Carvalho is playing his best football for Hull City as a CF but yes I see him playing more of a winger role. Honestly I think once Salah leaves that allows the whole frontline to be become far more mobile. No longer restrained by Salah’s positioning on the pitch, the front three will be much more fluid and I see their “position” as really a minute by minute thing.
2 Likes
He’s had 8 years of working under Klopp to do it, why wait till Klopp’s final run of games? He’d be more suited to hold off till the first home game at Anfield under Slot to do it.
New manager, new goal scoring hero 
I also think tactically a lot of teams have tried and succeeded in laying pressing traps on our left side with Virg and Ali being right footed and therefore they aren’t really great at playing out when being forced on to their left foit, Arsenal did this to great effect.
Signing a LCB will also allow Virg to move to the right and give us better balance against teams that press.
Klopp did a fantastic job once again with limited resources and he manged to reinvigorate the squad, developed players and several very promising academy players are already part of the first team.
Last summer Juergen bought - Endo /16 mln. pounds/, MacAllister /35 mln./, Gravenberch /35 mln./,.Szoboszlai /60 mln./. At the same time we sold Fabinho /40 mln. pounds/ and Henderson /12 mln./ for 52 mln. pounds. Milner, AOC, Keita, Firmino left on free transfers.
The wage bill is much more balanced with the sales and free transfers. At the end of this season Matip, Thiago and Adrian will also leave on a free transfer, something that will free more funds for the club.
The squad is much younger, stronger and on a pretty decent wage bill. Not many changes are required in my opinion.
Players that will be available for transfers and will add to the coffers of the new manager- Kelleher /15-20 mln. pounds./,Nat Phillips /3-5 mln. pounds/, Owen Beck /5+ mln. pounds/, Tyler Morton /7-9 mln. pounds/. Salah could allo be sold for around 100 mln. pounds, Sepp is also on the list of possible sales. Those transfers could inject around 150 mln. pounds hopefully available for transfers and improving an already good squad.
Goalies: Alisson, Jaros, Mrozek. Jaros is playing really well for Sturm Graz, his team are league leaders with only 4 games left /well, next match is RB Salzburg away, they are 2nd only 3 points behind Jaros’ team. I fully expect to see Vitzeslav being part of Czech football team at the EC.
Defence:
RB - Gomez and Bradley. TAA will hopefully start to play in midfield under the new manager.
LB - Tsimikas and Robbo. I’d like to keep both of them at least for a season and from 2025 maybe start to think about a top replacement for Andy.
CD - VvD, Qansah, Konate and one more. I would love the club to recall Sepp and give him a proper chance and who knows with a new Dutch manager maybe he could get a chance, but there are rumours from Germany that if Mainz stay in the Bundesliga, they will sign van den Berg. Probably the new name will be Pacho, interesting name, Eintracht signed him from Antwerp last summer. Another one from a bright new generation coming from Ecuador.
Midfield: Endo, Bajcetic, Gravenberch, Jones, MacAllister, TAA /hopefully/, Szoboszlai, Clarke, Elliott.
In my opinion we definitely need a top class defensive midfielder. $ity have Rodri, Arsenal have Rice, we have Endo… That is not good enough, if you want the title and the CL, also Maca should be played in a more advanced position. Bajcetic will need time and maybe s decent loan in the PL or Primera to develop. Clarke is also very good and I am not sure, if he needs a loan. In my opinion a top defensive midfielder /Bruno Gimaraes/, TAA and MacAllister will be a fomidable starting trio in midfield. Endo, Gravenberch, Jones, Elliot, Clarke will be really good options to have.
Attack:
If Salah is sold, that means we will have Jota, Gakpo, Nunez and Diaz. Doak definitely needs to play regularly, probably in the Championship /a team like Hull or Coventry will be a very nice option/.
Gordon could be loaned out too. Danns could stay and the club will need to go out and sign a proper forward, probably a right winger and we need a top finisher, becuase Nunez and Lucho need too many chances to score a fuckin goal, while Diogo spends too much time injured. Fabio Cravalho is thriving at the moment, but Rossenior is playing him as a false 9. 18 matches and 9 goals and he is neither a midfielder, nor a winger. His best position is number 10 or false 9. And my feeling is that he could be an interesting option for Slot.
A defensive midfielder, central defnder and a forward are the most pressing issues and the club will have money to spend. Bruno for 100 mln. pounds, Pacho for 40-50 mln. pounds and a forward who could score goals and play on the right side of our attack. Of course, Dom Szoboszlai played mainly on the right side of RB Laipzig for the majority of 2022/2023 season. So the captain of Hungary could be an option in that position, but I will be glad, if the club manage to find a real successor of Mo Salah.
