We have Hendo, Fab, Thiago. That’s fine, but if one is injured, or loses form, or needs a rest, we have the ever unreliable Naby and Ox, or Jones, too young, and Milly, too old.
One more top quality MF and move on Keita/and/or Ox and we’ll be fine.
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As long as there’s no significant injuries I guess we can say we’re fine. But realistically I think it’s a fairly big ask for the current group of midfielders to get us through the season. Especially considering Ox has looked a bit out of sorts there post injury and now looks more like an option up front.
I know a history of injuries doesn’t mean there has to be future injuries, but it seems likely we will get to a point this coming season where we’ll wish for an extra body in midfield. That could obviously be the case no matter how many we buy, there are no guarantees, but I do think we should get one more in.
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I really like the idea of adding Saul. It would give our midfield options some excellent balance. Good age, experience of playing in an intense pressing team, good quality, left footed. I think he’d complement our existing options really nicely and provide Robertson with an excellent partner on the left side.
It could even allow us to play the diamond in midfield which would facilitate some really good rotation ability for the forward players, making signing another forward less of an immediate priority.
I like the options signing Saul would give us.
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Our midfield will be improved by selling our most consistent player? That makes no sense.
No one is panicking, just suggesting this is an area that needs more cover due to age and injury issues
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I think it’s a relatively dangerous game thinking we can replace Gini’s minutes just like that. First of all, he was of certain hard working style in his last 3 seasons with us and played the most minutes. IF we don’t get a new midfielder, it might be a mixture of us being happy with our pre-season and we’re struggling to sell the likes of Ox and/or Keita. Someone will have to go if we get a new one in, that’s at least what my thinking was all the time. On terms we want of course, that would be also realistic enough to find a buyer for Ox/Keita. But yeah, I would expect that the club is still in the market for a midfielder and foward. A month and a half to go, I guess it’s the sales part now that might slow down our process. With the Euro finished, things might gather more pace in coming weeks.
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If everyone stayed fit we would be OK but Ox , Naby and Shaqiri don’t stay fit unfortunately.
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Yeah we need a CM but we would cope without.
1st Just because Gini was used doesn’t mean he had to be, can’t think of a period when we didn’t have at least 3 senior CMs available even when losing both Fabinho and Henderson to CB/injury.
2nd Keita and Ox missed a lot but were available for far more games than we actually used them in.
3rd Jones is a lot more experienced now and able to cope with more playing time. In fact it’s not going to be long before he’s a player referred to as a “starter” (we don’t have those in my eyes) by some in my opinion.
4th We may well decide to use 4 forwards in some games next season such as in 4231 or 4222 formations and if we needed to due to missing CMs I’m sure we’d cope.
5th We are currently due to have Grujic, Minamino and Wilson added to the squad who can all play CM roles if needed.
6th Like when CM helped defence last season we could find ourselves in a reverse situation. Tsimikas can play CM I think I saw when we bought him, Alexander-Arnold could also do a more than just a little interesting job in CM depending on who can fill in at RB. I also have a feeling Gomez would take to the Fabinho role like a duck to water.
So I don’t think we would struggle in CM like some seem to think, even with major injuries. However it would be wrong to not TRY to improve in this area. Milner has limited time. Hendersons not too far behind him (don’t think he’ll make the same age Milner has as an active player). Thiago won’t be here forever due to age and think once he’s won the Prem he’ll want to move onto Italy or France to pick up a 4th different league medal. I don’t see long term futures for any but Jones and Fabinho so we need to recruit here eventually. May as well start ASAP by moving on unwanted and injury hit options for improvement of our match day options.
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You cannot go into a season relying on Ox, Nabby and Shaq.
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You could say that about every position in the team though. I was a little naïve last season thinking Gomez in particular wasn’t made out of tissue paper. But we could replay the Bitters game a thousand times and even knowing Pickford was out there to be reckless, I don’t think a freak injury happens to VVD like that again, where Mane plays an offside ball to him after hes come forward (for a corner?). You just don’t and can’t plan around your two CB’s going down within weeks of eachother on season-ending knee injuries.
