NEIL ATKINSON was joined by Martin Fitzgerald, Gareth Roberts and Melissa Reddy in a week in which Liverpool signed Joe Gomez from Charlton.
They touch on whether Liverpool use the loan system effectively and also focus on a few returning players and whether they can get a game next season.
Oh and LOADS on Carlos Bacca.
Bacca was my tip for last year. Now he is well overpriced. A better option is Lacazette or Rondon.
I would opt to keep Balotelli. Thus having Strurridge, Ings, Origi, Balotelli and whoever we buy.
Clyne and a central midfielder will wrap up business. How Kondogbia went to Inter Milan is absurd? He is a dynamo in midfield. Sissons would be useful!
Chocolate button and a wine gum in a bag? Already out there: Bags of Cadbury’s Mix Ups! (Not the bag with the oreo ones)
I had a look at Bacca last night. Went on Wiki and then watched his goals and assists from last season. I couldn’t believe it. I’ve been obsessed with the idea since. Dare I say it, he reminded me of Suarez a bit. It’ll be very interesting for me, in regards to, a) IF we genuinely go for him, b) How we go about that and c) If we end up with him.
I think that’s where I’m at. If we get him, I’d probably say some of the criticism levelled at the club / owners has been a bit of an over action and actually, we’re not that far away from the others and even that there’s evidence we’ve learned from our mistakes but if we end up with Benteke and pretty much no one else then I can see myself going down a negative route before the season’s already started. If then, the season starts badly it’s gonna be ugly.
I don’t like to feel that way myself. I hate it in fact. I hate reading it but for my own state of mind I need Bacca not Benteke. I can’t back up the technical reasons for that argument but it just feels right to me.
Hi Robin.
I am finding myself becoming a bit contrary on the striker targets. There is now a complete LFC fan groupthink going on with respect to Benteke and I can’t help but find myself hoping to see it disproved.
I was talking about Benteke with mate who is a big Villa fan (I had the mixed fortune of sitting next to him at Wembley for the Semi) and he was saying that he could see Benteke doing very well for us. I replied that I thought he probably wouldn’t be a good fit because of playing style, and he was really surprised by that view. I suspect most Villa fans would be.
That gave me pause for thought. I think we have been so scarred by the experience of watching Balotelli and Lambert struggle up front for us, that we can’t see how a whole load of proven strikers might work in a Liverpool team. Benteke isn’t Mario and he has shown he can score a whole variety of goals against Premier League defences. When fit he is first choice striker for a very strong Belgium team, and he is still only 24.
If Benteke ends up being coming, I hope your state of mind holds up and you can look forward to the new season!
Hi Graeme.
I make no secret of the fact I know nothing about most players outside of Liverpool. I did spend most of last season stating we were only 1 or 2 good strikers away from being really good, though. I did tell my unsure mate that Carroll was an absolute brilliant buy and I was one of those buzzing about Balotelli. I like to think I adapt with life and don’t make the same mistakes over and over. Benteke may prove to be brilliant. I remember being really impressed everytime he’s played us. I just feel it would be wrong in the same way I’ve got a sixth sense Bacca would be right. I’ve read articles by people who know more than me and they’re not convinced either.
You ask whether I’d get behind Benteke, Jesus mate, why would I not? I genuinely don’t care whether I’m right or wrong about something. I want Liverpool to win, simple. This is my issue though mate. If we did buy Benteke and he turned out to be brilliant I’d be laughing about how clueless we all are (that would be far more fun than being right). The problem is, what if I (and most other fans) were right? The ramifications are too great to consider. As I said above, it’d be ugly and toxic. It would reinforce all the negative points about the club from top to bottom. I can’t be arsed it with it all Graeme. I’d rather they just went out and bought a striker we all want. Bacca qualifies. If he didn’t score then we’d all be in it together. Benteke fails and all hell breaks loose.
But, having said all that, because of my lack of knowledge about how he’d fit it at Anfield I just can’t see Benteke not scoring for us. He’s a good player. I’m convinced he’d be good but I’ve been here before and it hasn’t ended well. Once bitten and all that…
Completely get the point about the ramifications if Benteke failed. It would not be pretty at all. The moaning would start as soon as he signed, and if he didn’t score in the first game, the pressure would build from there.
If Bacca comes great, but it might not be as simple to land him as some of the contributors on the pod seem to think. He is probably very comfortable in Spain and has CL football to look forward to with Sevilla. I haven’t seen much of him at all. He seems to score goals, but one good season in a top league does not make anyone a safe bet in my eyes.
Was coming on here to say the same thing. I have always thought Benteke was a really good striker and that he would do well for us. I appreciated Melissa’s article on how Benteke wouldn’t fit in to our style of play and would like to see more like it, but I think the assumptions she made over the type of player Benteke is were a long way off the mark.
I know highlights aren’t everything but go and have a look at Benteke’s highlights and tell me if he was playing in one of the “Ligas” there wouldn’t be an avalanche of tweets calling for us to sign him. Much more impressive than anything I have seen of Bacca. I understand we are scarred by the experience of Mario and Lambert but Benteke is neither of them. He may not be the fastest striker but he can run off the shoulder to keep the opposing centre backs honest when he needs to and he is very comfortable running at pace with the ball at his feet. He is also much, much better in the air than either of them despite their size, which, although it will never be our primary route to goal, is an important alternative.
You also don’t need a blisteringly fast striker to still play fluid attacking football. Giroud definitely isn’t the fastest guy going around but the way Arsenal’s wide players move around him it doesn’t matter, and when they pull into wide positions the centre backs need to drop to guard against crosses curled in behind them creating more room for central attacking players.
