I thought we handled the Quansah situation well. Good player, some experience but still more experience required to grow to his potential. He won’t get that on our bench, so he got a good move for a fair price, and we have a buy back in case he rises up to the level that makes us enact that option.
For all we know, in two years time it might be Guehi, Quansah, Leoni and another; with Virg aging out, Konate moving on next summer, and Gomez sadly not staying fit enough to keep. Loads of permutations…
But it is crystal clear we need to add at least one central defender before the window closes. I’m confident we will do it. And if it is just Leoni, while I’m slightly nervous about the level of experience, I have every confidence in our recruitment team.
Or at least someone equipped to deal with halting attackers on the break & sense when we could be exposed and position themselves accordingly, we’ve looked vulnerable in too many games since the turn of the year which coincided when Grav started feeling it in his legs.
Absolutely they have. A big part of that has been knowing when to not make a move. Ones like the Quansah and Dias ones, even if we bring in the player we’d earmarked to replace them, are the sorts of low margin of error ones we’d previously tried to avoid making. And with the number we’ve done this summer you get increasingly closer to zero for the probability you can do it all without including a big mistake.
I am a long way from being critical, and I will try to withhold judgement but some of this is at minimum difficult to understand as a collection of moves, and probably will still feel that way even if we end up bringing in the two players we feel we’re still short. I’
With the noise coming from journalists, I suspect Leoni isn’t seen as the replacement for Quansah. That’ll be Guehi. Leoni is instead the answer to the search and attempts we’ve been making for a while now to add a young central defender with a high potential.
no body knows it is a big risk for Liverpool we need to bid low and a lot of add ons imo. we dodged the bullets weight Yoro and delist by being cautious.
Leverkusen seem to be happy with Quansah so far and their supporters seem to think that they robbed LFC on the price they paid. IMO Klopp would have been a lot more patient with him.
I think it looks like we’re thinking both short and long term here.
Guehi means we’ve got someone to challenge for CB2 along with Konate. Let’s be fair, when all fit neither Quansah or Gomez were quite that level and keeping Gomez fit has been a challenge.
Getting the Italian lad too is almost as much about getting him early and being able to develop him. But, it also gives us a chance to assess what may need to be done next summer. If Konate doesn’t sign a new deal do we then have the four we need there already. If Konate signs a new deal do we then feel comfortable if Gomez wants to move on.
One of my minor concerns from last season was the massive gap between Quansah as CB4 and Nallo who I believe was the best of the academy crop. Leoni would appear to bridge that gap quite significantly.
No, at his best Konate is much better, but I haven’t seen anything from Guehi that suggests he can to Joe’s best level. The title season when it was mostly Virgil and Gomez, he was outstanding.
I’d try to keep both. We want to compete on all fronts this coming season, and we’re set to lose Salah for over a month in the middle of the season. Chiesa can do a job and has an opportunity to increase his profile ahead of a potential big free-agent move.
Harvey I understand wanting more opportunities and he’s unfortunately down the pecking order a bit. He’s not really suited to play on the wings for Slot’s system, so his only real place is in the CAM role, which puts him behind Wirtz and Szobo. Still, I’d love to have him around for cover and to be a leader in early cup rounds.
I know we were missing some players, but he was still third off the bench. I’d imagine that had Gravenberch been available the Endo change might not have been made due to a different make up of the midfield and so maybe he would still have been on 3rd. I get he didnt play as much as he wanted to, but that is not a long way off being important.
