can play midfield.
Yes, I already have. And I suspect that might have led to Milner, Keita or Ox leaving.
I’ve already said that I think at times the club don’t work from a basis of what do we need - it’s more a case of a really top drawer player becoming available, so making a move. When it comes to the midfield and the forward line, we can also juggle things around.
comes in for a simple discussion
We have 8 centre mids. Sure, anyone can play anywhere if you want. Surprised we went for Nunez to be honest after Allison proved himself so able to play up top.
Cross your fingers and hope we don’t see a bunch of injury prone players don’t get injured, not a great plan but if you’re happy with that then more power to you. I hope you’re right, early signs aren’t good though.