So that’s why almost won the quadruple last year: We spent more.
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I just want to say I think Darwin Nunez will be fine. Im noticing a little trend, almost like it is a given that he has been a dud.
I don’t buy that.
He is fast, strong, and laden with threat. He didn’t score as many as we hoped, but there were issues - early red card, struggling team, language barrier, struggling to sync up with teammates and learn what Klopp wants, injuries up front especially Diaz, and so on.
All I’m saying is I think there is a lot more to come from him, and I can’t wait to see how we unlock it. He also has to take some personal responsibility to do all he can to make the most of his opportunity here, as there are whispers he hasn’t been on top of the language, for example.
Be that as it may, Im backing Darwin chaos to kick on next season in a refreshed and rejuvenated Liverpool side.
Oh, and while I’m on it, I don’t buy the £85M price tag either. He’s a £64M man, yes a steep fee still, but he will more than justify it in a red shirt.
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At the same time, if our transfer strategy becomes try and compete with City financially, then champagne corks are popping at the Etihad. They obviously want football to be nothing more than a spending battle.
Where we are at our best, and those cheating bastards fear us, is when we’re the best at everything else. All the stuff money can’t buy.
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We won 2 cup competitions, the teams that won the big 2 spent far more yes.
What reason would you have for Newcastle and Utd finishing above us this season then if not for spending power?
Its been quickly forgotten that he was our best outfield player (I’ll allow for Salah if someone wants to make that argument) over the first half of the season.
He’ll be fine. I remember that worry people had about Suarez not being a natural goalscorer. With a few notable exceptions, finishing tends to be a trait players develop over time.
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Of course we do. And they’ll work harder than you can imagine but the game has changed and having them turn up to second tier games in Croatia isn’t going to be how they’ll unearth the next Modric (or Lovren, equally as talented in his own way).
Within reason they’ll have access to data on any player you could think of. They’ll be able to pull up endless amounts of game footage and information on him. If there’s the hint they might be worth a look someone will be there to watch them in person without anyone knowing.
But we’re one of the top clubs in the world. A tiny fraction of the players are capable of performing at a level that’s better than those we have now. And it’s bloody hard to tell that very early on in their careers. Sometimes it’s worth a punt. Grujic, Van den Berg, Bajcetic etc. Others might not be viewed as a good risk until they’ve taken a step or two up first.
Look at some of the concerns now about not being in the market for Rice and Ceicedo. Imagine what the reaction would have been to spending £8m on a then pretty unknown Mac Allister in 2019 whilst rivals were spending £50+ million on centre mids.
I’m all for a calculated gamble on a low cost, relatively low profile player but so few of them ever get to make it at top clubs because they don’t get to play enough to continue their development.
The one we should have been all over was Bellingham when he went to Dortmund but that’s easy to say with hindsight. The £25m would have felt astronomical at the time. It was more than we paid for Thiago that same summer! At the time no one would have said we should go for Bellingham instead of Thiago for less money.
We also now have the brexit issue and that means we’ve not been able to go after less experienced players in Europe recently and the rest of the world now for some time. Someone like Taiwo Awoniyi we bought from a club in Nigeria but had to go on endless loans because we couldn’t get him a work permit and that meant his development was out of our hands. He’s now a Premier League striker but we had to let him go to Germany to prove himself and even then, would he be good enough for us now?
It’s easy to look at the successful punts other clubs have taken and wonder why we don’t just do the same but it isn’t that easy and you often forget about all the ones they take a chance on that don’t work out. Leicester dine out on the transfers of Vardy, Kante and Mahrez but people don’t remember the likes of Benkovic, Kapustka, Benalouane, Praet and a host of others who vanished without trace. Even someone like Patson Daka was a player a lot of people on here wanted to see Liverpool in for. The next Halaand they said. In the end he’s sunk like a stone and we’re glad we didn’t take the risk on a player who’d only done it in the Austrian league at the time.
I think we just need to accept that we can’t buy everyone. We’ll take the odd risk but we’re not buying unknowns from the Japanese league like Brighton because what’s expected of them here is far greater than a places further down the league or at clubs in other leagues.
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A terrible start to the season with all our best paid players massively underperforming bar Allison.
Probably a result of playing every possible game and challenging on all fronts last season whilst coming as close to a historic quadruple as any team has ever come.
For what it’s worth I also think we were poorly coached right up until the arsenal game at Anfield. If I’m allowed to say that without getting jumped on. Haha
& all of that is a result of not adequately freshening up the squad over recent years whilst allowing teams like Utd and Newcastle to strengthen.
