I rate Joe very highly ability wise, but any player who gets seriously injured when no other player is within a bulls roar of him is injury prone, surely.
Regardless of the type of injury, impact or otherwise, any player who is injured seriously on a number of occasions is injury prone in my book.
Some players can handle impact contacts and some can’t. Nothing wrong with that it’s just the way it is. Some players are just more robust than others.
Hopefully that’s not paid for content.
It’s neither funny or clever
We have better ‘joke phone transcripts’ in these forums, back when it was kinda a new thing too
Its really a shame he could be a top top player if he could stay injury free for long enough but when he gets hurt it always a serious injury a serious knee this time broke his leg last time.
If he missed a week or two here and there it wouldnt be an issue but he misses 6 months when he gets injured.
From today’s BBC gossip column:
Liverpool are monitoring Brazil winger Raphinha after the impact the 24-year-old has had at Leeds United this season. (Football Insider)
Impact? What impact? 
Not too bad isnt he? Leeds 11th in the table and he has a goal or assist every 2 games. Thats on paper only of course, I am sure our scouts have been watching a multitude of players, so he is just one of many I am sure.
Raphinha reminds me of Mahrez… I think would be a good signing for us… Especially with Origi and shaq most likely leaving.
Our big 3 along with jota and raphinha is good options in attack…
This is providing we don’t sign a Mpappe or Haaland
Even in good times I don’t see us getting involved in a bidding war. Not that we would not want Mbappe or Haaland but we are probably the kind of club where if we liked a player, we value the player on our term and if the player is willing to wait it out with us, we will go for it. Mbappe and Haaland are hot properties and rightly so, but I will not be surprised there are hidden gems out there waiting for us to discover them for a better value
Selling Ox/Keita and bringing Maddison in will be a significant upgrade. Maddison is better any Liverpool attacking midfielder (Ox, Jones, Keita) right now. At the very minimum, unlike Ox/Keita, he will be able to play regularly instead of spending time recovering from injuries. And what happened last month have more than once proved that we need a proper CAM (I mean CAM, not CM).
Firmino should be sold this summer, before any significant value decline can occur. He is already 29, and his form has been markedly declining for a while.
After selling Firmino, you have two options:
You’re buying Haaland or Sancho? And also Maddison?
May I ask with what you’d be paying with? A child’s laughter?
I think anyone expecting a massive signing is setting themselves up for disappointment.
[quote=“Thomas1195, post:2392, topic:51, full:true”]
Selling Ox/Keita and bringing Maddison in will be a significant upgrade. Maddison is better any Liverpool attacking midfielder (Ox, Jones, Keita) right now. At the very minimum, unlike Ox/Keita, he will be able to play regularly instead of spending time recovering from injuries. And what happened last month have more than once proved that we need a proper CAM (I mean CAM, not CM).
[/quote]
He is a big time Charlie listening to numerous reports…
Not sure he would be for Jurgen
If we flip to a formation with a single 10, Salah on the right can’t work anymore like it does now. If Salah moves centrally permanently, I don’t think we can either press or create as much anymore. It’s too simple on paper, in reality, it’s not like a computer game.
I know football has done a great job of pretending everything is normal, with its piped in crowd noise, transfer window hype and staunch refusal to compromise on anything to make this season a bit easier, but we don’t have to fall for it.
The reality is that it took one quarter of a Covid season to kick the rungs out from under club finances. What do you think a year of Covid is going to do to teams, including us?
This is not football manager and we are not Chelsea.
Yes, I think that’s accurate - but only if you’re looking to prise someone away from a club where covid doesn’t mean anything. Your likes of PSG, City etc.
Other clubs are going to be impacted just like us and that will affect what they are willing to sell players for, particularly if those players have two or less years left on their contracts. I don’t know how the RB group (let’s not pretend they’re separate) of clubs will be affected by covid. We all know that they have financial backing but how far does that go? They’re not backed by oil states.
Clubs in France are particularly vulnerable (other than PSG), clubs in Portugal and Spain as well. You can imagine clubs in Germany below Bayern (with the exception perhaps of RBL above) are really feeling it as well as those in Holland, Belgium, and the PL of course.
There will be plenty of clubs that are over-extended. How easy will it be for Spurs to hang on to Kane and/or Son this summer, particularly if they don’t make top four? What might Aston Villa take for Grealish or Watkins in six months time? Last year it would have taken at least £50m to buy Declan Rice from West Ham - this summer I doubt there’ll be many who could afford to pay more than half of that and West Ham may even take it.
So whilst we won’t be able to afford to spend a lot and some players will, therefore, be unattainable, I don’t think it will mean we won’t be able to buy good players. The whole market will need to adjust. Not selling Wilson last year for £13m (was it?) looks like a poor decision (it looked a little foolhardy at the time, tbf, but looks even worse with hindsight).
Previously you’d look at players like Upemecano, Konate and Haaland having release clauses of £40m-£66m and thinking that there could be value to be had there but covid has made those numbers irrelevant now for all but the most financially immune (doped) clubs. Spending £40m on a CB this summer would be akin to the sort of amount we paid for Virgil three years ago, that’s how much it feels like the market will have adjusted by then.
Bankrupcy?
Fake clubs like PSG, Chelsea or Cheaty are going to have a real problem when every other club around them goes bankrupt. And there is a very real possibility that it could happen if things go on like this beyond next summer.
We’ll have to see what happens.
My guess is that clubs will largely look to consolidate what they have. Clubs will be incredibly reluctant to sell cheap, in case the market has adjusted upwards by summer 2022. I think the main trait of the market will be inertia.
Would West Ham sell Declan Rice for £25m this summer, if they think they might be able to get closer to £50m again in 18 months?
A lot of it depends on where people think football will be in the 21/22 season, and whether values will bounce back. Whether fans will be back in stadiums, TV revenue will have recovered etc.
It’s also true that some markets are going to be more in distress than other. I can see a lot of bargains in the French League, for example.
And it also depends if people think the downward shift in values we’re likely to see due to Covid is a permanent thing or a temporary blip.
I see a lot of fans advocating effectively breaking up this team and rebuilding. I think this is a hugely risky thing to do at this point in time. We did incredibly well to get much of the the spine of this team - Salah, Firmino, Mane, Matip, Wijnaldum etc before the market was Neymar’d.
One factor to consider here is player contracts… it can be very costly for clubs to renew their top players, and I think we may see a lot of cases of players running their deals down in order to secure better wages from clubs who suddenly can’t afford the transfer fees the holding clubs will look for as a means of securing their own finances.
Clubs who can’t afford (or are unwilling) to extend their players’ contracts may be even more willing than before to accept cut-price deals rather than lose an asset for nothing.
I had a similar thought the other day. M’Bappe would be bonkers to sign a new deal at this point.
One of the reasons why I’d consider getting the likes of Van Dijk, Alisson, Hendo, Salah, Fabinho, Mane etc. Tied down a successful summer. We’ve quite a few players coming up to the last two years.
I think there will be a lot more business than some expect this summer.
Some clubs will be facing insolvency unless they can offload players for whatever they can get. Some clubs will be able to stay stable. Some have rich backers and will probably hoover up all the top stars.
I think we will be able to operate because we have a lot of players currently on the books and we have few needs.
The surplus players on the books may only move on for token fees (unless one of the front 3 move on, that would be big money) but it’ll all add up. There aren’t a lot of needs to come in and coupled with a recruitment department that is good at finding the “diamond in the rough” I’m hoping we can still do what we need to freshen up this squad and tweak how it plays still. We’ve got quite stale and predictable.