And he’s stalling on starting talks about a new deal, apparently. Barca are said to be keen on extending his contract, but nothing has happened yet. Looks like one to follow over the summer.
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I can just imagine the look on Klopp’s face when Edwards suggests it. Dembele “trashed” Klopp’s house in 2018 according to widespread news reports
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I would imagine that if his name is brought up this window, it has probably been bought up in previous windows too. …
Is Klopp still renting Rodgers’ old house? In which case, hope he invites Dembelé round!
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The club bought it from Rodgers, and Klopp still lives in it - it’s become a sort of Liverpool managers official residence.
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Apparently those rumours were dismissed and the “trashing” came from a picture of someone taking a few bin bags out to the bin after Dembele had left.
Seems PSG are bringing Donarumma in to “challenge” Navas as their starting keeper…
So that’s Donarumma as 1st choice and Navas as 2nd. They’re also going to have 5 other keepers under contract to choose from for their 3rd choice next year.
Sergio Rico has had an awful time recently but is the right kind of keeper for our playing style. Could be a good option to be our second choice possibly on a low fee or even loan.
Dembele is a top player but appears to have a bad attitude and is injury prone. Two things we don’t need.
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Rumours of Leicester in negotiations for Odsonne Edouard for 18m, whose contract is up next season. Good player who has done well in Scotland and looks a strong bet to make a step up. On top of that, they are also strongly linked to Soumare who again can come for as low as 18m.
Bringing this up because I actually admired Leicester scouting team who had bring in a number of hits for decent prices. Very good players who are under reported and not the flavour of the week that everyone is talking or bigging up.
We are definitely a bigger club and a club with much more influence and attraction to top players around the world but I certainly would like the satisfaction of uncovering another Fabinho, Robertson than a Mbappe. Just my thought.
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We are indeed one-in, one-out at the moment.
At a minimum, the anticipated departures of Shaqiri and Origi give us room to add to the squad. I also expect Minamino to leave based on reports coming out of Southampton.
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The key difference about Leicester is that their squad is relatively light and the young up and coming players see it as the ideal stepping stone - a squad they can break into, PL experience, good chance at the odd cup and European football. All things that may sway a player to go there. No doubt Leicester deserve credit for making the deals happen. The signing of Fofana really made me take notice, he’s one I wanted here. If we could get Soumare I’d be chuffed.
They are lacking a couple of established leaders and Vardy is looking well past his best now - no doubt still dangerous, but not for 38 games a season. Evans is not getting younger either. They lost Chillwell, and Barnes is up and down form and injury wise. They will be a perineal 5-8th placed team with the odd season achieving some silverware or a higher league position.
I’m with you, love unearthing a gem.
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Six centre backs and nine centre mids? People on Twitter are mental.
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Yeah he’s pointing out that it’s a problem. Basically because we have injury magnets in the squad we end up having to add more and more numbers to keep those injury plagued players whilst still being capable of coping with their absences. My stance is we have to be ruthless and move on Matip, Keita and Ox for best prices we are offered as we have to recruit the same for those areas if those players stay or leave. Them being here makes no difference to our recruitment plans. They’re just filling up the squad.
But isn’t part of the reason we have depth is to cover for when players get injured?
We obviously have a couple that have tendancies to pick up more than their fair share but what club doesn’t have a player or two like that.
The centre back issue was part of our own making in that we went into the season with just three, one of which was Matip. Even then we were incredibly unlucky with what happened to Virg and Gomez.
Midfield is an issue because we have two injury prone types but, both of those players have been fit and Klopp has chosen not to play them even when Gini was running on fumes. Either he’s lost faith in them and so should be moved on or he didn’t want to rush them back and risk more injuries at a crucial time.
Keita I’d be okay with seeing move on. It’d be best for him and the club at this stage. Allows us to bring in someone more robust but more as a Gini replacement than a replacement for Keita who is really just filler these days.
Trying to move Matip and Ox on this summer invite more issues to try and solve in this window. Think we need to look at it as a phased approach. Keita this summer, Matip next, Ox the one after. When fit both do offer more than Keita and have the summer to try and get to the root of their issues.
Nat Phillips isn’t Club Trained mate. He’s Association Trained only.
My UEFA squad next year would look like this:
List A (16/17)
17 (anybody)
Alisson
Onana
Virgil
Matip
Konate
Robertson
Tsimikas
Fabinho
Thiago
Keita
Salah
Martinez
Mane
Jota
Bellingham
Lamptey
HG AT (4/4)
Henderson
Milner
AOC
Phillips
HG CT (3/4
Kelleher
Trent
Gomez
List B
Jones
Elliott
So we’d still have a free spot for anyone else.
As we only have 3 Club Trained, wouldn’t it have to be someone in the acadamy?
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The problem with Ox and Keita is they have only 2 years on their contracts, either sell them now, get next to nothing next year or nothing the year after. Or extend their deals, which probably would require a pay rise when they probably aren’t earning their current wages already.
Matip its a case of how many CBs do we realistically have? VvD, Gomez and Matip may all be working their way back to fitness at the start of next year. Is Phillips and Konate enough? Davies and Williams as back up? For me it’s not good enough to play a significant amount which it might. I think we still need to bring a CB in regardless of if Matip is here or not. Bringing that CB in means 3 out of Matip, Williams, Phillips and Davies.
There would be two free spots, one for anyone and one that could only be taken by someone like Wilson or Ojo unless we bought back someone like Sterling or Suso.