With the transfer window closed, clubs up and down the country will be assessing what they’ve got, how they did and what they could have done better.
Rob Gutmann was joined by Paul Senior, John Milburn and Josh Sexton to look at how Liverpool did on those fronts, and compare their business to that of their rivals.
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John Milburn’s point at the start is absolutely spot on.
I’d reached a similar conclusion and was desperate to run with it in my arguments recently but decided after all the fallouts I’d had that it was too incendiary. Admittedly, I’m up and down over LFC but generally take a positive approach in that I feel there’s a bigger picture. The positivity after the window had me seething if I’m honest. I’m happyish with what we have but I also feel we’re relying on a luck that’s almost impossible to achieve over the season. Maybe we get achieve it until January. My argument is 50/50. I do ‘get’ Klopp’s wanting to wait for better players. I feel over time we’ll benefit. But, if we say VVD will be an LFC player by July 18, then had we bought a £20m /£25m centre half then we’d have VVD, Lovren, Matip plus the £20m / £25m defender from this window. i.e. bomb out Klavan and develop Gomez as a full back. That extra body who I’m assuming would be competing with Lovren next season for 3rd spot would have played 30 games this season (providing we don’t sign one in January). Point is, I can wait for VVD and the first 11 CH. But, imagine this scenario – Klavan get’s an injury next week that keeps him out for 12 weeks. We’ve got all our hugely important group games plus ties v City, Utd, Everton, Spurs and Chelsea (all either side of CL games). Do Lovren and Matip play every game until December. Do they play all the ones above and rest for West Ham, Southampton etc? Well, they can’t. We’d only have Gomez or Can at a push. The league dream will slip away rapidly. Imagine Matip being out 12 weeks. We’d have Klavan and Lovren in the CL and big league games. Believe me, we’re now relying on luck and even if we have it we’ll still have a weak spot.
Am I the only one that thinks that the biggest thing that the club did wrong was pull their interest in VVD? If I was running the club I would have apologized and then if they asked for more say “We’ll take the player off your hands for whatever price you set and then we will add 10 million pounds for the whole situation to go away”. If then they say they will take us to the Premier League then let them and then when at the premier league stuff bring up that southampton(Iker Casillas, VVD from Celtic) and the rest of the clubs in the do the exact same stuff that we do and that we shouldn’t be punished. We are shockingly low on centerback cover and especially with us leaving clyne out of the Champions League squad we actually have only 3 centerbacks that don’t count as utility players. I would have just gone in for VVD and risked being brought to the premier league.
Just listened to the rest of this. My feeling on why Lfc kept Coutinho is this.
FSG don’t want to fall out with the fans. We saw the back down over the ticket price hike, we saw them address SOS’s Russian visa requests. They want harmony among the fanbase. Now, for some reason the FSG out dicks have really started to pipe up recently. We always hear ‘they sell our best players’. Anyone with any sense knows it’s not quite as simple as that. But, had Coutinho gone it would have reached a crescendo. FSG don’t want it. If as I presume, Klopp reached the point that if Coutinho wanted to go then x million could actually improve the squad going forward, why would FSG go against him? Or, why were they so resolute from the start. When they took over they were amazed at how little a contract was worth in football but I think they accepted it. I know they want success for the club. That’s clear from the sackings and appointments. Maybe, they’ve brought all these things together and made a decision but I’m convinced they don’t want a new H&G situation especially when success is so close. We don’t need it and they don’t. We’re not necessarily gonna have a H&G situation as it stands but they don’t want it full stop. I think this was an attempt to put it to bed. Van Dijk would have. Van Dijk / Lemar / keep Coutinho would have led to any further dissenters being sectioned.
Regarding the other teams and not necessarily the transfer business, just the overall feel. Lfc and Spurs feel the most exciting teams. It could be a tough season for Spurs though. We’ll see if they’ve had their peak. I doubt it but who knows. Utd remind me of a woman who was once very good looking and desirable but she’s now 80. So, she puts on sexy clothes and plasters herself in make-up in a desperate attempt to recreate what once was. Arsenal are the same once young woman but she’s thought fuck it, turned to drink and lost all her teeth. City, is that girl who looks absolutely amazing, too good to be true but when you go out with her there’s nothing there. One of those ‘I fought Wales was in Essex’ types. They just don’t seem to have the substance. Chelsea are the recently widowed woman. Nice and certainly desirable but there’s a fear that there could be underlying issues around the corner. Lfc at the minute are like Carol Vorderman in her prime. Sexy, good laugh, nice to look at but clever too. Win win.
Not sure about these women analogies… Although I did read your last paragraph in Alan Partridge’s voice for some reason.
Haha, really gutted by the Partridge reference, my hero is David Brent. If you’d said him I’d have been buzzin. Cheers
Paul Senior slipping into Cilla Black mode while talking about City
If someone had told Rob at the end of last season that by the time the window closed the following would be true:
Mignolet is our first choice keeper
Moreno is our first choice left back
We’ve sold Lucas and Sakho and signed no centre backs
Oxlade-Chamberlain is our only addition in midfield
We’ve sent Origi out on loan and replaced him with a lad from Chelsea’s U23’s
Salah is our only “first XI” signing
He’d have been apoplectic with rage.
The price of Jonny Evans isn’t proof there’s a lack of decent centre halves in the game.
What’s up with the download link. it keeps saying it’s no longer available.