Correct. Providing they were out of contract before the end of the last registration period they can be registered at any time.
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But only for the league and not for CL - right?
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Such a shame that Conor Coady extended his contract 2 weeks ago.
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Wondering what we should do in January. We currently don’t have any non home grown senior spots left open so players in that category need to leave for others to come in.
Ideal would be signing home grown players or even better yet ex LFC academy “club developed” players but I’m not sure I like our options.
At GK would hitting Southampton again be worth it? Are McCarthy or Fraser Forster definitely signings that would be upgrades on Adrian? If so one of them coming in and Adrian moving on would free up a foreign senior slot but would Klopp be Ok with that? Would Adrian voluntarily move on with 6 months left? We’d probably have to pay his remaining wages and promise to invite him to come get any medals as a good will olive branch so he’d essentially leave on a free getting a better deal at a new club. I’d do something like that but not sure I’m convinced Klopp and Edwards would.
At CB I’m not sure who I’d bring in but not seeing home grown options I like the look of. A Klopp CB needs to be good in the air or at least tall as balls over the top and crosses are two of the only ways to get at us. Need to be comfortable on the ball although competent will do as long as confident. Don’t have to be Thiago level but will struggle if not competent and confident, preferably good. Need some pace, even when not playing the recent very high line we still have our CBs covering a large area and we are open to fast paced counter attacks. You won’t cope in our defence unless you’ve got the mobility to get around. As it’s the English game they have to be able to cope with a physically demanding league too.
I’m not seeing home grown centre backs that I think would be available that would hit all those traits. I think we need a player from abroad and that means freeing up a slot. Either Adrian replaced with a home grown keeper or Shaqiri or Origi moving on leaving us a bit more stretched up top.
I don’t think Fabinho at CB was a long term idea anyway, not yet at least.
I think so far we can actually be really happy how long some of our key players managed to stay fit. It’s not mentioned enough I think, but that was also not a small part of our recent success. I wasn’t sure if Virgil could do what he did in his first almost 3 years with us, I don’t think nobody saw that happening. This was a real unlucky injury, too.
He will have around 2 years left on his deal when he returns and going into his 30’s, hopefully early signs prove he will be fine and we can agree on a new contract with him. I think that was on the table anyway, but maybe he wasn’t in a rush to sign and, realistically, I completely understand, given how his career went and where he’s at now in terms of status and age.
We took a calculated risk (I didn’t like it, but I could understand the reasons in this situation), but now we’ve lost our best player in that part of the team. Thiago as a single pivot at #6 (can do it on paper, though Bayern never really played with a single pivot) is still not the same as Fabinho. Henderson’s form as an #8 since the spring of 2019 proved to be not easy to replace in the mean time when he was missing. This is not a computer game where you can just shift stuff only going by form, which can change very quickly. There’s also qualities, specific qualities, style, experience.
So unless another player popped up (like some of the younger ones, but the difference is huge at the moment), like par example Garcia managed at City, I think we were always going to buy a CB in one of the next two windows. Circumstances would command what type of signing that would be, we’ll see if the current situation changes that now. Profile, qualities, price, age, positions he can cover maybe, the foot/side he plays in, etc.
This season looked to be a wild one even without Virgil’s injury, now who knows what happens with us this season.
Two things I’m sure will happen:
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There will still be periods when it seems fine and our level hasn’t dropped that much (though in that case people might exaggerate and call for 10-year contracts for Gomez and Matip!). It would be a bit disappointing to see that happening anyway. Virgil really is one of the key pieces, but I will still have certain expectations of this team to keep a relatively high level perfomance.
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He’s top quality as a player and we’ll miss him for sure, but I think mentally it will be a bigger blow than expected. I’m looking at Matip and Gomez and the only thing I don’t want to see apart from playing mistakes is mental sinking.
We’ll have to be creative now. We didn’t really have an injury of this magnitude lately, certainly not since hitting this top level of performance and winning trophies. But we showed in other capacity that we’re pretty creative internally.
I want to see us awake, focused, hungry, ready to make little adjustments tactically if needed. We have solutions. It’s not always sell this and buy that. We have flexible individuals, we can flip approaches, we can switch midfield structures if we have to protect better that CB area. Sure, we’ll have to react maybe already in January, if not next summer. But please let’s not sink mentally and let’s remain a high level team, bottom line horrible to play against.
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Agree with that Zoran. The other area that concerns me is Bobby. What should we do to get him back in form? Personally I think a few games on the bench with Jota starting would be good.
I think a switch to 4231 would help. A double pivot of 2 from Thiago, Henderson and Wijnaldum with Keita sometimes used as a more attacking option and Milner as emergency cover. That’ll help protect the back 4 more particularly the CBs. Having Firmino drop into the 10 behind Salah at CF (Origi and Jota as his back ups) with Mane back to right forward or possibly still on the left sometimes. Plenty of competition between Jota, Ox, Minamino, Jones, Shaqiri and Origi to fight between them for one starting role and to cover the starters for rest/rotation and cameos off the bench. Gives us tactical flexibility as well being able to choose from more forward types like Jota and Origi and more creative attacking mid types like Shaqiri, Ox and Jones. Think this season is going to require unprecedented rotation in the side. I am worried about that.
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For some inexplicable reason there isn’t an Mbappé rumour thread
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Thats because it isn’t a rumour, deal already done for next summer. #Mabappe2021
Oh Mr Edwards you cheeky little devil 
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Ah, it’s on TIA. So 
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Central defenders?
Kabak
Upamecano
Koundé
Is what I’ve read as being our short list… Now talent aside Upamecano’s middle name is Oswald so thats a huge tick for me.
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Oswald;he must be good at long distance shooting.
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Jou Fucking Knowit
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Dayotchanculle - cool first name. What’s the origin of that?
The more I watch Tielemans, the more I think that Leicester overpaid for him but, at the same time, I can’t help the feeling that he’d be immense if he was playing for Liverpool under Klopp’s guidance. I’m not even sure why I think the former, maybe I’d like to see him get involved in physical duels more and looked more menacing in pressing but his technical ability is sublime and his physical traits are pretty similar to Wijnaldum’s.
I just don’t think the P/L would allow us to build a grassy knoll in the middle of the pitch
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I’ve got a feeling his long range shooting is overrated and a bit of a myth
His decoy runs though… next level…
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Glimpsed him last night and he looks like he’ s put a load of weight on to me.
Middle name aside… I do believe Upamecano has the most class and athleticism of the bunch of replacement candidates you mentioned. Here’s hoping we can convince Leipzig to sell him in January. I have a feeling we’re going to have to pay more than his 38m release clause because that isn’t active until next summer. But considering LFC’s injury crisis, this is a must have move to shore up the Defence.
First we lose Van Dijk for what may be the entire season. Then Fabinho goes down. And Matip isn’t even healthy yet. Big OOF!
If Leipzig are still top 2 in the Bundesliga, and through to the knockout stages of CL, I’d expect they’d give a flat “NO” to any enquiries for Upamecano, unless we’re willing to actually splash VVD level cash.
Just praying that Fabinho’s hamstring is a 2-3 week job and not a 4-6 week one.