I’ve heard you can’t beat a bit of…
Smith-Rowe is good, but I don’t see where he fits here. I’d go for Martinelli over Saka, just because Martinelli is a bit of a prick, and I like that. Arteta has a trove of talent down there.
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Fuck it, sell Mane and Firmino and bring in Kane and Bowen. If Salah does not sign a new contract we have the player in his position bedding in for a season and we then get another attacker next summer. Sorted. 
Jota could possibly replace his goals, but not everything else that Sadio brings to the team.
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The only acceptable replacement for Salah (within the league) for me is Son.
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Can’t stand Harry Kane. Replacing Mane with him would be like replacing Obama with Trump
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I don’t think there has been ‘first choice’ since January. We have played every 3-4 days and we have needed to, in most cases, rotate the forwards every match to keep everyone as fresh as possible.
Jota has got 16 of his goals+assists (55%) since Diaz arrived. Although Jota has occasionally played LW he predominately plays centrally so they aren’t really competing for the same position. With Firmino injured, Klopp has played 2 of Mane, Diaz and Jota, with Mane playing a few more games centrally when he’s partnered with Diaz, and wide when partnered with Jota.
I don’t think its worth talking about Firmino as he’s missed 18 matches in the league alone through injury.
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Mane has always been my favourite forward. The most dynamic, he basically has every trick up his sleeve. He’ll beat a defender for pace, pull a header out of nowhere, or blast one from long range. He’ll be a massive loss.
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So we know City scored a shit tonne of goals in the latter part of the season. To really accentuate the point about fatigue hampering our biggest goal and assist getters, these are their minutes:
The Shit Silva - 3,900’
KDB - 3,300’
Foden - 3,100’
Sterling - 3,000’
Mahrez - 2,900’
Grealish - 2,700’
Jesus - 2,500’
Its difficult to give a like for like comparison as we are far more reliant on our FB’s than them, and they tend to play a very attacking minded midfielder while we never play with one. Their attacking players have played minimal minutes to our players, not to mention most are in their mid 20’s. The Firmino injuries have hurt us a lot as having him in rotation could bring us down to around 3,300’ per player.
I think we need at least 1 more attacking player this season with Mane gone even with Carvalho coming in. Though I wouldn’t be shocked if there were 2 in prep for Salah leaving (Klopp likely knows if he is leaving or not)
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Yep, definitely closer, and if Sarr comes I completely back our recruitment team and look forward to watching him grow here.
I like Sarr but he’s miles away from Mane at Southampton and he’s been injured loads this year.
Another player that could possibly be a 5th or 6th choice but hasn’t shown enough to be more than that.
Worth taking a punt on to give Salah some cover, but not to replace Mane (or Salah).
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I haven’t seen any. It is possible he is doing what Mo is probably doing, and will leave on a Bosman to maximize his earning potential. We might start seeing a bit more of this.
I think Gnabry is an excellent player and will surely be desirable for all the best teams in Europe. We are certainly in that small, elite group, and if Mane is going there is a need for someone to come in.
Probably I’m putting 2 + 2 = 5 out, but since both Bayern and Liverpool look to be losing a big player, the whole thing might be choreographed to where they gain a big player from the other too.
Salah, Diaz, Jota, Firmino, Gnabry and Carvalho gives us a great group for next season, then if and when Mo departs we will replace him with another great player.
Gnabry might be wishful thinking on my part, but I’d be happy with that.
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I think we should think of this as a mark of our progress since Phil left. We’re not immune to having any player leave for a mega transfer…not even Utd were with Ronaldo at the peak of Fergie’s power, but we’re now at the point where the vast majorities of players will see it in their interest to play as much of their football at liverpool as they are allowed to and only leave once their valuation has started to come down. In some cases that will be to get regular football they may no longer get here, but in some cases it will be to go to clubs that will pay them for what they’ve already done that we dont think is viable moving forward.
The club as a whole is valuable when we’ve got the likes of Mo and Mane playing for us at their highest market valuations, and the strategy is to monetize that while they’re here so that when it’s time to move on we don’t need to squeeze out top $ for them to fund their replacement. It’s not fool proof, requires everyone to do their job properly and can be difficult to time it all properly, but it’s far better that trying to fund your team by selling your best players at the peak of their valuation when they’re most valuable from a sporting perspective.
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I clearly remember a (not significant) number of people arguing that Mane wasn’t good enough at the time. United had just signed Zlatan
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Oh sure. Fans are typically terrible judges of this sort of thing and demand high cost signings independent of any other consideration. However, that being a shit way to judge things doesn’t then mean fans not liking a target can be used to justify the quality of a target.
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Fair enough. There’ll never be another Sadio anyway. But I’d be willing to take a punt on Sarr. He’s been playing for an awful team so hard to fully judge
I don’t think we’d bring in another African forward, wouldn’t want to lose 2 players again to the AFCON. Learnt from it done well without them but no, I wouldn’t be happy with Sarr.
Someone said that Son is the only player in the premier league that is similar to Mane and whilst I agree, it’d cost a fortune for either Kane or Son out of Spurs.
I’d like to get Leroy Sane off Bayern, great player and always scored against us for City, talking of City……would people take Sterling back?
Yeah so do I, but I wasn’t. I thought he was amazing and said so well before we signed him.
Sarr is a player with potential but he hasn’t played to that same level yet.
And it’s nothing to do with AFCON. Signing a lesser player because an African might miss 3 league games every two years is absolutely mental behaviour. It’s so irrational I can’t believe that argument is still getting made.
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Basically, @ILLOK knows his shit.
Except when he disagrees with me about Van Dijk 
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AFCON has been rescheduled to June-July from 2023.