I will be very surprised if we don’t add a defender, probably a central defender, left footed if we are being picky.
Beyond that, there are lots of questions. We have lots of midfielders. Do we have a dominant defensive midfielder?
As for the strikers, we know that Slot likes his wingers, so we will probably add another winger, young, fast, can beat a man easily to open it up.
There are questions up front, too. Where will Mo play? Will he sign an extension? Will he move on? What about the question marks over Darwin Nunez? Probably click bait, but a few whispers he might move.
Then there’s Trent. Will he stay at fullback? Or will he move to midfield?
And Trent, Salah and VVD all have one year left. They probably won’t all sign new deals, and they probably won’t all wind their deals down either, so what combo will it be between sell, extend, and leave it be?
in 19/20 he was half of the best CB pairing in the league and was also in discussions as to oe of the starting CB’s for England. 1 dodgy England call up later and he has suddenly lost over 12 months of his career and since then has been suffled all over the defense and even into DM.
How do you expect a player to get back upto speed in a role when he never gets a consistent run of games in that role?
You need to go back and watch our games when we won the league. He was the first choice partner alongside VVD and they were the cornerstones of one of the best defenses that has been seen in British football.
He played a lot at CB last season and was extremely poor in pretty much all of those appearances. His previous form at CB, which is now nearly 5 seasons ago, doesn’t really make me confident he can recapture it when he’s shown himself to be a better RB or LB in recent seasons. Also, if it is a confidence/rhythm issue then how does staying on as the 4th choice CB help him recapture it?
My issue with him at CB in recent seasons is he doesn’t read games well, he’s reactive not proactive and that’s a major negative to a CB. He gets dictated to by the forward, he doesn’t control the area. He’s also pretty poor in 1v1 aerial duels.
With our budget and ambitions I don’t think we need to be holding on to players who don’t suit what we need. Gomez will be 4th choice CB, 3rd choice RB and 2nd choice LB - if we don’t improve our options there - and at that point I see him as someone who is blocking the progress of other options. We could get a better CB to push the first team, we can get a younger LB to develop behind Robertson and we don’t really need him to stick around at RB now that we have other options.
I wouldn’t be upset if he stays but if it stops us getting a new LB and/or CB I’d be disappointed. Settling for the current version of Joe Gomez as a CB is a bit mediocre to me. Especially when you consider that most people are currently complaining about our poor defending and even in this situation he cannot earn a minute in the middle of the park.
Consistency in what your role is would play a big part. If you are forever moving around and changing positions you don’t get that chance to build any sort of rhythm. If he were to be 4th choice CB, yes he might lose time on the pitch, but he would also be gaining a set position/role, so he would not have to worry about consantly adjusting his game and what is being asked of him
TBH I wouldn’t be selling a guy who can play across the back line, or even DM, is coming off arguably his best season for us, counts as homegrown and is only about to turn 27.
We need good squad options and Joe is definitely that imo.
The only reason Gomez would leave the club is if because he wants to go. There were some rumours a week ago that he wants the club to listen to offers if they came in, but he wouldn’t force things. It’d also explain the Geertruida stuff, as he’d be a direct replacement. Otherwise, he wouldn’t be someone I’d be wanting the club to sell, unless the player wanted to leave.
That was true until Nov 11, 2020 which was Gomez’s 4th extreme long term injury (>100 days out) in his then 5 years with LFC.
He has done well to come back from so many long-term injuries. However, these injuries are so damaging to him in 2 major ways.
First, his reliability is affected. Once your reliability is affected, any club that has a functioning data analyst team would have flagged it out and will need to be rectified somehow. Be it counselling, rehab or even going into the transfer window or the academy to replace the said player.
Second, the player’s mental aspect. Up to the end of the 20/21 season, he has been out for a cumulative 717 days. Those 717 days since 2015 would have been useful in developing his mental skillset as a CB while learning from VVD but the time has since passed. With so many days gone, Gomez would be thinking if he is ever gonna be a starter CB not just for LFC but also for England. And more importantly, the player will think when is the next big injury coming and that will affect his decision making when going for 50-50s.
Most analyses of his performances at Mainz have been very encouraging. As @Istanbill points out, if you were getting scouting reports for “best young defenders in Europe” he’d be on many of the insiders lists. I have no idea if that means he is good enough, but lack of first team game time for a 17-20 year old in what was at the time one of the best defenses in the world is also not a reasonable standard to use for whether the now older and more experienced version would be good enough.
Yes. But it’s not the numbers as much as it is the experience. Your fourth and fifth have a season of PL experience between them. Gomez seems not to play CB much anymore and Konate will miss games with injuries.
Let VdB move on, bring in a top draw centre back and let Quansah and Gomez be fourth and fifth options.
