Ah that’s right… but didn’t he kick it from his hands and I think the ball bounced over the opposing keeper… This guy just smashed it in from about 80m 
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He taken penalties and free kicks around the edge of the box and is a career 3-4 goal a season player. There is reason to consider him, but adding goals from midfield is not one of them.
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Granted. Those goals are coming from set pieces. But goals are goals. I think it’s more important that he would add quality to the midfield. We’re getting overrun back there. Who else would you want to buy at CM besides Jude Bellingham?
Do you mean ‘beside’ as in who else we want to partner Jude in midfield? Love that subtlety that you know we are getting Jude.
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For those in the know, how good is Bella-Kotchap? I’ve only watched him twice, and he wasn’t exactly error-free, but he caught my eye with his physical attributes and direct approach.
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A tasty condiment which adds flavour to any meal
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Did this season show that we need another midfielder?
We now have 6 weeks until our next game.
The transfer window opens 11 days later.
Work needs to be done now to have someone here on January 1st.
No need to wait and see how Arthur and Naby are doing.
No need to wait until after the World Cup.
No need to wait and see if we can sell Nat or someone else.
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This season so far shows me that perhaps we didn’t have a good pre-season, that our foundations aren’t there, when they often are.
It’s not all about transfers in and out.
Klopp said a few months ago that the problems were footballing ones (some players being late, too early, not in sync enough in our defending from the front - which I agree), yesterday he said that the problems are of physical nature with the injuries we have.
I hope the staff are asking themselves if we did or are doing something wrong to have so many injuries that are not after contacts with opponents.
I mean, 21/22 was pretty good considering how terrible 20/21 was. So it’s not all the time.
But the tempo of injuries-no injuries-injuries is not sustainable either.
The midfielder question is overrated by now.
Do I think we needed to replace Gini with a similar type of player? Yeah. Do I think it’s the main problem of this team right now? No.
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Doesn’t mean much if we have a first team squad of 30 players with 10 central midfielders if we are going to continue having players unavailable so often.
We’re not far from it either in fact, we have a squad of 27(!) full time first team senior players. Let’s not forget that. I piss myself laughing when someone says we’re short. We should better ask ourselves why we have such large squads and often close to 10 injuries.
I know there’s no reset button for this, when most players return from injury they don’t start reborn and from zero. There are consequences for the future. It accumulates.
We’re not from the dark age, regardless of the risk of Klopp’s football being a bit of that, losing players more than some other teams.
But maybe in a few details this pre-season (when we build the foundation in the basement for the whole season) we made mistakes, combined with just years and years of the same approach. Gives fruits and results, but also leaves us “wounded”.
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Fully agree there were mistakes made in pre season - we could quite easily be 10 points better off with the exact same squad if things had gone differently. Too many injuries and poor tactics have seen us drop far more points than this squad is capable of.
That said, we still need reinforcements. There’s a good case for replacing Matip in the summer IMO - I think we’ve seen the best of him and we have too many fragile centre backs. Not sure how Tapsoba has been playing recently, but someone of that profile to replace him would be my pick.
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Numbers weren’t an issue at the beginning of the season, I think there was a discussion here about it. It was rather the reliability of players that was questioned, especially by people who wanted a new midfielder.
I’d really like to know why we suffer more injuries than, say, Man City. Is it the training methods, style of football, work load or sheer bad luck? AOC had some difficult times at Arsenal but the injury that effectively ruined his career happened here during a tackle. Jota’s two big injuries happened during attempted tackles/jumps. Diaz, the epitome of fitness, had his knee landed on by a player. Elliott missed four months because of a wild tackle, Alcantara likewise, Van Dijk missed a whole season because of Pickford.
While you can’t account for contact injuries, surely the coaching staff knew they couldn’t rely on Alcantara, Keita, Henderson and AOC staying fit? They knew early enough that Tchouameni wouldn’t go this way and that the squad was in the middle of transition.
Also, if someone had told me that Konate will this important to the team so early in his career… A centre back of his profile just has to be high on the list, alongside a dynamic midfielder.
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I disagree, bringing in a player like Caicedo in January is imperative to us kicking on after Jan.
Alisson’s brilliance has masked a midfield and defensive unit which is far too easy to bypass and create good chances against. Southampton could have easily ended 3-3 but for his brilliance.
My view is Van Dijk without the fear of injury and missing the world cup is a difference beast come Jan. Likewise Trent but even if he doesn’t buck up his ideas Ramsey looks like he is going to be a very good option.
