The club cannot do anything until the euros and Copa America are over as a few of their targets are playing and will not be back in training until after mid-August at least.
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Why can other clubs start recruitment but we canāt?
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Getting a CB to replace him as a player is already difficult enough, to find leadership from the defence once he retires or leaves is going to be an even more difficult task. I donāt see anyone in our current defence who has that leadership that VVD has.
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Itās a little from column A and a little from column B.
Van Dijk is now VVVD - Vintage Virgil Van Dijk. Still imperious, but older, which means you have to use him correctly. A 60 game season where he has been an ever present, being the mainstay to mitigate the loss of an injured Matip, an injured Konate, and the mainstay who helped bring Quansah through - going from that workload, to the Euros to help carry his nation, is too much.
The workload must change, and in order for that to happen, Liverpool need to sign a top class cb who can play and rotate in as needed, with a view to taking hold of it as VVVD diminishes. He still has plenty to give, but in order to extract that in a Liverpool shirt, we will need to manage the workload.
The other column also rings true. He is a few percent off his absolute peak. There were a couple of signs that he was getting the run around, slightly, by that Turkish striker with the bleached hair (I forget his name and am too lazy to look it up!)
Virg was never embarrassed, but at his absolute peak he would have handled him with margin to spare.
Itās the circle of life, football style. Van Dijk still has plenty to give, but we should sign another central defender this summer, or it will be careless.
Edit
Yes, Yilmaz, thanks Limie!
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Yilmaz was a fucking terror as well. On a couple of occasions Virgil defended well initially only for Yilmaz to come back at him two, three times making life hell for him. I think a lot of Virgilās success is his aura where once an attacker gets in a certain position they just give up knowing Virgil has them beaten. I noticed this the first time the year before we bought him, where he made even Sadio do that twice. What we saw yesterday was the rare attacker who refused to give up and got something out of it a couple of times. Was that a bad match up? The unusual level of motivation of the Euros for a player on an unfancied team feeling he might never be in this position again? Or maybe a player smelling blood in the water of a defender who was no longer quite so lock down as he used to be? No idea.
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Seen as a genuine option or āif you want him youāre going to need to stump up more than thatā?
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Every player has a price.
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He is worth keeping as a rotation option. Or someone can pay us an amount that would see a deal get done.
If teams donāt have the dough, boo-hoo. I want a Bentleyā¦
I saw one link saying PSV liked him. If that is true, and he wants to leave to play more regularly, maybe it gets us half way to Bakayoko, who may have a release clause?
Anyway, good luck to Sepp VdB. The lad has done everything asked of him and excelled in the loan moves he has had.
If it earns him a meaningful spot in our squad, well done that man.
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He aced the nipple pinching drills on day 2 and now we think heās potentially got a big role to play.
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Iām glad heāll be given a shot in preseason, weāve got three excellent CB options so if we have a 4th choice already at the club itāll mean having more funds to spend elsewhere.
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I think at this point, unless anyone else leaves, heās surely 5th choice at CB behind Gomez as well as the three from last season.
We havenāt seen enough of him to make a judgement, but he may well be ahead of Joe, and with Ibouās fitness and Virgilās age, he might get quite a bit of playing time, especially in the cups.
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4th. Gomez is not CB anymore. And our first choice is 33 years old, our second choice never reach 30 games per session. quansah is only 21, just played like 20 games total so far. We play nearly 60 games, then we have 60* 2 = 120 slots for center backs. 40 -45 for Vvd, 20-25 for Konate , 30 -40 for Quansah Then Van den Berg will have 20-25 games.
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If hes half decent heāll easily overtake Gomez at CB
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Weāve two fullbacks on either side so Gomez is as much a CB right now as he is anything else. Iād be very surprised if Sepp was considered above Gomez in the rankings of anyone serious.
If Trent moves into midfield of Kostas is sold you can maybe have a different conversation, but thatās why I said āas we currently standā.
Gomez at CB has been a disaster in recent years, heās too timid, poor positionally and gets sucked into bad positions as he follows CFs into midfield. I was his biggest fan as a CB in 2019/20 but 5 years later heās a significantly worse CB than he was and a club like ours should see him only as the emergency option there.
If we went out today and bought a 22 year old CB from Mainz I think it would be assumed that player will be part of the 4 main CBs block with Van Dijk, Konate and Quansah. If our coaches really see van den Berg as the kind of player they would have tried to sign, then I see no reason why he wouldnāt get that chance.
Either way for Gomez theres no issue with having 5 players for 2 FB roles. Its inevitable we will have injuries, suspensions and possibly tactical tweaks.
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But we havenāt gone out and bought a 22 year old centre half from Mainz. A lad who has been around for 5 years and never been seen as good enough is back from his 1000th loan spell.
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Pearce sharing a lot LFC transfer rumors recently.
Feels like he does that every time we get a new manager.
Think he was on good terms with the Club when Klopp came in (wasnāt there even a sit down interview) and then something happenened a few years ago and I believe Klopp didnāt even want to answer questions from him in his press conferences.
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Bit like Saliba?
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