Salah and Mane could both do their knees in our opening match and we would be fucked. Robbo and Trent could get injured in the opening game and we would need to completely alter our style to cover the loss of width and attacking movement.
Klopp I don’t think buys players to cover the worst case scenario. He will buy based on who he can realistically get minutes into across the season while providing as much cover as possible as a secondary thought. Player welfare probably trumps having a strong bench for him.
Having said all that, Fab, Hendo, Thiago, Ox, Jones is a deep midfield with maybe the best first 3 in the league, but it is no use expecting Henderson, Thiago and Ox staying fit through the season. Keita I am not even adding to this group as any minutes from him should be seen as a bonus, as it is with Matip. So in that respect, one more player really is needed. Shortage in midfield next season is one expectation we can have with our current midfield list, before we get into any possibility of any bitter rats doing their best to take our players out.
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We went into last season with 3 CBs (one of which was Matip). Everyone said, ‘don’t worry Fab can cover’, but it was clear to many of us that this was insufficient.
It seems I’m not alone in having the same concerns about MF this season.
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But people always say stuff like this. Even when Lovren was here people were still panicking we were short at CB. Once in a while it may actually happen to be a problem.
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The assault on Virgil was hard to foresee.
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I would rather not use TAA as cover in midfield unless we bring in a proper established RB as depth/cover. Not got a problem with using Milner or Gomez for 5-10 minutes to see out games if Trent needs a breather, but neither are long term solutions.
Gomez in the deep midfield role could be interesting, but first I would want to see what level VVD is at in his recovery - lots of players can take several years to get back to pre-injury levels after doing their ACL
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This is the really odd bit. We apparently score more and concede less when he plays. He misses a fair few games through injury. He spends much of the season declared fit and on the bench which adds to the perception he is never fit. So, is he not really fit, or is there some other reason he doesn’t get picked?
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Of course, but even without that, we would have ended up with VVD and Phillips at CB. We are a top team competing for multiple trophies and we need 4 CBs.
I wouldn’t say ‘stuff like that’ if it wasn’t true.
This season our CB situation is fine.
Our GK situation is fine, our FB situation is basically ok, although RB cover is a slight worry.
Forwards are fine with AFCON being an annoyance.
MF we need 6, we have 3+Jones, Milly and 2 crocks.
The reason it wasn’t sufficient was because with Gomez having a bad injury history we really couldn’t afford Matip and his injury issues being the 3rd option. Some of us had been calling for Matip and Lovren to be replaced by a solidly dependable CB for awhile instead we just lost Lovren. Another minor contributing factor was our most used (by us) academy CB option also moved on without a real replacement in Hoever. Phillips would have also moved on if it hadn’t collapsed. Think we stripped CB out as we were planning on adding one right till last minute last minute. Collapses of any/all of Phillips, Wilson and Shaqiri sales seemed to stop that purchase (particularly the Shaqiri taking a non homegrown senior role in the squad list). Wouldn’t be the same in CM where we have loads of options hydr may not be happy with them all.
Agree that a quality MF would be good but disagree re Jones. I think that in his limited minutes last season he showed great promise for the future and I expect him to play a much bigger role this season.
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I guess it comes down to how much meaningful contribution Ox or Naby or Minamino will have in the coming season. If you believe it’s none, we need another midfielder and if you believe one or more will then we will probably be okay.
There is also the factor of the right player being available. We’ve been linked with a few names and in the case of someone like Saul it looks like if we don’t go in for him now he’ll probably be sold elsewhere. If we want him as part of a long term plan then we should go for him irrespective of how the above three can manage.
If the player we want isn’t available but might be next summer, then probably better to wait and get the right player and make use of the players we already have.
Without knowing what Klopp and Edwards want, it’s tough to say what it the right call.
I personally would buy someone, but if we don’t then I will understand.
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I think many put Gini in the genius of the game type persona. When really his greatest attributes were his ability to never get injured. Overall he was a nuts and bolts player like Milner who just kept ticking. He really didn’t split defences or assist. He also wasn’t famous for goals scoring. However he was available each week. Now if that was all Klopp wanted from a player. He’d still be here.
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