However the midfield is still the same failing mix of too young, too old and too injury prone. We have a distinct lack of legs in there, you can see us tire every game. The likes of Oxlade/Keita need to be moved on to make room for a couple at least of younger and more robust players. The engine room of our team needs serious refreshment over the next couple of windows. Klopp literally says this but sadly too late with a week left of the window… The squad hasn’t changed.
I agree with ILLOK that another center back (probably summer) is important, we need another in the 20-24 range to bed in over next year. Gvardiol would be ideal but looks like he’s off the Chelsea.
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Yeah, I agree.
We need both. A better base and some new additions. I don’t think it will be this revolution of “at least 3 midfielders”. Two might do the trick, maybe another player somewhere, depending on what happens with Bobby and that’s it.
On Matip…
I was already highly suspicious when we gave him a new contract. Not because he didn’t merit it on the pitch, but maybe we have to be more objective with some players that are entering a certain period in their careers and are simpy not proving to be available enough.
Same goes with Keita. I was excited as f*ck when we signed him, still think he was pretty good most of the time, even if he never reached what I thought/hoped he might be. But we need to move on from some of those cases and not end up carrying them for years and getting often something like 10, 15, 20 games per season.
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I don’t think a signing is imperative for us to kick on after January. We as fans often see the solution in exactly that. We will need a few next summer, we might sign one in January (examples of good deals in January in the past, although it’s mainly more difficult than not).
Gvardiol doesn’t make much sense right now for top money because he’s playing Virgil’s position. He leaves Leipzig to go somewhere where he will play, not wait for Virgil’s level to seriously drop, which might not happen for a few more years yet.
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It’s about getting legs and energy into the team, we already look flat so imagine this after the world cup? Especially considering Henderson and Fabinho are both off to the world cup and Thiago whilst brilliant is not up to 3 games a week (which is the schedule come Jan).
I have zero expectation Keita will miraculously be available all next year after a great pre-season in Dubai.
It’s a condensed season from Jan and considering our energy levels seeminlgy in the pits not reinforcing seems folly.
On Gvardiol, it depends what Van Dijk does after Jan, if he continues this passive shite then he needs a player to come in and directly compete with him.
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Gvardiol strikes me as a defender for a back 3 rather than a back 4, though I could be wrong as I haven’t seen loads of him.
I know we’ve been critical of Van Dijk but he is still better than most defenders, we do take a lot of what he does for granted. I can’t imagine Gvardiol would be anywhere near his level playing in this team.
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It’s important to appreciate the challenge of integrating new players when there is such a defined way of doing things. And when we believe our day to day standards are higher. The more players you do it with at once the bigger the challenge of sustaining that day to day quality, likewise with a group that is not already well oiled (as tends to be the case when significant changes are made). It’s not just about how those players adapt, but also a knock on effect for the existing players suffering from the overall quality of the drills dropping while the new players get up to speed.
This all tells me that while it might be initially harder for the players, the overall advantage to next season of getting one of our targets in this winter is significant. So let’s get Caicedo, let him up to speed over a half season while learning from good pros like Milner and Ox, and then when the decks are cleared in the summer he is ready to start pre-season with that experience under his belt.
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Trouble is, the more I look at young(ish) centre backs who might be available at some point, the more it seems that a lot of them are better suited or at least currently playing in a back three. There have to be some players who are suited to our system but I’m struggling to name one that impressed me (Guehi perhaps - at a stretch - and he’d cost a bomb).
I’ve been critical of Van Dijk this season as well - funnily enough, as much as we took his imperious approach for granted, it seems that he’s taking this season for granted as well. It occurred to me that this would be his first World Cup and that he had already missed Euros - someone please correct me if I’m wrong. So, I understand his reserved approach if that’s really going through his head. Anyway, there’s no centre back I’d rather have, even though it’s probable that he’s near the start of his natural decline.
That’s why I think that finding another Konate (left sided if I’m being picky) is as important as finding another midfielder. Not that it matters but one thing that I can’t decide in my head is whether that midfielder should be Fabinho’s/Alcantara’s replacement or Henderson’s successor, I really can’t tell as a lot depends on how Elliott, Jones and, to an extent, Bajčetić develop.
I also agree with @Draexnael and @Limiescouse about signing a first team midfielder in January for the sake of his adjustment. Not everyone can be Salah, Mane or Diaz. Alcantara is a world class player and it took him quite a while to bed in, even after all the fitness related issues had passed. Our potential record signing of all time has only just started showing why the club splashed out the cash on him and if we’re going to hit the ground running quickly next season, having him fully integrated and familiar with his surroundings could go a long way.
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Do you know how much Gvardiol will cost? Surely we have bigger issues than putting Virgil van Dijk under pressure.
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Signing a CB? Where does that come from now?