Whipping Boys or Poor Players?

[mattyhurst]

Darwin had issues under one of the best coaches in the world so.

Every player gets it though. Kerkez was being driven to the airport after a month.

He did actually improve and will be aided by his old coach coming in.

[Limiescouse]

@Arminius

Gakpo had a poor season, but so did so many players. What happened to McAllister is just astonishing. I guess the thing for me with Gakpo versus with McAllister is that with McAllister I could tell he wasn’t playing well, I could call out particular failings, but there wasn’t one single marker/moment that drove me up the wall. By contrast, Gakpo had that Temu Coutinho thing where he would be nowhere all game, somehow get the ball in a vaguely promising area, and predictably enough cut in from the left to blast the ball high and wide of the goal. I would find myself just waiting for it.

Cody is a limited player for this level. I mean that a descriptor more than a judgement and he has shown previously that he is good enough at the things he can do well that in the right set up he can be very effective (he played a bigger and more important role than rotation option in his prior years some people are labeling him as). But what he isn’t is a player you can give the ball to and say “do something with it” and expect something good to happen. Unfortunately our style under Slot increasing required that of our attackers. In that situation he has one and a half moves he can pull off and was left badly exposed by the whole thing. If we can get back to a football where the ball creates openings rather than requiring individual players to create them for themselves I think we’ll get back to a place where he looks like a proper contributor to a team challenging for the major trophies.

[Semmy]

It’s impossible to know, but had Klopp had the legs for a couple more years do you think We would be where we are now?

Gakpo is in the top 1% of players in the world.

We are amongst the top 10 teams in the world, for the last 10 years or so. That should mean, that a player in every position should be one of the absolute best quality for that role and a good fit for the system we are playing.

I don’t know that the formation implemented by our recently departed manager did us any favors, there were holes all over the pitch and random teams were able to exploit them with ease.

Gakpo couldn’t defend and couldn’t take on a defender to his left. Ultimately he’s a square peg in the round hole of LM in a 4-2-1-3 which is what appears to be what we operated as.

Slot took a team of world-beaters and made them average. I’d give Gakpo a pass and see how next season is…same for the rest of the players.

[Limiescouse]

@Arminius

Darwin was a weird one. I do think he was perhaps criticized unfairly. But we never did see the kind of refined player that we saw when he was playing against us that made us all think he was a great buy

The season before last we played Villa and there was a play where Darwin created a chance for himself by robbing the last Villa CB. The ball deflected towards the Villa goal and as Darwin chased it down, Martinez also responded to the threat incredibly quickly with what was honestly a tremendous bit of keeping. He turned the loose ball into essentially a 50-50 and while Darwin got to it fractionally first, Martinez had closed the space down so much that Darwin had no space to get the ball past him. His touch ended up crashing into Martinez’s legs and, I think, out for a corner. It was a great piece of forward play but matched by incredible keeping. Yet Darwin suffered not only the normal “FFS Darwin” that was entirely unearned for that sequence, he was subjected to a level of derision “missing a sitter” that was outrageous…“I’ve had enough Jim, get that fucking guy out of my club”. It was notable not only for its vitriol and unfairness, but who it was coming from.

I guess we all have our cases where we we’re happy to put blame on them and other we feel compelled to take bullets for when others are being unfair to them.

[Flobs]

He was awful this season.
He literally refused to pass the ball.
In doing so he made the integration of Kerkez nigh on impossible.
Scuppered many chances due to his ‘selfishness’.
We have seen him do better however the fact remains he showed how limited as a player he is this season. Imo he deserves the knocking he got.
It’s now up to him to turn it around or sink!

[HugoTheHorrible]

I don’t believe that any player who had a bad year under Slot,should be automatically shipped out
Much fairer to all if they are assessed by Iraola first,we have all seen players struggle under one coach,and show flair under a different coach,even if they don’t make it.

[Bekloppt]

Pretty sure that’s what’ll happen, unless the player himself requests a move.