He didnt realize it was meant as a threat
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We shouldnāt have teased the poor dear like that 
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Hence Araujo. Joe is gonna be gone as well, so, assuming things go reasonably well with him this season, weāll need him.
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Quansah + Araujo?
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Well I did say Araujo might be one of the two CB signings if he does well.
He also might be deemed not good enough. itĀ“s possible. At this stage I would think that Araujo and Quansah as our more established CBs supported by 3 young ones would not be a good situation.
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who do you propose we aim for?
having guehi signed would have helped.
But at the same time, you canāt just have a blanket rule for young players. Ndukwe will be 19 and turn 20 next season. He isnāt a 16 year baby, and he is already 6ā6āā.
For context if he comes back next season and is part of the first team Centre Back pool, he will be older than Dean Huijsen when he moved to Bournemouth, Levi Colwill when he was playing at Brighton and about to return to Chelsea as a starter, Luka Vuskovic this summer when Brighton paid Ā£54m for him, and only slightly younger than Branthwaite when he established himself at Everton.
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We donāt own either of them so seems premature to be counting them as options.
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The problem with Araujo is he was on big wages before he came here. He has taken a cut for the opportunity, but if he does well enough to justify a permanent move heās likely going to want a return to something close to what he was on, and will likely have suitors willing to pay him that.
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Uff God knows. Schlotterbeck fits the profile and the age. I like Scalvini but heĀ“s still quite young, albeit more experienced. Somebody 25-28 ideally.
Yeah I think Guehi now would have been a solid player for us to have, considering the fee and also being homegrown. YouĀ“re right.
I think itĀ“s really important for a squad not to have too many players that are before their peak years or after them.
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The question is not his age. It is his complete lack of track record or pedigree that makes planning on him being part of the plans an insane proposition. It is not that a 19 year old cannot play at this level, or even a statement that he cant. But that at this stage, the stage when weād be doing the planning for next year, we cannot possible know.
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Nico just signed a long term deal last season so he is not going to be cheap, assuming he is open to coming to Anfield.
I did find the talk of replacing Gomez amusing. Iām sure.
A youth player who plays league cup games would replace him.
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I would replace him.
Iām good off the pitch and on a treatment table too.
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Yeah. Might have to be somebody else. Depends how much we want him. WeĀ“re in a position imo where we need a very good senior CB to replace Virgil.
Potentially we could get away with not buying any attackers if Rio develops, MuƱoz delivers and Gakpo stays and has a good season. But we will most likely need a midfielder (ideally two), GK if Ali leaves, and a right back, and even a left back could be argued. So at least 3 positions as well as CB. Leaves us a lot of work to do without much resale value of the outgoing players. Although big wages off the books. Will be a challenge.
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I think Van Dijk will leave. Heās lost his recovery pace and isnāt really suited to how we play anymore. Still a very good player and I think heāll move to a team that doesnāt use a high defensive line. But to replace Van Dijk we need a much more established CB than Quansah. He might be fine as 4th choice, but not first choice. I really hope Araujo can find his feet here because I donāt want too many changes.
Then it would be something like:
- New CB - I think it will cost well over Ā£60m, similar to Jacquet
- Jacquet
- Araujo / Quansah
- Leoni
- One of the young kids
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Joe has become as brittle as Harry Kewell. He also ended up not being able to last whole halves, let alone an entire match.
āInsaneā is strong word to use in this context. Weāre not talking about binning him off all our centre backs for him, weāre talking about him being part of the squad, and Iāve already said keeping Van Dijk on the books for another year would help mitigate the risks of running with a young centre back pool.
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Age is one thing, experience is another. Itās the latter Iām actually talking about.
Huijsen came through at Juve and Roma before he joined Bournemouth. Colwill had a couple loans in England and was one six CB options Chelsea could pick from and he still played a chunk of that first season at left back instead of CB anyway. Vuskovic played nearly 100 senior games before joining Brighton, making his first team debut at 16.
Ndukwe has one senior first team appearance to his name. At 18. In Austria. Those three were relatively well known, highly touted young players. Ndukwe was barely known outside of his own club. And his height has nothing to do with anything. He can have the build of a fully developed adult but he doesnāt have the CB experience to go with it.
I get that heās looked good in pre-season but heās not even played for Levante yet and some are projecting him to be CB4 next season. No one can tell me theyāve seen enough of the kid to justify that because he hasnāt played enough yet to be able to have seen enough of him to justify that. Even the club elected to put one of the other new lads on the special list so he could get a work permit instead of this lad.
No worries if heās here but he needs to start out as our fifth option at absolute best but probably better heās out on loan at a PL club getting the kind of experience Huijsen and Colwill got to prove they could step up to a CL level club.
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Take the league cup out of it and he still played over 1,000 minutes last season despite his niggles and for a manager who seemed loath to use anything but the same 11 players.
Heās one of five CB options we currently have with three of them currently due to leave us next summer. Weāre gonna need to replace at least two of those three as it stands.