Who would you buy?

This is very romantic, but it just isn’t a realistic factor in what would make us do work in the market. If we think we need a forward we’re not going to forgo it in the expectation that an academy player with this little first team exposure.

Looking at your list, the 5 games missed at the end of 2018-19 were then aggravated by the national team, with Jürgen himself mentioning that his injuries were aggravated by rushing him back too soon

That’s 15 games within 2 seasons alone. He does miss a game every now and then (averages about 5-6 games per season), which is as far as I can tell, not too dissimilar to a Steven Gerrard, to whom he’s apparently quite similar in style and should therefore see similar injuries to.

He also had an ankle injury after missing a couple of games due to the hamstring and ligament injuries in 2020-21 that basically made up the bulk of the games that he missed due to injury that season (ignoring the COVID-caused 6 games missed), which gave rise to Jürgen’s comments in the second link above about how we had to rush him back because of injuries in other areas.

He also didn’t feature in the 9 games we closed out the 2020-21 season, but not because of injuries or anything intrinsic to him: Jurgen Klopp explains where Naby Keita’s ‘long-term’ future lies - Liverpool FC - This Is Anfield

He’s no more injury-prone, when not rushed back, than a midfielder would expect to be with that workload. In fact, in that regard, he’s not too dissimilar to Henderson.

However, as someone else, think it was @Mascot, commented, a problem for him is that he tends to get injuries at inconvenient times, i.e. when we are already suffering from injuries to other midfielders, which only exacerbates the impression.

But of course, nuance and detail are lost on you.

you’ll see lots of him in the World Cup, when my :maple_leaf: Canadian lads take on Croatia…

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from everything I see out there in the transfer market, I think we have to clear out Ox and Naby in January (assuming they healthy) and see what we can get for them. buy Neves from Wolves, and maybe a punt on a possible Bosman January grab like Aouar??

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My main point is whatever budget we have, we will use the bulk of it in midfield, which is our greatest need.

Beyond the midfield I also see a need for an understudy to Mo. Not nearly as pressing a need, and we might go without for a while, but if we do sign I expect a cheaper option with a high potential ceiling, left footer to come in off the right, like Moukoko, or Duran. Kaide Gordon may or may not be too far behind the two I just mentioned, but if he has a chance we might wait a bit if it’s not pressing.

Didn’t he have a bad knee injury?

missed three games.

A midfielder on January 1st.

Bellingham in the summer.

And then we have to see what happens with Bobby.

I accept I have probably come in mid conversation here and may have missed the point. But, I can not disagree with the points raised by @Notasuperfan in the post you responded to.
I like AOC and Keita, I think they have great attributes both on and off the pitch and are well liked characters. But if we are being honest they are very rarely available, whether that be through injury, illness, personal issues. We are very quick to mock Hendo, Milner, Fabinho and Tiago as been old and not having the legs, but at least they play (turn up on a regular basis).
I remember reading an interview about Naby with him saying that how as a kid, he used to play football on the street, almost getting runover by cars and bouncing off them. I am being flippant here, but at present he couldn’t bounce off a marshmallow without sustaining some kind of injury.

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Read the follow-up posts and see if that changes your mind?

What does Melissa know eh…

This is a good list of midfielders

Minus Tielemens

Maybe he might be a bit more resistant to injury now, if he hadn’t been repeatedly hit by cars as a child?

What local journalists write in their columns shouldn’t have an effect on our transfer policy either way. It is not their job to dictate transfer policy, and nor should it be, as the vast majority of them have a crap understanding of the game.

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Happily take Caicedo and Tielemans

Apparently to the entire management hierachy in LFC, none of them are better than Milner/AOC/Keita/Elliott/Jones.

The point was about injury prone players :slight_smile: and some on this forum who will argue blind that we don’t have any.

Well no, being better is only one of the factors the management have to consider.

Thuram, so that we have two pharaohs in our team!

I know I’ve done this before, but Thuram has 2 kids right? This is the younger one who isnt a forward?

Darwin, Diogo and Díaz all still young. Salah still scoring his goals.

Think it wouldn’t be too bad to keep Bobby for one or two more years and it would safe us some money for other transfers.

I’m expecting him to leave unfortunately.

Replacing him like for like is impossible - he’s been one of a kind.

Think we would go for someone who’s flexible but can also cover Salahs position on the right side.

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