I was one of the fiercest on TIA arguing why he was perfectly suited to our game. Trust me I was arguing a lot. Many thought he should have more caps or wasn’t proven enough, especially for the fees involved. It seemed at one point we had lost out to City who were trying to bring him in to back up and compete with Kompany and Stones. The pre-LFC VvD and post-LFC VvD are at completely different ends of the proven scale.
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Well first of all I think we will be bringing a CB in I’m arguing the stances of fans not the predicted actions of the club.
Second of all I’m nowhere close to being a professional scout. I don’t even pretend to be at Macedonian red level.
I said in October I think the player we sign will cause some to initially scratch their heads. It won’t be a famous, high profile name but a younger player who still has some decent experience. We’ll be looking at a CB who is physically robust, good in the air, at least reasonable pace and both comfortable and confident on the ball. Because that fits our needs at CB this low profile player will become a monster of a CB under Klopp.
At the time I said I don’t think it was going to be someone as out of the blue as Carmo or Botman but maybe someone like Caleta-car, Tah or Ajer. But yet again I’m not anything close to being a professional scout.
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The system at the club will continue to operate as it does, not letting other clubs pull our pants down on incomings or outgoings. I’m confident that the club will sign a player if everything makes sense for the club to do the deal.
Given the situation with Covid, all football clubs are working out what’s best for them, all players are doing the same, and on top of that Covid travel restrictions makes things complicated. During a non-covid window, given the centre back issues, you would expect swift progress. Look at the Fabinho deal, it was a complete masterstroke. But with all the uncertainty, achieving the masterstrokes is harder and takes longer. It doesn’t however mean the club are chilling out with their facemasks over their eyes having a nap
Patience is what there is a major lack of with some fans. Considering we waited for 30 years to win the league title, which was delayed further by covid, I think we can wait a week or so before freaking out.
All that said, in three weeks time I might be like this lot;
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Personally I think the lazy attitude is the one that goes ‘just buy a centre back’.
The reason why we sit here with the best squad in Europe, despite having spent very little money, is because we have incredibly exacting specifications in what we look for in players. We don’t settle. If we can’t find exactly the right player and the right price we do nothing.
It’s not about proven quality. It’s the right player, with the qualities we need. People talk about Koulibaly, and I’m sure he’s great, but I think he would struggle in our team.
If we sign a centre back, then it’s because the team have identified the right place, who is available at the price we need. If we don’t, it because the right player wasn’t available. Nobody is being Lazy.
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Which is all true. Couldn’t half do with the CB signing equivalent of Gary Mac though. Not a long term option, just a decent piece of quality duct tape.
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I think we should sign a center back, not just as a stop gap for now, but someone who improves us and preferably has plenty of room to grow as a player and plenty of years to fulfill his likely high potential here.
But if we do buy in January, it should be someone who can help us now. So therefore they have to be better than Philipps and Williams right now, which shouldn’t be too difficult to identify, and then hopefully in the longer term able to see themselves as the partner alongside VVD.
I’m on the Botman bus, but with the disclaimer that I’m not a scout, and we have people at the club who know everything about every player in Europe and beyond.
The other thing, as plenty are saying, is the money.
If we are skint we are skint. But my take on that, without forensically digging into the accounts, is that we have the means to make something happen, particularly if it boosts our sporting prospects in an injury hit and exceptional season. It might mean some sort of loan from the owner group, or borrowing against future earnings. I’m not suggesting putting the club in danger, by spending beyond our means, but I am suggesting that a club our size should have some wiggle room to be able to make something happen, if needed. And it is needed. Also, I’m not suggesting a massive outlay either, as arguably we can find the player we need for, say, €25M or so.
I’m chilled no matter what happens, as I’m confident we won’t buy someone just for the sake of it, but I’m equally confident we have a detailed report on who we need, likely candidates to fill the spot, price, attributes, character, potential availability, etc.
Final thought on going off the boil a bit lately is that it is down to a lack of sharpness, and the finishing has been below par. Being short in defence is not primarily why we didn’t beat minnows like Fulham, WBA, Brighton and an average Newcastle team. The defence was fine in all those games, and had the other parts of the team found their usual level, we would be 4-8 points ahead of where we are right now.
This season is a tough slog. I hope we get a new central defender, but most of all I’m confident that we are a well run club, so what we be will be.
