Also, Peirce isn’t as well connected at the club as he used to be.
Pre-Klopp he was often getting briefed before a lot of other journos (many suspect BR, but it could have been any number of people at the club in that time) but since Klopp has come in, a lot of work has gone into plugging these leaks.
Not that surprising from Pearce. We were never going to be in for Mbappe or Sancho unless we sold Salah or Mane.
There was a lot of talk last summer that adding Thiago would over cook the numbers we had in the middle. Rightly or wrongly it suggests we’re expecting to get more from Ox, Jones and Keita. Of course Thiago wasn’t a target according to Pearce until he then was a target so we’ll see.
I think we all knew shifting some on would be important for incoming business. I imagine if we moved on Keita then we’d do one in midfield for sure. And up top it’d only take Origi and Wilson going for reasonable fees to bring someone like Malen into our price range.
Tempering expectations but we see this every year from him now.
Of course we need to shift out players, if not for the finance, also being a responsible club. Players like Shaqiri and Origi have always given their best and have been respectful of the club even when playing just bit part. So the least we should do is to find a fair price to let them go pursue their career elsewhere if that is what they want. Or else we will just keep hoarding players like some rich irresponsible clubs.
Id totally forgotten about Origi!
City want Kane and Grealish. They will be hard to stop without re-enforcements. We need to start the process of evolving the team as its unusual that our front 3 will still be together after this length of time.
The midfield is starting to look thin as well.
We were always going to need to move on players as we went with a more bloated squad than usual for Klopp this season. We also have a lot on loan. I imagine we need to create at least a little room on the wage bill as well. I don’t think it’s a need to sell to buy as people think of that phrase (although of course the club will plead poverty, we do every year, even the summer we spent over £150m net). But we need a clear out. More needs to leave than come in.
The first and the fourth point make sense and are something that I expected but not seeing the need to replace a player who mostly started nigh on 50 matches per season for the past five years is extremely reckless, especially considering the respective fitness records of virtually all Liverpool midfielders bar Jones (and he’s still a “beginner”, so we don’t have a clue about how fit he will be in the future).
I hope Edwards already has some outgoings in the pipeline, though Euros might delay some negotiations. Klopp would certainly want all the transfers done early, I’m not sure if it’s possible at the moment.
Apparently Sevilla are interested in him. According to the Twittersphere that is.
(Shaqiri, that is.)
I’d be shocked if we don’t bring in a CM.
Gini played almost every game over the last 3 years.
Milner is not injury free anymore.
And Hendo was never an injury free player - wouldn’t surprise me if he misses more games next Season than he did this season.
Dont even want to start talking about Keita and Ox injury record.
Thiago aging.
Ok we have Jones and Fabinho.
After writing this I must admit we have options.
But it’s a different thing to be able to rotate then to being forced to rotate every week because of injuries.
Well, I’m sure senior club sources would be saying “Oh yes, talks are well advanced for Mbappe, Sancho, and Griezeman as well. And Bissoma’s in the bag.”
Hendo had injury-free seasons apart from 3. First two under Klopp and then this one. The rest, he was almost always fit. Played 40+ games for 3 seasons in a row before this one. Doesn’t mean he’s doomed now. Let’s not forget the state of Stevie for two seasons when he was around 31-32, before he sorted himself out again (had more serious problems than Hendo).
But I agree, we need a new dynamic hard working midfielder with Gini’s departure.
The summer after we won the Champions League, the squad wasn’t strengthened. I thought that was a mistake at the time. If we don’t strengthen the spine of the team this summer, we will be making a similar mistake. It looks like the Konate deal is done, but not replacing Gini and adding a goal scorer to the squad is reckless in my opinion. We probably need a decent back up keeper also.
It was Suarez who made Stevie 5 years younger for 2 seasons 
Don’t like the idea of riding our luck because we have so many CMs in our squad.
Would prefer selling Grujic, Ox and Keita and bringing in 2 new CMs.
But I also know that this is not FM.
When you look at the numbers, we actually have more central midfield options than most of the other top six sides. The issue is the injuries with Keita and Ox forcing them to miss so many games.
Jones is still young and raw but he needs some game time if we think he’s got long term potential. Milner is in the twilight of his career but is still one of the fittest players at the club. You don’t want him starting week in week out but used sparingly he’s a solid option. Whilst Henderson and Thiago are the wrong side of 30 it’s not like that is some magical drop off point for a players fitness and ability. We lost Thiago to covid and one horrific tackle but otherwise he was fine.
You can see purely from a numbers perspective why they think they’re okay. Even with Henderson and Keita largely unavailable, Jones got less than 90 minutes game time in the last 11 games of the season. Milner only got 15 minutes in the last 5 games.
If we hadn’t had to play centre mids at centre back for half the season and had just one less long term absence then I think the overall picture would feel very different. The idea must be for Gini’s minutes to be shared out more across the rest of the team. Personally I still think we’d jump any decent offer for Naby and then would go into the market for someone in that 22-24 bracket to bring the average age down in that area.
I’m just saying that we shouldn’t be so paranoid about a 31-year old who had an injury this season. His heel problem is gone (hopefully!), that was the biggest worry in 15/16 and 16/17. A lot of players get themselves sorted out by changing their routines a little bit, which is totally natural. Not only in football. Sometimes you even see them doing physically better, just like Stevie managed to do. He said he seriously considered stopping at around the age of 31-32. Then look like a revived player again for a few more seasons, playing a lot of games. Hendo is a great athlete, apart from the little heel/muscular problem here and there. If we don’t get a CM (which I doubt), we’ll remain with 6 CM’s. But yeah, the situation is that we’ll need someone fresh to come in and fight.
Or he’s being fed this ‘information’ by the club in order to avoid attracting attention on our interest for other targets. It wouldn’t be the first time Edwards masterminds something like this.
And the injury sustained this season was due to him playing center back and his body not being used to the different types of movement. His thigh I believe?
I don’t think Pearce is full of shit, maybe he got it right on a few points and wrong on a few others. The way the club’s been working behind the scenes, there’s more than enough time (and it’s gonna be a long summer, with so many clubs or some club’s targets depending on sales) for new names to appear out of nowhere. Like we saw with Fabinho (when we were linked with Lemar) and Jota (when we were linked with Sarr if I’m not mistaken).
One important bit from Pearce’s tweet that I missed: Alisson and Kelleher are in talks over new contracts but Adrian is also mentioned as having talks with the club. I expected he would be let go, as probably every other Liverpool fan out there.
They may well be considering sending Kelleher on loan, which i don’t want to see, or will just say to the pair, here are you new contracts, you two fight it out for the spot on the bench. Ali misses games during a season so someone will need to step in.
I personally am not a fan of Adrian. Nice guy and that, but I think he’s just a bit too prone to the odd error. Would rather Kelleher No.2 or we sign someone.
What of Karius?! His time must be up…
I totally understand the club not willing to have only Alisson (who had a few niggles), Kelleher (decent so far, not young anymore, but inexperienced) and a bunch of kids behind them. They probably still want to have an experienced option who would be between 3rd or 2nd choice on paper. Be it Adrian for one more season or someone else who would be cheap or free. No big deal, a club of our stature should be able to secure that.