Nah
Malcolm had personality
Guardiola always changes his system for big matches because heās scares of the opposition.
Its one big reason why he hasnāt won the CL for so long despite always having the biggest and best funded club in the competition.
Iāve been thinking about this today, and can see a lot of merit in it. With Bellingham off the table (seemingly), bringing Trent into CM instead and recruiting a new RB both makes sense and would be considerably cheaper.
Iād also tentatively suggest that pairing him with Jones in midfield would be better than spending Ā£50-70m on Mac Allister, my only concern with Curtis is his ability to stay fit over a full season.
Iād spend big on someone like Ugarte to really get a good defensive presence in midfield, first and foremost.
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When were we unbalanced and chaotic today and that could be said for the last couple of games
They only did it effectively once, Konate marshalled it well and it was one of his best games covering that role.
The only time they did get success was from Konate pointlessly trying to head forward a ball he was always behind.
I think the additional legs in CM should help this as well.
Does it work against the biggest clubs, we will see but it worked fine against Arsenal so possibly.
Itās why Iād be interested in Caicedo, so long as the price doesnāt get too silly. Caicedo as a right sided 8. Athletic, covers lots of ground, plugs the gaps, strong in the tackle, not bad on the ball either.
Caicedoās presence on that of the pitch, as an upgrade over an aging Henderson, will help Trent to do his thing, and Trentās playmaking ability will hurt a lot of teams next season, as we e started to see in recent weeks. It will only get better.
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Have you seen how high our two 8s play in this system? The space that is to be exploited with Trent in midfield is one that has to be hit quickly, in transition. You can put Usain Bolt at the right sided 8 and he isnt helping to plug that āgapā.
For several years there was a conversation about just what sort of player Jones was. Is he quick enough, or does he score enough to be a forward? Does he work hard enough or do enough defensively to be a midfielder? We have now found him a role in this formation that is really playing to his strengths and it needs to be acknowledged that role will change, will take him a bit further away from the box, if we change Trentās role into a more orthodox one.
There may be reasons to stop the unorthodox nature of what weāre currently doing and move Trent into a DM role in front of a flat back 4, but it needs to be understood that āsolutionā immediately raises several more problems than it solves.
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I love the jigsaw puzzle nature of what weāve got going on, and how it might evolve and/or be improved with signings this summer. So many permutations.
However we go about our business, it is clear that Trent is becoming our main playmaker, and we need to get him on the ball as much as possible, in the midfield, as his vision, and ability to execute a pass, is sublime.
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Iāve been a big fan and a big critic of Jones since I first saw him play - but Iām just biased when it comes to club-trained kids and I desperately want them to do well to the point of it being an unhealthy obsession. Same goes for Trent. I love it when we win games and when it brings us trophies but I also love it when we do it with players who have come through clubās youth ranks.
Thatās why Iām eager to see what Klopp does with these two in particular. Both have had to learn how to play the roles that were vastly different to those they played in the youth teams but that means that they should have more strings to their bows than regular players. I hope their fitness serves them well, though, who knows what we would be saying about Jones now had he had a good record in that regard.
That said, I definitely donāt think that we should look at Jones as a starter just yet. I fully agree about getting an upgrade on Fabinho (I genuinely donāt care about the name as long as heās the right fit) but I would also like us to sign a player who will be a major upgrade on our central midfielders, so that we donāt rely on Jones whoās probably still in recovery mode from all the fitness issues heās had over the past two years or so. Having Jones and Fabinho fighting it out with new signings for the starting role should be a major boost to our squad, especially considering the state of our current options.
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Yeah, Iād be frightened if we played Man City at this moment, to be honest. I love what Trent brings to our midfield when he has the ball but a team like Man City: a) wouldnāt let us have it; b) would kill us running into that space even though they donāt play with traditional pacy wingers.
Heās played 9 games in a row now I think, and been a key part of the 7 game winning streak consistently being one of our better players. He is now 22 and is in his 4th season of senior top level football (albeit interrupted with injuries). Other than managing his fitness, which based on the regularity of his involvement over the past 2 months looks like he has finally kicked what was bothering him, there really is no reason to treat him with kid gloves anymore.
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We have unleashed a beast nowā¦
Canāt wait for next season to see how he progresses.
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Definately. I loved Alonso but I think people are mistaking his Real Madrid form for his LFC form.
Stevie G is sooo underated by many on here. Shocking. Trent is fantastic. Love him.
on a LFC fan form, Gerrard under-rated? I think not.
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this. Their ties to the club are very strong as well. I canāt think of any of our top talented scousers except Macca leaving either.
With Grealish out wide and not being pacy, as you said it would give us time to recover.
Also we would have more players in midfield to stop them playing between the lines, where De Bruyne and Gundogan like to play.
However, we wonāt know until we play them
Weāve beat them twice this season, itās the other 90% weāve had to worry about.
Youāre entitled to an opinion even if itās wrong. 