If weâve limited ourselves to one âright signingâ then Iâm sorry thatâs negligent of our recruitment team. Thereâs no reason if it doesnât work out that they shouldnât face the same judgement on their actions as the guys working on the Salah followed by Konoplyenka fuck ups.
This isnât like with VvD. There is no one 100% perfect player out there with us having whatever finances are needed and itâs him or nobody. This is much more like the forward and left back signings this summer. If Norwich had accepted our deal we could have had Lewis as our back up LB. If Watford had accepted our price structure we could have had Sarr here instead.
Or we may have still ended up with Tsimikas and Jota (Iâm glad we did) but those other deals being available on more favourable terms may have meant the deals ended up better than what actually happened.
In both cases there seemed to be multiple targets (I think rumours of as many as 7 LB options and Sarr, Werner and Jota at least in attack). Thatâs how you put pressure on the selling clubs to make one cave and sell. That could actually be very easy this Winter as teams are more in need of incoming cash than ever. Even if some are red herrings to force our real targets into dealing.
At the very least Iâd be making public overtures through media over a few guys (say Botman, Tah and Bastoni/Romagnoli) to try and rustle some feathers and see if anything looks possible with them or elsewhere for a different player.
This radio silence only really makes sense in 3 situations.
1 Something is close and going to be completed just times are frustrating so itâs taking a while.
2 Thereâs some heavy negotiating going on with the ideal target with a touchy club and we donât want to risk something getting said public but what we are saying publicly may help negotiations. If this is the case and it goes wrong we best have a back up deal lined up.
3 There really is nothing going on. We are reasonably sure on the state of the market and believe we couldnât get anything over the line and are sure of what we have getting us through to the summer. If this is what we believe itâs arrogant and burying our heads in the sand about how bad things are and missing what could be great opportunities in a crazy market. This approach could cost us a title defence. Hell it could cost us a CL place.
Thereâs a real need for a CB. If it isnât addressed this winter itâll almost certainly be in the summer. Ideally it would be good if it was someone good enough to really challenge to be a starting CB putting Gomez and Matip under pressure. I mean itâs not even clear yet what condition VvD will even return in yet. But at the very least we need someone who can come in as an improvement on Phillips and Williams whilst hopefully being available more than Matip. Ideally young enough to develop under Klopp.
I donât actually think the demands are that specific and the move shouldnât hamper other business. Even if who we sign ended up disappointing and âonlyâ ever an improvement on Phillips and Williams it still massively helps us out this season whilst meaning we remain reliant on at least one of VvD and Gomez coming back to full quality. But weâre in the position right now we are reliant on both doing so and reliant on Matip being available for most of our games till then AND reliant on Fabinho not picking up any knocks or reds AND reliant on the pressure not getting too much for Williams and/or Phillips before next summer.