2 Likes
I wasn’t impressed by the business done last summer, and so far, my opinion hasn’t changed. When you sign players who aren’t at the required level, it often ends up costing more in the long run.
Mac Allister is a very good player and a very good signing. However, the rest of the signings seem a bit average to me. At least so far.
Endo has performed well in games, but he lacks quality on the ball. I don’t see him as a starting-level player. Szoboszlai had a promising start, but he hasn’t really shown much since. Just average really and I’m not convinced he’s going to be the level of player we need.
Gravenberch is streaky. Gakpo another, not dynamic enough. Nunez possesses talent but struggles with inconsistency, particularly in composure and finishing, crucial aspects in front of goal. Not convinced he’s good enough either.
We have two players in the world eleven. Allison and van Dijk. Alexander-Arnold is quality, and he’d be there or thereabouts, though he still needs to improve defensively. Occasionally too casual. Mac Allister is a standout. These are the players we need to build around. Salah has been excellent, but his recent performances raise questions about his longevity, and what he’ll offer going forward.
Ideally, we need to acquire two quality midfielders, with one being a defensive midfielder. Additionally, a left-back, centre back, and another forward are necessary. Realistically, I doubt the club will sign all the required players, but we definitely need at least two or three quality additions.
2 Likes
-
solve goalkeeper backup situation
-
bring in a CB
-
one or two attackers out → one or two attackers in
People laughed at Xabi when he brought in Granit Xhaka but he saw it as an important piece of the puzzle.
So I’m wondering if we have all the type of midfielders to be able for Slots style of football.
2 Likes
I think Macca, Diaz, Gravenberch, Trent and Gakpo will all thrive under Slot.
Dom is questionable due to his form this year.
I think Dom will be fine. I think the set back on that injury really has hampered him a bit. I think someone fucked up there as that one he came off with looked a 6-8 week type and yet he returned in 2.
3 Likes
We need a CB, DM and a top striker and hope Slot can get similar to JK out of the rest.
1 Like
Take his exploits with the national team into consideration as well. He’s the captain and their best player, I’m sure he has Euros on his mind. Hopefully he’ll get his act together for the club afterwards.
1 Like
Szoboszlai has been pretty ordinary outside the first few months. Ordinary before his injury. While he was good the first few months, I wouldn’t call his form at the time exceptional.
However, i’m certainly not writing him off, and expect him to get better. Just how good well let’s see. Not convinced at this stage anyway. Then again, I never saw much of him for RB Leipzig nor Hungary.
1 Like
I thought what I’d seen him do for Hungary quite good to be fair.
I’ll put it down to the injuries, remember 3 months of Maca here I think a few were saying the same.
1 Like
I saw some mention that Feyenoord (and Netherlands) player Lutsharel Geertruida was in the stands for today’s match.
He is a centre back, defensive midfielder or right back according to his Wikipedia page. I like the idea of utility players. Do you think he could be the single stone to slay a few birds?
1 Like
I think Premier League’s brutal workload seems to caught up with him - this is his first season here after all. He ran out of steam after half a season.
Feel like we should prioritize signing someone already playing in PL for more physical roles like midfielders.
I totally agree. His performances at the start of the year prove this. Clearly the injury and the related recovery hampered him. He’ll be fine with rest and a pre-season under Slot.
3 Likes
Certainly a weird coincidence if there’s nothing more to this but equally odd he’d be so public if there was something in him being over here.
But, as a player I think that flexibility certainly has appeal and I read he’s Slot’s most used player. He also plays with Virg as a CB for the Netherlands.
Has the potential to fill a few roles we need whilst we assess longer term considerations like moving Trent into midfield, Virgil’s future beyond next season, the return of Bajcetic and Endo’s longer term prospects in the team.
Let him find the role he adds the most to within the team and address those others more aggressively next summer when Edwards, Hughes and Slot are more settled.
I think we might end up needing to focus most of our efforts and resources up top this summer if potentially Salah and Diaz could both move on so a swiss army knife solution to defence and midfield could be very useful.
2 Likes
Perfect publicity stunt.
Was he actually in the stands? It just seems unlikely that a random Liverpool fan would recognise a Feyenoord defender in the stands at West Ham’s stadium.
3 Likes
It was on a journalists page on Facebook. As with anything interesting on that app it had refreshed and disappeared into the ether before I found any more details.
On the plus side, I did get to see a video of a kitten trashing its owner’s apartment.
All I seem to get currently is Susan Hall. 