The best midfielders Klopp probably managed are Gundogan and Thiago (if you forget his injuries).
Klopp’s play style doesn’t involve midfielders expressing themselves. They are there to do a job which is to mainly win possession and recycle posession.
Will premium midfielders (bellingham excluding as he would have been quite happy to sign for us w.r.t English equation) really join Klopp knowing that they are more likely to be restricted in their skillset ?
Yes , we might get tailor-made guys like Mac and supposedly Keita , Gini…(Thiago excluding but we can see with his injury record why Bayern were happy to see him leave)
Because their players get ref protection in league games.
Ours don’t.
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Let’s also not forget that Sahin won Bundesliga POTY when Dortmund won their first league title under Klopp. Gotze also playing between the lines. I think it’s wrong to narrow Klopp’s choices in midfield only to one style of player. There are certain bottom line principles which we never chance, but it’s also not so much black and white with some players, as fans like to portray sometimes.
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There’s also a case as to why very few people who’ve played their. Best football under Klopp never reached the same heights later.
Gundogan and Lewandowski excluded and probably Auba (not sure if Klopp managed him for a serious amount of time)
And Gundogan joining Man City was probably a reason of Pep realising that the only way to beat Klopp is to somehow imitate his style.
That bald cunt would never admit it but he’s been more influenced by Klopp than his so called tiki taka style (doesn’t stop his side from diving / or committing cheap fouls though)
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Yup.
Pogba on Naby
Cresswell on Hendo (even though he didn’t have to go off, allowing these kind of challenges has a cumulative effect).
That Spanish(?) fucker for Everton on Divock.
T-Rex on VVD
Richarlison on Thiago
Hamza on Salah
Mané probably took knocks other players wouldn’t get up from.
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Maybe Hummels? Perisic, Immobile. Few others like this which struggled to settle and then went on later to do better…quality players but sometimes the environment, your surroundings i.e how you get along with teammates play a bigger factor than some portray…
There’d have to be some extreme reason to not want to stay and play under a manager like Klopp through your prime years…for someone like Coutinho who didn’t, I can accept Barca was his dream club as a boy.
Think klopp realised that his incoming players need to make the effort to learn the communication lingo. Which is probably why keita failed.
Naby , while loved , didn’t really communicate enough. Maybe he did with Mane. But then it’s Mane
Coutinho’s been at Liverpool since early 2012, so his time here doesn’t start with our rise under Klopp. He probably had enough and wanted a new, bigger challenge. Regardless of us slowly growing when he was leaving and getting back to a competitive mode. But maybe he wanted to leave for a while. Can fully understand that. Not all Liverpool players and staff off the pitch have the same motivation at all times.
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We bought Thiago in 2020. Camavinga went to Madrid in 2021, same year Gini left.
In effect we did nothing in terms of the MF until our attempt to buy Tchoumeni last summer.
And when that failed, crucially we chose to stay the course…
My point exactly.
We were roughly in the same place with them re MF.
Then they started a long term process of recreating the MF.
We too recognized the need for this, but crucially, ultimately chose to stay the course…
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The point is not about who has greater pulling power. Its really about priorities and choices.
We made a choice on missing out on Tchoumeni to stay with what we had. Go back and listen to the Klopp presser last summer. He said we had every position covered in MF…
There are always players available; thats what scouting networks are for…
Going into last season our midfielders were
36,32,31
28,28,27,26
21,20,19
Our problem wasn’t lack of planning,it was injuries and/or fatigue.We can’t/couldn’t keep on bringing in players without offloading others(we don’t have that type of resources financially)and injuries stop you from being able to just offload some players.
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Injuries and fatigue simply exacerbated our inaction or lack of follow through.
We already offloaded a player- Gini.
Yes, and Mbappe was Madrids priority. They closed the Tchoumaini deal only after that fell through
And we chose to stay action when the Tchoumeni deal fell through. That’s the difference…
We brought in 2 midfeilders last summer,neither have worked out as hoped,maybe Tchouameni wouldn’t have either.You can say he would have succeeded but many have gone into the EPL and failed or at best been mediocre.
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It seems to me that the assumption from a few is that the clubs folk that work on bringing players in sit around twiddling thumbs. Just because something didn’t make it out on twitter or whatever other media platform, doesn’t mean work wasn’t going on.
For all we know Tchouameni was one of 20 midfielders we enquired about.
As for 3 of the midfielders we’ve considered going to ending up at RM, as @Hope.in.your.heart said, that’s the pulling power of Madrid - Liverpool just cannot offer those wages etc.
Weren’t RM in nearly £1bn of debt that was just written off recently? Not sure I want to see Liverpool ramp up the debt and hope the Govt or whoever bails us out - Madrid are a tourist attraction to Spain - they won’t let the club fold. Don’t think the British Govt gives a flying fuck about LFC.
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Its not the difference - we got our main targets and Real didn’t that’s the difference.
It is also irrelevent because your whole point is about Real doing something better or positively different to us, and they didn’t- they just had a different result.
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Yet notably found themselves still playing their same old midfield most games despite this amazing transition they’ve gone through. In terms of outcomes, it is not that much different from us in terms of players who made it on the pitch.
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