Firstly, we have an excellent squad and one that’s capable of challenging for both the league and the CL.
But, if Konaté is our only addition I’ll be incredibly disappointed.
It was as important to add a promising youngster in midfield and/or attack as it was a CB.
We’ve made the space. We’ve moved on a lot of deadwood. We could have spent more if we’d wanted to.
Maybe there’s a late surprise but there are moves going on by others that could also have benefited us, and not at exorbitant prices and not by clubs with limitless resources.
We could probably still pull a Bissouma type of surprise (ie, a domestic transfer) or a Bowen (hopefully not) but dreams of anyone from abroad look totally dead. There’d be word of it by now.
I’m afraid I’m going to be a bit grumpy if we don’t make at least one more quality addition.
Personally not that bothered about getting a new signing but understand why people are frustrated/worried about it.
Bissouma would have been my pick. Have not been overly interested in other midfield options and very happy that we gave Camavinga a wide berth - despite his talent I just have a feeling he’s going to be one of those guys who wastes his career. Nothing scientific to that opinion, just a gut feeling. Elliott and Jones can both be featured more heavily this year and I’m not concerned about that, they’re both extremely talented.
Up front maybe another addition would have been good but I think Elliott can move forward if needed and more to the point Minamino deserves more of a chance, he did well in pre-season and I’m not worried about him being our 5th or 6th choice attacker.
If we manage to move Divock on it’s another major saving in wages for a player offering practically nothing in terms of minutes, effort or goals.
For me, I think it comes down to what the actual view of player like Ox, Minamino and Origi are. Many fans think there is a group as big as 5 deep who are busts and need to be moved on. If you believe that then we clearly need to bring in 2 maybe even 3 new players. If you’re the manager and still like those players and see a role for them, then you can understand not needing and possibly not wanting any additional players.
I think of the entire statement, probably only the minutes part comes to being true. But then again, we are also complaining about not having a forward who can take additional minutes so maybe that’s not true?
Every thing we can see with reference to him in terms of effort specifically in training, has been positive. No one’s claiming he slacks off in training. Clueless in a match I could give you, but if he wasn’t putting in effort in general he’d have been binned off a long time ago.
Goals-wise, he’s still the forward with the highest goal contribution rate behind Salah in our most recent non-shitshow season. I think a lot of perceptions of him are being coloured from the fact that our most recent season was abject to watch for much of it, and having a relatively (to our other options) immobile forward try to play in a team that needed much more focus in defence and maximising opportunities in attack was not ideal.
I’m curious as to why it’s and/or if it was that important. Surely something of that importance would be more clearly defined and bookmarked as something that needed to get resolved?
If we look at it as an “and”, which is the perspective from which we need the transfers in the most, I would say we probably still do lack a good young forward. I don’t mean Bowen-level, but someone who is very much a forward equivalent of Elliott, Jones, or even Alexander-Arnold.
I’m guessing Elliott has impressed enough such that a “good young midfielder” is less necessary, and the fact that we haven’t included an option for Blackburn to buy Clarkson suggests that we may yet see a first-team role for him in future.
Forwards-wise, it’s less material what you think of the individual capabilities of Minamino, Origi, and Jota (our relatively younger forwards), but more importantly none of them are in that age around 20. They should be nearing their prime soon, which means we need someone else in the pipeline.
I’d have added Keita to that list and brought in 1 new player for the middle and another new player for the front line.
Would we get enough from Ox,Kieta,Minamino and Origi sales to bring in players like Bissouma from Brighton and Jimenez from Wolves.
Good question. Hard to know without having an idea as to how serious any interest in them has been. I don’t think they are players the club would be unwilling to consider offers for.
As for Jimenez, how much would he cost? he is already 30, so as good as he is, I don’t see him being an immediate target as wolves would want a good price for him.
Absolutely no chance would I want us spending money on a player who is recovering from a fractured skull. Especially when that player is a 30 year old whose strongest asset is his aerial ability.
I think some people on here and a lot of LFC Twitter care way too much about transfers to the point of it becoming an unhealthy obsession. My feeling is that I’d like one more forward in, but I don’t think the situation is as drastic as some think and ultimately it’s not going to make or break our season. I’m pretty comfortable with Harvey Elliot being our fifth attacking option.
There also seems to be a perception that because our main rivals have spent decent money they’ve moved well beyond us when I’m not sure that is the case. United are incredibly top heavy but will still be relying on three distinctly average central midfielders and I’m not convinced their defensive depth is that great either. Chelsea are light in central midfield numbers, Kante has already picked up an injury and I can see that potentially being an area for them where they end up getting stretched a bit thin due to the huge workload that is going to be put on three players. City go into another season without a world class forward and as with United, I think there are some question marks over the defensive depth they have.
Those bitching at anyone who expresses disappointment re transfers are just as extreme as the #FSGout crew. There is a middle ground. Some of us understand that we have the best manager and one of the best teams in the world, are fully behind them and hopeful for the season, and also slightly disappointed we didn’t strengthen depth. It’s possible to hold all these views at the same time.
Seems incredible, but it is what it is. 4 goals 3 assists in 703 minutes for 100.4 minutes per goal/assist. Salah had 19 goals 10 assists in 2888 minutes, at 99.6 minutes per goal/assist. Mané had 18 goals 9 assists in 2755 minutes for 102.0 minutes per goal/assist, and Firmino had 9 goals 8 assists in 3004 minutes, for 176.7 minutes per goal/assist.
I think it’s safe to say that we could have spent (nett) at least what the likes of Newcastle £26.5m, Leeds £27m, Brentford £33.5m, Crystal Palace £51m, West Ham £57m, or Leicester £58m have without even getting to the realms of Man City £80m, Arsenal £106m or United £126m.
My issue is yes we have a big squad but the likes of minamino, ox and Origi are not fancied.
So we are light going forward.
It’s ok having a big squad if you use everyone but Klopp doesn’t. I’m amazed minamino is still here.
There is indeed a middle ground. As far as I’m aware, I’m the most extreme of those who are “bitching at anyone who expresses disappointment re transfers” and my thought is simply that there is no value in the market currently, relative to what we have in our squad already. If anything, for accounting and FFP purposes it would have been an ideal window to pick up someone younger, in a similar position to what the expectations were surrounding Elliott before pre-season.
Whereas on the other hand there are people literally claiming that the sky is falling because a squad stronger than the one that won the league at such a canter we broke the record for earliest league win ever is not good enough because we didn’t spend.
