The Unreliable Rumours Discussion Thread (Part 2)

We knew about our midfield crisis for weeks and we’ve left it until deadline day to act out of desperation.

Bad planning all round.

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Fuck all yo nay sayers. I’m going to get excited about this. He was a key part of the Brazil Copa America winning team in 2019, Barca fans seemed to really like him. Plays similar to how Hendo and Wijnaldum have for us. Has not had a great time at Juve but I’ll forgive that. If he is as effective as the Juve lads that Spurs poached I’ll be very happy.

In two years time we’ll all be saying, remember when we pulled off the Arthur coup, what a touch of genius.

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I remember people arguing Salah wasn’t good enough, and a Chelsea reject. And the fume when we signed Robertson!

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Popcorn GIF by WWE

Silly season in full swing indeed.

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JWH: “Is this the player you want on a long term contract? Is he your ideal midfielder?”

JK: “To be honest I am not sure. We don’t know how he will adapt to living in UK. He’s had some ankle injuries which we’ve checked and he’s over but his ankle will continue to be an added risk long term. We would like to loan him and throw in a cheeky option to buy as a fuck you to Juve who have done that to us”

JWH: “haha. Love it. Fuck 'em. And?”

JK: " our long term plan continues to be to phase out the old heads and develop a midfield with a double pivot of Fab, and another long term midfielder behind Elliott or Fabio". As you know with the meetings between the three of us at the top of Blackpool Tower, we have a verbal agreement with Bellingham but also as you know he isn’t available this season so Art-huuuur is a stopgap. Sounds good?"

JWH: “Well fucked if I know what a double pivot is. Sounds like a dance step in country music, but all sounds good from me. Go ahead”

Not that simple, and Jurg likely doesn’t deal with Henry directly but you get my drift.

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I felt like I was there

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I think Arthur Melo is the perfect Klopp “Ish” signing :sweat_smile:

He obviously has a lot of talent, and we’ll see if Klopp is the one that can get him going. I won’t bet against it. When Kabak was here, he did well and people wanted us to sign him long term by end of season, even though we had our sites set on someone better. I think Melo fits that bill. He’ll come in, after a month or two Klopp will have him doing Klopp type stuff, and he’ll look good with an excellent team around him. It’s no huge financial outlay, we keep the tinder dry for Bellingham/some unknown, and we get a serviceable player in a position that could use reinforcement.

Is he the perfect signing? No, but we were rejected from everyone we were willing to spend big money on…so this is a good arrangement.

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Just searched Arthur’s stats for LaLiga 19/20 and his closest comparison is… Frenkie De Jong :scream:

image

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well :upside_down_face: at least he already has some Anfield experience.

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Yep bit of a strange one especially given the issues at CB two seasons ago which nearly cost us a Top 4 finish.

Thought we would have been a bit smarter this time round and got a deal done early in the window. We’ve moved up targets before Diaz for example when needs have arisen but surely Bellingham and Laimer arent the only names on the list.

Could be a stroke of genuis if Arthur hits the ground running and fits the system, hope he does but prefer a lower risk approach he hasnt played alit of football the last couple of years.

You are dripping with sarcasm. :laughing:

Tbf, I would love to see a more humorous JWH thats a bit more light-hearted, but that JWH probably doesn’t exist. Besides, if he’s running the club right, thats all that really matters.

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Did they cut out the ones of him losing the ball as to be fair he seems very good in keeping it which is an upgrade itself on last night.

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First of all, Hendo and Gini play differently. Secondly, he plays more like Thiago. Thirdly, I am hopeful he can do a job for us but if he really was that good currently he wouldn’t be bench warming

Shite touch by Rakitic on his first pass.

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More like Jay Spearing.

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YNWA, but we talking about limping.

So a match from 3 years ago?

I read that somewhere else as well, but I just don’t see it. Looks nothing like a Thiago sort of player to me. I’ll happily be proved wrong!

The club’s only mistake, especially in regards to midfielders, is not being brutal enough. “Ox? Injury prone. We’ll take £10m for him and pay out half his wages. Keita? £15m, and pay out half his wages. Henderson? He’s the club captain but he’s had a recurrent foot problem over the years and I think there’s a chance he will get injured this year. Cut him.”

If you agree with the above, fine. But Klopp’s biggest weakness if you can call it that is he treats family like family. Thats what also makes him a great coach that every player wants to play for, so you need to take the good with the bad. He won’t change in that regard.

Klopp started the season with 5 fit midfielders, 3 injured. 6 if including Fabio which you should. You will likely say its naivety to keep injury prone players on the list like Thiago and Hendo and expect them to stay injury free through a season. But as a coach its about being honest with your players and giving them the maximum opportunity to play minutes. Unless you are going to get brutal and ship off players that have been injured in the past just to avoid any injury crisis risk, which we won’t do, then you can’t go out and buy a 9th, 10th, 11th midfielder and expect our current midfielders to stay happy. We are a rare club in that we do care about whether a player is happy here. Didn’t we actually re-sign a player over recent years that’s contract was running down and had a long term injury?

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Look at all the videos (couple on this thread). He takes possession, turns, makes nice passes. Also solid in possession. He goes past players. Very different from either Gini or Hendo