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A loan deal must surely be the most likely option in the circumstances. There will be clubs that will have over-extended on their wages that now have a problem due to the hit on their revenues.
Militao is a very good suggestion I’ve seen along those lines. I suggested Diop. Tarkowski maybe another?
Alternatively, how are these for a couple of left-field suggestions?
Andre Wisdom (he’s only got 6 months left on his deal with Derby and would count as club trained).
Martin Kelly (ditto) although he’s had some problems with injuries this season so probably avoid.
I think if we ended up with either of those last two I’d have to consider that a failure, even if it was an emergency and only done to bring in extra cover for the rest of the season.
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Loan deal is a good shout, and I would have thought Militao would fit the bill. I think we were interested in him before he moved if I remember correctly. If we do loan him, I’d like to see a fee agreed now for a full transfer, as he might come in and look like a real player, and I don’t want to boost European rivals by getting their players out of the doldrums for them.
Wisdom or Kelly? Not for me, as at that point I’d rather persist with what we have. Still, fair play for the shout with a couple of new names!
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A bit too far left field there mate!
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Transfer window been open what, 3 days.
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Three days. Still no CB.
#Edwardsout
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I think technically today (4 Jan) is only the first day of the new window.
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First day of the international transfer window for England was 2nd January.
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Must mean Botman is on the way today then. Just beat Southampton first, tie up the deal, play him in the Cup, then stick him in the middle of the defence and don’t look back.
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In the sport’s greatest twist of irony, it’s jointly won by Matip and Keita.
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completely understand and agree with most points here…but…
in my mind, at a macro level…like as in jurgen klopp…
we have played 2 central midfielders in defence in a premier league game, its not that they are not capable, its just that they are premier league winning midfielders…
at a macro level, Klopp MUST be thinking someones failed somewhere along the chain that we are playing either kids or converted midfielders as defending PL champions…
at an even more macro level, J Henry must be apoplectic…'you mean to say, in all of the worlds football community, we cannot purchase a reasonably priced centre half that is an improvement on a 23 year old we loaned out to a german team or our star midfielder?"
i get the issues, however the risk is overstated, even in a global pandemic a player will still have a value…we might lose a bit, but if we sign someone for 25m, and he performs but his value is cut in half, then we have bigger problems than his transfer fee mark down.
dunno, i want to try and side with you, but at the most base level, not signing a centre half just seems like a bit of a white flag…after everything Jurgen and the squad have acheived, just seems lazy, almost arrogant, to suggest its not worth throwing serious money at the problem (and it IS a problem)
as to which player, thats my point in a way, we pay a lot of people a lot of money to figure that shit out, if thier best solution is Nat Phillips, Rhys Williams and our central midfielders…hmmm
please note, when i read back that sounds like im having a run at Nat, im not.
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To be honest it will be how the deal is structured.
The club will no doubt make a decision on this and it might take some time, problem is if you could expect when Matip returns for him to play the next 10-15 games you could probably be ok with it, but he won’t.
I desperately feel we need to though.
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That is going to take too long. Play 20 teams in one match - 10 minutes. 11 players each team. 10 keepers in each goal. Only outfield players can score goals. Only 1 ball. Team that can score the most goals in the 10 minutes win the league for the next 10 years.
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@Redbj I think we had plans to buy a CB in the summer. It didn’t happen for whatever reason. Perhaps we failed to offload players like Grujic, Wilson, Phillips and that caused some fund shortages.
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I dont think we did. From what I’ve read we asked Fonfana (who went to Leicester) to wait another season but he decided to move now. So do we want a center back? Yes, did we want them in summer? Doesn’t seem like we did, but summer coming up? Yes as the next step in our long term strategy.
I just dont get how anyone can look to blame around our center back options… To lose Van Dijk and Gomez for the freak injuries (at the same time), just cannot and would not be planned for. Matip and his injury record yes should form part of discussions but the crux of the matter is I would think Klopp was of the opinion he’d have Gomez or Van Dijk, he’d then have Matip and then Fabinho in emergency… Which is more than logical.
I’d love someone to actually quantify buying a 4th choice center back (who is of the quality we need now to step in for Gomez or Van Dijk). I’d love to see your pitch to said player in the summer (basically selling sitting on the bench…), I’d love to see how you mitigate the impact to our stretched finances and finally argue the case to Klopp that instead of Thiago you get a 4th choice CB…
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