Most of the options I see mentioned don’t have an awful lot to their game though. Abraham is one of the best options available and his all-round game is lacking. He doesn’t press, he’s not much involved in the build up. Some of the other names I’ve seen suggested are just blatantly not good enough for Liverpool and are only being suggested due to their height.
Also worth mentioning re Raphinha, he’s different to our other wide players. The way he plays the left forward role couldn’t be much more different to the way Jota plays it for example. Getting a bit of height in the box isn’t the only way to mix up the attack.
I think this is the key thing, the discussion needs to be more nuanced based on the combination of the quality of the options available, and also what they bring to the team/squad.
I think a football player is a bit of give and take.
Bobby isn’t on the end of a lot of goals. Is this because he’s a poor finisher? Doesn’t know how to get into the right position? Or because he was part of winning the ball back, providing the link up play and making the second-to-last pass that led to the goal?
It’s not possible for him to score goals of he’s the one building up play further down the field.
What if we had Bobby but with Mbappé pace? Sprinting burns a lot of energy. To put in a number of sprints would takes some of the high energy pressing and movement from Bobby’s game. Slow and steady allows Bobby to run out a game doing what he does.
You mentioned Lewandowski. If you asked him to come to LFC and play the way Bobby does, would you expect him to score as many goals as he normally does? If you asked the same of Messi who has a team built around padding his stats, would you expect his current numbers?
Is there a better fit out there to replace Bobby? Probably. But we’d also likely need to modify our system and expect a drop off in certain areas that Bobby does better.
Great player already Raphina, the ship has sailed there now though.
He would be a 50+ mil player now and unless he jumps up and down big time I doubt Leeds would sell him for even 50.
Even if we could get him he would want assurances around gametime which we probably couldnt give given the 4 excellent options we already have.
Future star though world class potential but someone would have to leave our front 3 for it to be viable.
Personally think we should be looking for a deal like United got with Cavani. Free transfer be prepared to pay a good wage to a proven talent who is perhaps just past there very best and will be happy with a reduced role but has the pedigree to make real and valuable contributions off the bench.
Left footed, can play on both sides, dribbles with the ball well, creates quite a lot of chances, works very hard off the ball. Has scored a few high quality goals. Would provide us with a little more quality in wider positions instead of always looking to run in between the sticks IMO.
Why is that a dead move? Leeds know this isnt that kind of heavy money market and i feel 40 mil would be enough to pry the player away from Leeds. You underestimate the lure of UCL football and playing with Klopp. Not only that we have many of his countrymen at the club, he already is texting Firmino regularly , Fabinho and then Alisson, all at our club, that could be a huge factor if the player wants to force a move. We could try and form a deal of money plus players , maybe Wilson, Origi or Shaqiri. One of those 3 in exchange.
I dont see a free option that fits that Cavani thing, and i dont think our fowards are all going to play as many games as you think. The player you are thinking about here is probably Depay. The only other free agent option would be Hakan Calhanoglu who might be able to fit that role. Other than those two there is simply no other free agent option that would have the same impact as Cavani did for United. Raphina is a player that we can make use of in several positions, there will be playing time across the front line and i dont think we need to sell one of our front three to get this done.
The problem here is that a deputy to Firmino - someone who can do that role almost as well as he can, is not going to be cheap. So unless he can also do bits on the wings or in midfield, it’s not really a great use if limited funds.
My order of business this year is
Centre Back. Absolute must. Already addressed with Konate
Versatile midfielder. I also see this as a must, given his many minutes Gini played.
Another centre back. Only really necessary if Phillips moves
Another attacker. To create a pool of six for three positions. Only really works from a squad point of view if they can play across the line. I don’t have a problem is Klopp view Ox as the sixth attacker.
I don’t know about price - that depends on the particular targets we look at, and maybe we will be priced out of any suitable option, but the point is that he doesn’t have to necessarily do what Firmino does. He doesn’t have to be a false 9.
That actually might be his only saving grace in this Liverpool team (when fit). He runs his socks off but the team clearly has midfielders who are better suited to, well, playing in midfield. His energy and pace might come in handy when resting Firmino and I hope that finishing ability hasn’t deserted AOC.
Patson Daka to Liverpool is 2/5 on SKY Bet.
We are longer than 20/1 for Tammy Abraham.
I know the odds on these things are often suspect, but SKY dont lose money.
We are discussing Abraham as an actual option but there are few if any even tenous links.
The club have said they arent going to finance big money transfers your speculating 40 mil will be enough. I personally doubt it. They are smart enough to know what they have. If Raphina improves and has another very strong season his worth could be approaching 100 mil.
There is also a big difference between a player texting his fellow countrymen and forcing a move to another club when there is no indication Leeds need to sell. Player swap deals are a great idea but rarely become reality so I don’t see that happening.
In terms of free deal players Giroud becomes a free agent 1 July. He would be ideal imo.
For Raphina to be close to being worth 100M, he would need to play a key role in Leeds qualifying from C/L and then have a season in C/L where by he is one of the leading scorers/assists makers, so you are looking at minimum of 2 seasons before he gets even close to that sort of value.
More likely for him to be near 100M will be 3-4 seasons away as I can’t see Leeds getting into C/L next season. But if he gets them into E/L, then he will likely get offers from one or several top 4 clubs, so then his value will be in the 60-70M bracket
Richarlisson cost Everton £50m after scoring 5 goals for Watford. Don’t think CL or EL matter. Raphinha will be going somewhere for big money in the next couple of years. Would be great if it was to us
