I’m sure they’ve had an agreement for months.
The issue is they don’t have an agreement with us.
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We have Szoboslai and Grav (who will be the main two) Mac Allister behind them. When Jones leaves, Nyoni will take his minutes. We also have Endo and the lesser spotted Bajcetic knocking round the squad for what it’s worth.
I think the only way we sign a midfielder is if Mac Allister leaves.
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Ah yeah Jones didn´t play. He´s surely leaving?
If we are not messing around with midfielders at right back this year, I imagine it would be that we don´t need quite so many players there. Obviously i´d replace both our starting midfielders, but from a numbers perspective I can see us letting one go and just promoting Nyoni.
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I wouldn’t mind that at all, that would be great. I’m just not quite seeing it, Mac being pushed down the order like that.
I just think to make a signing like Wharton, assuming it would be big money involved both in transfer fee and salary.. it’s a very Ferguson or Mourinho type of move, buy a player and then it’s the survival of the fittest. But it doesn’t feel like a thing we do.
I hope I’m wrong, obviously, I’d love us to have that sort of depth. But I’m guessing Iraola sees Mac as a significant player this season.
However..if Endo goes as well, then I believe we’ll do some shopping. As long as he’s there I think he’ll be used to make up the numbers; play domestic cups and make the bench if one of the main four aren’t available
One significant factor could be if Szoboszlai is also the guy who will be backup to Wirtz. Then I could see us adding another player, because of the overall workload. But I don’t think he will be when we get the two PSG players in. Maybe as the in-game switch to protect a lead.
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Is him.
Can´t imagine us signing Wharton. Had all summer, he wasn´t at the World Cup, and I doubt Palace will want to lose him with a week to go to the season.
I think Barcola will come and maybe Mbaye, with Jones out but otherwise that´s it.
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I wouldn’t trust CP again after the Guehi fiasco.
Probably not, yeah.
Just think they´d not want rid of him with not long to go in the window. Even for 100mil, it would be a risk on their part, especially with the manager change.
I agree with the viewpoint above, Barcola, hopefully with Mbaye in a bumper deal, Jones out to Inter, Nyoni promoted. I would add in that scenario Gakpo probably sold to Spurs to claw back a good fee and not stockpile too many left wingers. The fee will have to be solid, mind, as Gakpo is a good player and he can also help us through the middle as a backup to help Isak.
With that business done I think we will see how we go. Will Iraola coach the midfield to be a great unit? Or will it need further tweaking with subtraction/addition? Right now it’s not quite right, even if they are all good players.
Will we be fine at right back? For those who had gone a bit sour on Frimpong, he showed us something good today.
Will we be fine up front, centrally? Isak is looking sharper, which is good, but none of us expect him to be there for every game, the full 90. Will Barcola help in that regard, until Ekitike is back?
Still a few questions, but assuming business is done with Barcola, Mbaye, Jones and Gakpo, then in addition to what we’ve already done in the market, plus Iraola’s coaching - which is improving them from the lull of last season - we should be in decent shape. Not perfect, but plenty there to give us renewed hope for the season ahead.
Let’s see what happens with the rest of our business. After a long time waiting, it now feels poised.
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No idea if he would be able to pass a medical given all the injuries or if any fee would be involved
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This. I feel the club put all their eggs in Guehi basket, with seemingly no back-up plan at that point, at least when it came to bringing in senior centre backs. In my opinion, while Araujo seems more similar to Quansah in terms of physical build and ability to play CB and RB, it was Guehi who held the key to the rebuild of this defence, especially in post-Van Dijk world.
Fast forward this season by a single year and only Jacquet and Leoni are expected to remain out of all first team CBs we have (and that’s because of their age - we still don’t know if they will actually do well) - unless Van Dijk does well and extends his contract even by a single year. That is how poor the CB planning has been for years now.
As for Bajčetić leaving, that really sucks but I actually expected him (and kind of still do) to leave next year on a free. By selling him now, provided he can actually pass the medical, the club can probably obtain a sell-on clause or something should he recover his career.
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I think “poor planning” is something people with no experience of recruitment and selection say because they have no idea how volatile the process can be.
There is so many moving parts and so much risk baked in that even if you have covered every base, received assurance from every party and created contingencies for every eventuality something typically always goes wrong. The risk of failure increases proportionate to any decrease in the availability of skills required. And, Liverpool are recruiting for the rarests skills at the very top end of the market.
I worked in corporate recruitment for 2 years and it broke me.
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I’m not sold on Nyoni, unlike what seems to be the majority on here. I don’t think he’s all that. But then the coaches rate him and they’re better equipped, better placed, just better generally than me to judge. Time will tell.
But I personally think we need another midfielder that’s better than Grav, Elliott, Endo, Jones, Mac Allister, Nyoni…all that cohort.
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Thing is, by poor planning I’m not even talking about recruitment, I’m talking about voluntarily pushing out the door a player we already owned, so entirely self-inflicted.
Everything else could have played out as it has and we’d be absolutely fine in defence, only real difference is Quansah is still here and we didn’t need to loan Araujo.
LFC still pecking away to bring in Barcola to replace MO… who as we know, has gone on to become a Turkish Delight.. :0)
Taxi
There are proably multiple factors that meant that it was best for Quansah to leave such as
- Slot not being arsed having him around
- Jarrell’s development
- Lowering the fee for Wirtz
- Purchase of Leoni
Also he just seemed broken in the aftermath of Slot’s decision on the first day of the season. Maybe the club didn’t think he was going to bounce back from that whilst being part of a rotation that included 4 senior centre backs and Leoni.
Honestly, Virg, Ibou, Joemez, Guehi and Leoni covers a lot of bases.
Mid-30s, one-year left, perma-crocked, not signed, teenager.
Slot is at fault for freezing him out, Hughes is at fault for selling him before securing a replacement, and including Gomez in any form of future planning at that point was simply ludicrous.
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If I remember correctly, between signing Van Dijk and Leoni, Liverpool only brought in one centre back on a permanent basis and that was Konate - who, in all honesty, never reached the heights we expected of him. In that period, Van Dijk was the only constant (and rightly so - we’re talking about one of the best to have ever played in that position), while the others were either inconsistent, injury prone or simply not good enough.
While I fully agree that Liverpool are shopping in a different market compared to 99% of the clubs, I don’t see any real succession planning for Van Dijk - remove him and the most experienced centre back we have is the guy we brought in on loan from Barcelona. That guy should have obviously been Guehi - but I struggle to comprehend that he didn’t have an alternative. Jacquet and Leoni are obviously here for the long run but, even their injuries aside, the powers that be at the club couldn’t have possibly thought that two such young centre backs could be trusted to lead the club’s defence to trophies?
Even if Quansah had stayed, he would have been another young centre back on club’s books and not someone who could marshal the defence in Van Dijk’s absence.
- Still the best in the league
- One year means he is still the club’s player
- You take what you can get / See anything over for 800 minutes as a bonus
- Elite prospect with top 5 league experience
Guehi had performed the "welcome to Liverpool " ritual with the media team, he was a Liverpool player in all but name, what transpired was irregular.
Slot was a twat to non-senior members of the squad. I have a lot more sympathy for Hughes than most people.
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Yeah, I think we’d best park it there before @Bekloppt has an aneurysm. But suffice to say nothing anyone can say will convince me that summer wasn’t a complete fuck-up on the CBs front.
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