We’re really losing our plot in terms of squad building, aren’t we.
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Is there any verification to Paul Joyce as there isn’t anything I can see on his twitter.
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The article is on the site.
On the Times site?
Sorry mate it’s a small part of the Curtis Jones to Inter story he published today.
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It’s almost like a kid* with championship manager back in the 90s selecting Man Utd so they can flog off all the good players and buy crap on ridiculous wages before eventually the board cops on and sacks them.
- not me, oh no!
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Dalglish never found the game editor.
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I do wonder if all of this dysfunction is going to fuck us in recruitment. Players who decide they don’t want to play for a manager on a one year deal who on the hottest of seats.
This all has the potential to go very, very badly.
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It certainly won’t help. There will be players who will give us a wide berth at the moment.
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It should more than it does, as demonstrated by players signing for Chelsea every summer. But I think at minimum we will have likely lost our premium where we had become an outlier in how attractive a place to go an work we were, and now are back in the pack. Players will still sign for us, but a Wirtz or Isak level signing would likely be difficult to pull off in this state
Maybe that isnt the worst thing in the world given where we are now if we can go and find this eras Gini and Sadio
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No disrespect to Celtic or even Netherlands but those standards of football are probably not a great test of what his best position is.
And yes, otherwise we would just hire sprinters. Of course you need a combination of pace and quality with the ball.
When he keeps it simple I think he looks really good. Just holds his position in front of the ball, keeps it ticking over and wins the ball back. A more incisive passing player next to him like WHarton or even Anderson who gets forward too and I think wed be in good shape.
I don´t want us signing another supposed number 6 who goes charging upfield and vacating his position a lot.
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That’s why I said Celtic’s level is something else to here. But position wise, it can all matter. It’s been a while since he played as a proper RB in a back 4 regularly.
Then what about Diaz’s ability to run and make space? What about Jota‘s finishing in tough spots? What about Darwin‘s incessant energy and needle of the opposition defence while he was on the pitch? My point is we are one down in number of forwards and even more glaringly lacking in the mix of qualities that those forwards used to bring to the table. And I didn’t even get started with pressing. Huge downgrade our attacking personnel. Yes, I love Hugo and I think he’s gonna be fantastic. While firmly questioning the acquisition of Alex, given his age, given the frankly ridiculous transfer fee, and given his career long history of injuries, I will concede that maybe he can find some of his obvious quality again and become a multifaceted forward than just a traditional number nine. But overall we are still severely lacking.
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I am not saying we were right to let him go. There is a common perspective that we left ourselves specifically short on the LW because we lost our first choice LW and didn’t not bring in a like for like replacement. But that misremembers what last season actually was and the role Diaz played and therefore how the 3 forwards we did bring in stack up against what we lost from the perspective of how we were using them.
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According to TransferMarkt, Diaz played 21 times at LW and 14 times up front.
I think it´s fine to talk about him being mainly an LW loss.
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I think the club need to decide how we want to play because it is not obvious to me at all. Judging by the players brought in last summer, you’d think we were moving to some kind of fluid 4-4-2 or 4-2-2-2 formation. Maybe that was the plan, and we just couldn’t execute it due to injuries, etc. There’s a lot of discussion now about bringing 2 or 3 wingers in, which suggests our typical 4-3-3. It’s all very confusing to me. Surely there was and is a plan, right? We sorely missed Diaz this season and I’d like to get back closer to our Klopp identity on the pitch. More than anything we need a clear identity and style of play, because I have no idea what we are trying to do.
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That is also true.
Spending so much on two strikers who would expect to both play and Frimpong for example looks quite poor defensively and more like a flying full back type.
Which would suggest we´d need more midfield bodies to cover in a 4 4 2 as you say.
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