I thought you said Mel Reddy said Klopp said Vitinha was an option too? So two of our three options were available but elected to go elsewhere or we thought they were too expensive. And you’re not arsed if we don’t sign the one who is “categorically unavailable” now when we get to next summer when we believe he will be “categorically” available because we have a couple of promising teenagers.
Elliott is looking great. Fingers crossed his 19 year old body can hold up playing 50 odd games this season. Carvalho has had a couple nice cameos too. But to think all of a sudden those two will replace Ox, Keita and Milner and be enough to cover for the inevitable absences of Fabinho, Henderson and Thiago is head in the sand thinking.
Not really? Other than an ankle surgery a lot of them are short term or weird things.
Everyone picking holes in Melo.
Maybe Juve are the cunts here? I mean they re-signed Pogba FFS - the fact they did that shows they’re not very good/smart. Ronaldo, Rabiot, Morata etc. Couldn’t hold on to their keeper (now at PSG) - issues all around.
Just because a player struggles at a club, doesn’t mean he’s a failure - sometimes a change of environment helps. If there’s one man that can work on these things, its Jurgen.
I’m fine with it - ticks the boxes, could be decent. He’s also got a good Brazilian (and Portuguese) contingent to help him settle.
It looks to be the same ankle injury. Everything else is a game missed here or there from a knock. Whether we take the injury problems being a recurrent one as a positive or a negative is up to us.
On one hand he isn’t ‘pin-the-injury-on-the-Ox’ and hopefully last year’s ankle problems have resulted from him getting accustomed to the surgery on his leg in 2021.
On the other hand maybe his ankle will never get right.
I think he looks alright. Time will tell. I’ve seen him compared a bit to Gini for us, and seeing his highlights reel I can see that. Looks quite press-resistant, which is good.
I guess the biggest question mark is against his fitness.
It’s such a random deal that I actually have a lot of faith that he fits the analytics of what we were looking for in a player. Doesn’t affect the long term plans for the midfield, means we don’t end stuck with a player we don’t really want next year. Seems to be fairly versatile as a midfielder so could be used as a sub for the 6 or the 8 to ensure the old players and young players aren’t over used.
We obviously tried for others, but if we’ve moved ahead with the deal then Klopp must be okay with it. He’d definitely prefer to go without than have the wrong player. Perhaps he’s spoken to Bobby and Thiago who may have positive opinions of him.
May end up being a Gini type player who is effective but unfancied - and there were many calls for him to come back.
The Tchouameni chase was about bringing in another deeper midfielder, and I’m sure Klopp is planning to set us up in a double pivot with 2 of X/Hendo/Fab with Fabio or Elliott in front. Arthur seems to fit that.
