The Bellingham situation is the exact same as the VVD one a few years back. The boss wants Bellingham (hell we all do) and is quite content to carry on with what he has and wait to get him for another year if thats whats needed - rather than sign a lesser option Our midfield is hardly in ribbons and while getting Bellingham would of course improve options, having to go another season (maybe half a season if the VVD saga is anything to go by) with the midfielders that have been constantly in the top one or two teams in world football for the past few seasons is not the worst situation to be in. Having Elliot and Carvallho to drop in is bound to be a plus too Final question about our midfield......is James Milner really a terminator?
Yeah does seem that way. It seems to be club policy at times to play it down and if a deal can't be done early then to wait until the end of the window. I remember people losing their minds because it looked like we wouldn't sign Thiago or anyone else and then we got him and Jota in a day. Klopp has said Jones and Thiago aren't far away which should help whatever happens. I hope we get another midfielder but trust the club to get it right.
Klopp saying he was wrong about whether we needed a midfielder or not is just another example of the measure of the man. Very few managers will leave money available unspent,even fewer will take the blame for the situation that exists now because of injuries. For what it's worth I still think he's been unlucky.
I wouldn't agree with him being unlucky. It's not just the number of injuries but the quality of the players we do have whether they are fit or not and also the likelihood of some of those players being injured for a chunk of the season based on past evidence. I don't think enough quality is there to be happy to go into the season with what we have. If Klopp has any failings, and everybody does, it's on this point. We did it with centre halves before and we shouldn't be chancing our arm and risk writing off another season like we did before. It shouldn't happen again. People say for all their brilliance this team hasn't won as much as they might. Part of that is coming up against Citeh. A part is also not capitalising when we are as big an attraction to the top players as we ever have been. Consolidate when on top. Don't risk slipping. Avail of every positive you have to keep on top.
I like Tielemans, he's more levels in him with better team mates. His contract situation works too, we can flip him quite easily if but doesn't work out.
Let's be honest, if he'd of signed another midfielder the same day as Darwin Nunez, we'd still be having this conversation now. We'll never not be having this conversation unless we're better than City which is how football works I suppose, but it means he's always going to be accused of getting it wrong unless he's outperforming a club backed by an oil state, who haven't only assembled a brilliant coaching,analytics and recruitment team,but have money men finding ways to ignore the rules that are supposed to give teams not backed by oil states,a fighting chance. To compete with that he knows he has to squeeze full value out of every pound,and even if he gers everything right(which is not possible)far more often than not it still won't be enough if City are getting enough right on their end,which they have every season we've reasonably had a chance of getting enough points to take advantage,except 1 where we won 26 and drew 1 of our first 27 games with a squad a lot of people said wasnt strong enough. He's here 7 full seasons and I may be wrong mate,but it seems like you make the same "the squad isn't strong enough" argument every year. But we made top 4 in the years when that was all we could reasonably hope for and the argument was the lack of strength would see us 5th at best, then in all the years bar 1 where we had genuine hope of winning the league and the argument was our squad was too weak to do that, we cleared 90 points. Technically anybody who said our squad wasn't good enough in the title challenging years was right, but at the same time(and I'm not singling you out,it's just that we're both talking,and also I was on board with a lot of the "buy more players" rhetoric too)we were only strong enough to get that close to City,because he ignored so many of those calls. To me there's a large element of running with the hares and hunting with the hounds to these arguments. It's "OK,this team has set standards much higher than I thought we would with the squads we've been going into the season with and Klopp ignoring a lot of what I was calling for made that possible,but if he had of did what I wanted on these other occasions,then that 97 point season would have been a 99 point one,and the 93 point season would have been 95,and we'd have beaten Real Madrid 2-1". To me that's ignoring that all his decisions are linked,and of course he's going to get it wrong now and again, but that many injuries at one time is unlucky. On this occasion he's shown too much faith in his midfielders but that's another big part of our success. If you only show faith in situations where you know you won't be let down,then that's not really faith and you don't get the benefits that come with it.
This season is different though if a number of ways, firstly the season will be like no other in terms of non stop games, 2nd we now have evidence from 2021 of what injuries in 1 position will do and finally and most importantly I think we can safely assume Thiago and Jones are now officially injury prone. Adding them 2 to the permanent crocks leaves us in an unsustainable position.
We also had plenty of evidence to suggest why decisions he took in the past were big risks Bob, and more often than not, those risks paid off,if not in the short term then definitely in the long term. That's the thing when you're in a role where you have to take risks to compete with the most consistent English league team of all time, they won't all pay off. I don't think this was even close to the biggest risk he's taken down the years,that kind of injury list after 2 games was unlikely,but this one has backfired so he'll have to deal with I told you so's, even if I think those I told you so's should be far more muted.
Its not true to say ive said it every year but i did say it when we didn't replace Lovren and I did say it when we didn't replace Gini, which is still the case now. I don't think it is unlucky when these things are foreseeable and looking at the players we have. Give yourself every chance every season. I don't believe we are doing that now.
Klopp made a comment recently about him not controlling money so I think there might be some frustration on his part too about being left where we are now in terms of midfield options. It might be a blessing that it's happened now instead of in a months time when it's too late to make a signing so hopefully we see someone in the door before transfer window shuts.
I don't think anybody will argue that we shouldn't be giving ourselves the best possible chance each season,but my point is individual seasons don't exist in a vacuum,nor do individual signings. Balancing how a signing will impact on transfer funds,our wage bill, pathways for developing players, what impact a planned future signing might have on how much value for money we get out of somebody we're signing now, managing squad size to maintain morale and mental attitudes in the dressing room,and probably way more things I haven't thought of, is complex as fuck. And if we weren't taking all that into account, then replacing Gini or Lovren would be just 2 of a much longer list of arguments to be had, because we'd be miles away from competing. I'd also agree that sometimes we probably make a situation more complicated than it needs to be and this might be one of those times, but thats an unavoidable hazard of the situation we're in because our mistakes are far costlier than City's.
Neves and Laimer seem to be the two that we're batting our eyelashes at according to the reports. On a slightly different tack, delighted to see Paul Merson hasnt lost his ability to be a total arse. Selling Mane - "a big game player, in a team that plays big games - is the WORST piece of business I have ever seen" Missing 10 of the 25 man squad doesnt register in his tiny mind, and the fact that Sadio WANTED to go and I dont think anyone would say that the left hand side is the greatest of our problems atm. As for worse pieces of business - how about selling Van Persie to Utd.,,,,Giving Ozil 450k a week...Nicholas Pepe for 70m? The man just winds me up
Always thought Houssem Aouar would be a world class midfielder, read he is available for £10-£12.5m Interested can another club than Lyon get him back to his best and back on track .