I’d see how happy Ruben Neves is over in Saudi Arabia or see if Stuttgart would take Endo back in part exchange for Angelo Stiller.
But I’m not some professional scout so I’d hope they’d be able to come up with a better list.
Whenever we have been rejected by a player we find out later that we have luckily dodged a bullet we will replace him with someone better and cheaper
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And i remember reading numerous article as to the support the new manager will receive in the transfer window. Lol. These owners are taking us back. If only the owners showed 1% ambition Klopp would have delivered atleast 2 more league titles and 1 Champions League. Our golden era in recent times isnt as rosy as it should have but for the owners.
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To be clear, I was referring to the other 3. I’m not convinced we would have bought Endo if Fabinho didn’t leave/have his abilities completely evapourate.
I might be misremembering but I thought their release clauses were time-specific. I think the common consensus is that they would have been a lot more expensive otherwise.
I wouldn’t know, and I’m willing to bet most “journalists” wouldn’t either, despite what they try to claim.
Sometimes, some things in life are just luck. It’s not just a question of whether they would “improve us”, but also do so to a sufficient degree that justifies the costs.
That’s not what I’m saying at all? I’m saying that looking for other players that play in his position doesn’t mean we want to dispose of him or think he’s not good enough. He’s not good enough to play 48 games, which is the minimum length of our season, none of our players really are.
That’s operating on the assumption that they know something, and that anything that they might know constitutes the full picture. They wouldn’t know if for example, we evaluated the market for a centre-forward and decided that we can’t upgrade on Núñez without it costing too much to make any sense at all.
One of them is not like the others. Notice that 3 of them were loans, one was a 4 year permanent contract for a 30-year-old. Your last sentence though hits the nail on the head for me. People are getting so worked up based on things that are their opinion, even if the data doesn’t even reflect that opinion.
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And yet summer after summer we seem to be one of the few clubs who think there’s little out there that’s worth doing to address a need until we inevitably find ourselves in a big hole.
Yes, the big hole that has seen us losing out on the title at the end of a season or winning it when we don’t have massive injury crises that see us have to rely on our 7th and 8th choice centre-backs, or seeing our entire midfield out due to injuries.
For all the whining about signings, our squad depth in terms of pure numbers, not even debating quality, has been deeper than City’s for a few seasons. It’s just the ridiculous number of injuries that we get that has been preventing us from doing better.
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Monitoring FC at it again.
https://x.com/JamesPearceLFC/status/1823267694163927417
I doubt anyone here has solutions. This is why we pay a fortune for a scouting team and a new director set up. There are approx 150k professional footballers worldwide.
I’m not a panicker and still think we have a great squad. But it does seem a bit ridiculous to have 3 consecutive windows of trying to get a DM, then saying that there’s no one who can improve us
Varela surely?
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Clubs an utter mess. Sunday league teams are better organised.
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Yeah, that’s what I was driving at, but a bit less late-night stream-of-consciousness lol
We wanted Zubimendi. We did not NEED Zubimendi. Look at the midfielders we have below and tell me that we do not have a midfield that can win. Last year, this midfield was right up there with the best until April, where things went wrong. And now that Mac and Dom have a first season together over, and with Slot showing that he knows what football is about and further improve them, why are we fretting over a player we do not need? Of course is Zubimendi a very good player? On paper, definitely better and younger than Endo. But are we lacking midfielders to win? Nope. This list of midfielders has enough quality. And that gives us the chance to buy not desperately but only when the right player at the right price.
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Because we persevere with players who pick up injuries a lot. We know Konate is going to miss a good chunk of the season already. We know Jota won’t be available to lead the line every week. Just like we knew about Matip and Ox and Keita and Thiago…
And come May, we’ll lament our injuries, point to the number of players in the squad and say we’ve got enough and it’s tough to improve on that group, we just need a bit better luck. Meanwhile Mo, Virg and Trent will be walking off to pastures new and people will say it’s fine because we can’t improve on Quansah, Bradley or Ben Doak.
Slot wanted Zubimendi - he may think a few of the lads we already have are not good enough or ready to do what he wants.
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Maybe you are right but you could be wrong. You and me don’t know what Slot thinks. If Slot had really think this squad is so seriously bad, action would have been taken earlier. Some might want to construe it as negligence management of the club but I see that as a benefit of being a well run one. We only sign players who want to come and if they don’t so be it because we already have a squad capable of winning.
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If we loan Ryan or Bajcetic i wouldnt mind Gallagher to be very honest. Checked his overall stats last season and is very good if you ask me. Not sure why Chelsea wants to sell him. He has been their better player along with Palmer and has fallen out with the club.
Never felt defensive midfielder was no.1 priority this season. So, not so miffed about Zubi rejecting us. For me , the priority for this seasons was RW,CB and then a #6 if price is right.
I am more worried that the club has not done anything in terms of securing future of 3 world class players in Trent, Van Djik and Salah. This is extremely alarming, as those players have all the right this summer to see , where the club is headed in terms of showing ambition by adding more world class additions. It is extremely criminal to expect these players to go again for league and CL with no world class additions to the club, there by lack of ambition clearly being shown to them. I won’t be surprised now, if all 3 of them go on free next summer and who will take the blame for this mess. We could have atleast made them sign on short term contracts to extract some money out of their fees. The worst is this has made our succession planning for an absolute mess.
And, who is to say when Modric departs next season, Real won’t come for Macca.
All this talk that, there is no replacement for Zubi lined up and we probably don’t need any additions is really disturbing from the club. We seem to be behaving as if we are Real Madrid and have won it all over the past 2 seasons and don’t need any additions.
Anybody who truly believes that Curtis and Granvenberch can do a job for a defensive midfielder needs some serious jolt. These two will get bullied off the ball across the league , lest we forget the game at the Emirates.
I cannot forgive some of these lot of players for their performance at Goodison last season. That was a dark day and something that will take me years to get over . Because, that day even one of the best managers of our generation could not identify with his players , that this is his team. Majority of them were horrendous. Anyone , thinking this same lot will win you the league or go toe to toe with city or Arsenal…you are up for a very underwhelming season.
We had 3 months for transfer window, and it’s now been reduced to 3 weeks atmost… Just a very bad planning mess at the executive level !!
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I’m not sure that we do. In the past, I’m sure Gomez would have been thrown into this list, but he’s only had 1 injury in the past 2 seasons. I’m not going to go on and argue about the other few players, as I’ve had that argument way too often, but the idea that some players are injury-prone is overblown.
But even then, you say this:
But who do we have who is genuinely injury-prone?
Except that wouldn’t be true, because even in the case where all three leave, there would be a gap opening up in the squad that needs filling. What you’re arguing is instead akin to saying that we should buy a new left-back, because Robertson is getting older, and has been injured quite a fair bit in the past season, as has Tsimikas.
When I got up this morning and saw that both the Zubimendi thread was closed and this had a gazillion new posts I gathered what had happened.
Anyway, maybe we should concentrate on easy to pronounce monosyllabic players?
Fun fact: Endō is actually just called End. We added the ō to scousify him.
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