Martin’s claim that Bacca is a sure thing because he has scored in La Liga and lesser leagues is just silly. There are never any guarantees, look at Soldado. If anything Benteke, who has been tested against premier league defences is the surer bet. Finally, I get that it was an analogy but picking Lampard and Gerrard in midfield might work well in Fantasy football but was proven by the England set up to be a bad decision in real life. Likewise, Bacca could look the perfect Liverpool player on youtube but be a poor decision at the end of the season.
Bacca and Firmino links really only surfaced since the Copa began, easy for journos to link stories and fill page space.
Copa I would imagine makes it harder to do biz swiftly, is a Big thing for S. American footballers.
I don’t think anything comes into it but money and champs league, maybe community there is Columbian community in London is there in Liverpool?
Obviously can’t compete with Utd on either front.
I wander how much say Brendan has on Transfers now, considering he is extremely lucky to keep his job, the pressure on him is immense, showed last year that he could not handle it.
Reading something somewhere that Benteke is just a smokescreen, does that kind of thing go on?
Illori can he not play left back, battle with Moreno, I understood began his career as left winger.
Window has only just opened, so time to have a moan is after window shuts, let’s see what they can accomplish. and do not who is set to leave yet Borini, Lambert, Mario, Alberto, Wisdom, Enrique, Lovren, Lazar, Lucas, Raheem, and loans.
really poor podcast – again! Just too much moaning lfc supporters talking nonsense.
Melissa’s “just be more surgical” comments are just meaningless like her comparisons with chelsea – do you really not see the difference between them and us????
It’s not like shopping at tesco’s. If you’re not just going to pay whatever wages – like we used to – then it isn’t going to be like buying groceries, not to mention the CL thing.
Bacca – and why should he leave when he’s just won another Europa cup and is in the CL now – looks to me like he relies on other players to carry the ball in the box and then either pass to him in space or he gets himself in to positions where he can pick up a loose ball and poach/score.
Who do we have that drives the ball into the box? err, noone. We stay deeper and try to thread passes through, we never drive into the box. So it’s really not certain if he’ll fit our team, and at 29, he’s not getting your money back if it doesn’t work.
As far as the purchases go, that’s about budget. A striker and full back will cost most of £40m so there isn’t any budget for anyone else. Hence the freebies bought in. Some of those sales will pay for Ings.
We’re replacing those that left and fixing the striker problem.
And too many transfers? No, just not the right ones. We bought a balance of starters and backups last summer, the starters were mid twenties and PL experienced but were never good enough. Poor poor choices.
The youngsters make good backups and will be good in years to come.
Buy the right players and there’s no problem. But going for Lovren/Lallana/Balotelli is not going to improve you. That much is obvious but Rodgers is terrible at football management.
You need to up the quality of your podcasts, not all give the same opinion. A lot of it is garbage I’m afraid. Sorry, appreciate the free work but not impressed by the content.
Every single show offers different opinions from different contributors. And all you’re saying here is because you didn’t agree with them it’s somehow a barometer of the quality of the show. Can’t agree. Sorry.
I usually don’t have anything negative to say about the show but I have to agree with Johnny that this one definitely wasn’t one of the best (I did enjoy Martin’s call for Bacca so he could sell fish on the tram though). Hard to put your finger on what it is exactly, and not agreeing with what was said is probably part of it (although obviously I don’t agree with everything that is said usually) but I found large sections of it quite grating. Instead of the usual flow of opinions and banter the same points kept on getting reiterated so if you didn’t agree with it got quite annoying.
They don’t need to do anything Jonny. They run one of the most popular online football fanzines in the world.
They have lots of arguments on the show, but there isn’t a quota. You couldn’t name another Liverpool podcast that is even half as good.
Your comments amount to moaning about moaning! It’s a bit rich, asking for balance, when that is exactly what is missing from your post.
If you can find a piece or audio where I’ve compared Liverpool and Chelsea, I’d be very bemused JonnyS. The “surgical” quote is one that Mourinho used, and that is as far as the link with Stamford Bridge goes. Being surgical has nothing to do with money, and everything to do with clarity of planning. The only team in top four that I’ve pitted LFC against is Arsenal, because they’re the closest in terms of wage structure, profit etc. They’re the ones LFC can’t afford to slip further away from, because it makes breaking into the top four already more difficult than it is.
Perhaps you should do a bit of research on Sevilla and Bacca. He has told them he’d like to leave, they have said if his release clause is triggered, he will go. Also, worth watching his chemistry with Rakitic when he was there. As well as with Neymar and Coutinho. You also have completely missed the point about driving into the box, probably because you were just dead set on having a moan…
Missed out the very important word ‘Firmino’ in the ‘as well as with Neymar and Coutinho’ bit
If we get denis cheryshev, Fermino, Bacca, illarmendi for this transfer I feel we will be challenging for title again.
First paid for podcast, cheers lads n lasses.
Noticed the timing of Bacca’ s runs in the EL final, very good indeed. Just wondered about his injury record……
Gomez doesn’t make much sense whilst we still have Illori….
Keep up the good work
Les, he’s had one real injury – thigh which kept him out for 15 days in June 2014. ONE.
Firmino’s last notable injury (ankle) was Sept 2013 – 9 days.
Agree with the shout on Bacca that if we really want him then just pay the release clause and get him in. It’s not like it’s an astronomical amount.
Aubameyang is another who could come in for a similar amount and can play anywhere across the front 3.
If Sterling goes for the £45-50mil suggested then these 2 players could be fantastic replacements, both already better than Sterling!!!!