I’ll take Liverpool hysteria over Tottenham hysteria every day! I swear, they didn’t talk about Real Madrid when they were winning everything with Modrić and Kovačić as much as they were fawning over Tottenham. Same goes for Man United and Serbian players, even though all of them aside from Vidić were flops.
I’ve always said, someone ends up with Modrić, Ćorluka, Ivanović and Vidić and someone ends up with Lovren and Jovanović. And Marković. And Bišćan (hopefully ZB doesn’t see this). It’s a tragic list, at least Lovren ended his Liverpool career by winning CL and PL.
Talking about lifting curses, I’d start with France before moving on to Balkans. Germany-based transfers are also indefinitely cursed now because something has to compensate for Klopp’s arrival!
He is, though maybe not too much because people haven’t seen him play much, as he left very young. He never played the first division here, but left his hometown club from the second division to Austria, where he worked his way through to RB Salzburg. And then Marseille. 10 caps for Croatia. At the moment he’s 3rd choice on paper, or has been, because it’s somewhat expected that he soon displaces Vida from Croatia’s starting XI and forms a partnership with Lovren (Dejan would be RCB, Caleta-Car would be LCB).
I just can’t see us spending a good chunk of money (say £15m plus) on a CB target who we did not have on our long-term list of targets anyway. I can see us passing over our 1st or 2nd preferred targets if they are not available now but I simply can’t see us going for someone who wasn’t on List A (normally only 3 or 4, or in VvD’s case, 1).
So if we do go for someone like Caleta-Car (who I know absolutely nothing about other than what’s been said here) and he’s costing us more than £15m I would imagine he’s from list A. Doesn’t mean we won’t go back in for another one from List A in the summer if funds etc allow (moving Phillips and Matip on, perhaps, if appropriate).
Yeah, it’s so frustrating. There were some really good ones all over Balkans for good prices. But it seems like we always ended up with wrong ones. It’s just that sometimes I don’t like that extra attention it brings. I’m joking when I say we should avoid it, of course. Just buy what we feel is the right player, no matter where he’s from.
If we did manage to sign Culeta-Car today, my expectation would be that him, Virgil, Joe and Davies would be our four CBs moving forward (as I also expect Matip to be moved on).
I’m not sure I envisage adding another expensive, young CB on top of those.
Depends if there would be a willing buyer for Joel. It’s easier for us to wish to sell someone, a bit harder when we just handed them a fresh 5-year deal and they’re not so young anymore and often injured. We’ll see who would drop out. Maybe Davies would be more of a short term option anyway. Possibility to sell him next summer, if there was enough interest for him. Maybe we’d manage to make a little profit. If he proves he can stay here as 4th choice, that would be a bonus. But for now, not something I’d expect.
Liverpool tends to mess with my beliefs, certain occurrences will make me become superstitious and think there are actual curses involved, I swear. There’s no other way I can explain how we always ended up with such flops when there were players like those we’ve mentioned plus the likes of Oblak, Handanovič (when we couldn’t get a quality goalkeeper even if he begged us to sign him), Džeko, Jovetić (prior to his injuries), Milinković-Savić… I’m telling you, there’s something otherworldly sending all the good players from these parts to our rivals and all the flops to Liverpool! I hope that Duje is the one to break that curse - after all, he’s “car” (for those who don’t speak the language, it’s “emperor” in English).
I think if a player at the ability and age Upamencano is going for 40m in the summer you have to be interested, despite how well stocked you are. He will be better than both the new lads, and Gomez injury history still doesn’t fill me with confidence.
Unless someone like Car comes in and proved to be a world beater between now and the summer I would expect us still to compete for the best players in the World.
That’s also assuming that VvD and Gomez return to something near their normal level though. Unfortunately I’m not optimistic. What we won’t be in a position to do is move either of them on (yes, I know, just hypothetically speaking). So next season we’re definitely going to have VvD and Gomez, but what if they don’t get back to their level or suffer intermittent problems as a legacy of their injuries? We can’t rely on Matip, that’s clear, even though he’s brilliant. Phillips isn’t a long term option, neither is R Williams in my view. Ben Davies - well, we’ll have to see but that’s still very thin on the ground. If we can move some more fringe players on I wouldn’t be at all surprised to see our CBs be VvD, Gomez, Davies plus 2 more new guys. Davies has all the hallmarks of being a Klavan-like signing.
But it’s relatively insignificant for us. We’re reportedly paying £1m for a 16 year old from Derby.
What I mean by that is, should we get Caleta-Car and Davies never sees first team action it isn’t the end of the world. But seeing as we are apparently looking for another CB too, it’s likely Davies is seen as a reasonable punt rather than a long term solution.
But I have watched a lot of Upamencano in the CL and he looks top drawer to me so thats all I can base my opinion on. He’s not at the same level as VVD, but he has certainly enough potential at present to arrive at that level and young enough to get there, so at 40m he is good value.
My opinion is not set in stone, as I say whoever comes in has the rest of the season to stake their claim on a starting spot. It is clear Matip’s body just can’t cope with the amount of games and is pretty much a cup player at best. Gomez if he can stay fit could become a top top player, but it seems to be a big if.
I swear, they didn’t talk about Real Madrid when they were winning everything with Modrić and Kovačić as much as they were fawning over Tottenham. Same goes for Man United and Serbian players, even though all of them aside from Vidić were flops.