We were all over it so it isnt even hindsight. It’s just a reflection of the reality that we are not always the best option for a young player at a certain level of development. People may say that Jude should have backed himself to break into our team sooner than later, but his move to Dortmund was him backing himself - he treated it as a stepping stone to becoming one of the best midfielders in the world who could then pick and choose where he wanted to be playing at 20 years of age
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Nunez has been a dud. He appears to be a poor choice for the system we want to play, he was massively expensive and he is not doing what Klopp wants hence the comments about Darwin not understanding what is required of him. I hope he makes me eat humble pie and smashes it next season but I can’t see it.
Doesn’t have to be our strategy, that we bring a few players/transfers of that magnitude here and there, like we have done. And hopefully more often, because it will mean that we are doing well. There are a lot of flops and relative successes among the most expensive players, but that’s the premium some clubs (who are not only City pr PSG) “have” to pay sometimes. And it turns out good. Like Virg, par example.
Cracking name though.
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Far too early to call him a dud. The midfield didn’t link up with him well and there’s him needing time as well.
He’s scored 14 goals this season i believe which isn’t a bad return. Yes , he did miss some absolute sitters. But there was another Uruguayan player in 2012 who missed loads of chances and he’s gone on to become one of the best.
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I mean, we are a club that has won 17 trophies after 1990, out of which 1 league title. It’s basically a trophy every 2 years. Overall, not quite good enough. I know we’ve been through some tough times.
In last years under FSG nad Klopp, we can say that Liverpool have been functioning close to it’s ceiling under these owners and at it’s best in a long time.
When we are operating at a high level on the pitch and spending close to our ceiling, you want to look forwards, room for improvement (and move that ceiling a little bit), not backwards. We and Brighton are not operating in the same way. That doesn’t mean we will not pull transfers like Robbo anymore, but they are hard to find and harder when the team became better with time.
Without any guarantees that the more a players costs, he’s only better, that’s not true. There needs to be a few things clicking. And obviously we are constantly working on that from top to bottom, how to help us being more competitive and win more.
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Since Gini left I’ve spent every deadline day of every transfer window perplexed as to why we haven’t bought someone to replace him in doing a similar job/role so it’s not like I don’t think we’ve needed new bodies and been naive in not getting them, I do agree with that 100%.
But personally, I believe a £50million midfielder last summer or the summer before wouldn’t have stopped Trent, Virgil, Matip, Gomez, Salah, Fabinho, Robertson to an extent all falling off a cliff first half of last season. Henderson too but that could have been predicted and anticipated. Some of those lads were GIANTS last year. Matip especially was unbelievable for us and I just don’t think one or two extra players would have been enough to prevent such a huge dip from so many players, which clearly pointed to a bigger problem be it psychological, the preparation, the coaching, the system. Something else much bigger was clearly wrong.
Not to mention Konate, Jota, Diaz, Keita all missing most of the first half of the season. Although again Keita could and should have been anticipated.
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Being totally wank for two-thirds of the season and not having a midfield.
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I read or heard somewhere, don’t exactly remember, that Liverpool have their own algorithm of data crunching the information on all the players in Europe (and in today’s age you do get information on pretty much every player). The discussion was around how departure of Ian Graham (the lead researcher at the club) could affect us, and it was said that there would be next to no outward effect. The person next in the pecking order was already decided, and research team will continue to work in the same way it always had. The processes are set basically, and can only be improved upon as time goes on.
Bar injuries, and bar low money transfers, some of which were probably clearly made with the intention of bolstering the squad & not expected to challenge first team (Origi, Minanino), we’ve always had the most successful transfers I can think of amongst big clubs.
Especially now with our current state of being outside of CL, it really feels like we’re digging deep and seriously tapping into our stats-wizzary. Dunno why, but I’m having a strong feeling that anyone we get this season out of our list of targets is going to be an eventual success (I’d even stick out my neck and say huge success). Getting serious Mane, Salah, Gini, Fab vibes with these 2.0 targets.
Had we played as per potential… We should have been easily clear of these two
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Well we clearly knew him well but were we really all over him? Did we make an offer or even get as far as an approach.
If we’d been as convinced as Dortmund maybe we don’t go out and buy Thiago who plays in the same position. Hardly strengthens our case that he’d get the chances here that he would have at Dortmund.
And that’s not a criticism. It’s calculating risk and reward. Thiago for the same kind of money made more sense for us at the time.