Summer transfers

[jozza800]

As the late Roy Walker would say. Just say what you see.

I think we have a cracking set of players, you go through them one by one and there isn't single one that that you would say isn't a good player. It's a far cry from some of the squads we've had pre 2017/18ish.

However, certain players, and yes i'm going to mention Macca (again) haven't been playing anywhere near to their ability.

Of the players that really struggled pre-Christmas, Kirkez, Wirtz and Konate have improved. Macca, Mo and Gakpo haven't.

There's no agendas, there's no pissing on anybody's Mr Chips. As always, most are just commenting on what they are watching, and we're all watching the same games.

[Nineteenx]

Macca scored 3 in his last 2 games 😂

[CCTV]

Maybe selling him with a buy back clause was an exercise I juggling the books, we needed the fee to invest in players in the summer.

Quansah wasn’t a bad defender, his issue was he wasn’t a front foot defender, he wouldn’t take the aggressive positions Virgil and Konate do and stop forwards getting hold of the ball and linking

He used to back off to our area and that would allow other players to join and lead to goals. So I’d be looking for the evidence he’s now able to do that

We need to keep Konate he’s I’ve if the best there is at it

Quansah has all the raw materials to be a top CB. At LFC he made too many costly errors. If he gets more gametime and takes those errors/lapses out of his game it would be worth getting him back.

Like Nunez & Elliott, he wasnt in Slots graces so moving him on probably right.

Hope Konate stays, think he'll be off though come the summer.

[jozza800]

Macca scored 3 in his last 2 games ��

2 in 2.

Gakpo has 1 in 2, in his last two games, doesn't mean he's playing well...

[RedMagic]

I'm not sure that it's necessarily an unwillingness to splash the cash - he would still cost a reasonable wedge (rumoured £51m) and that would be on top of us acquiring Jacquet (£60m wasn't it?) so we're already talking about £110m on centre-backs alone, with most fans crying out for one (or more often two) pacey wide players, a defensive-minded midfielder and potentially cover in one of the full-backs areas.

That would suggest that there's belief in his improvement, which is no real surprise given he is actually getting regular match time and in a weaker League. It's easy to forget he was picked ahead of Konaté (and at the time we might say on merit) for the first League game, but unfortunately was bombed out after one bad half of football - a bit wild considering some of the dumpster fire performances some of our other lads have put out on a regular basis.

It'll be interesting to see if Konaté stays. A quartet of Van Dijk, Konaté, Quansah and Leoni certainly doesn't look bad on paper, especially if one of Gomez or Endo remains at the club given that both are capable of cover when we're pushed on the injury front. Without Konaté it would of course look lighter.

If Hughes and Edwards are thinking of paying £51m to resign a player who we sold just seven months ago for £30m, they are even more stupid, clueless and inept than I already think they are.

Getting picked ahead of Konate doesn't automatically mean that player is great, it probably just means that either Konate is having one of his error strewn periods, or our manager is making yet another head scratching decision. Quansah is playing more often for a team in a weaker league yet we've heard nothing about how he has been playing. He's scored a couple of goals, but his team have also lost a third of their games. If he was playing well enough to warrant us resigning him for £51m we would have heard about it.

Van Dijk hasn't had a great season and it's possible that like Salah he's on the decline. Konate is inconsistent and doesn't warrant the pay rise he's looking for. He'll have a few solid games followed by a few games where he makes a load of mistakes, with some of them leading to us conceding goals. Leoni will be coming back from a very serious injury. There's no way to know if that injury has permanently affected him, never mind that he'll still need integrating into the side as it will be like he just signed for us. Gomez is a backup player at best. He can do a job for a few games here and there, but he is too error prone to be a starter. As for Endo, are you serious? He was bought as a backup player. He's now older and slower. If he is and will still be seen as a backup defender, we are in serious trouble.

[Nineteenx]

Talking about what we’ve seen I think you’re just ignoring the obvious, change in formation, change in style, breaking down a lot if the automation in picking up positioning and movement

These are the reasons players haven’t been at their best

I look at the goals last season and the players are 433 in play for almost all of them playing as thry did under Jurgen

Massive changes were made this season

[jozza800]

Talking about what we’ve seen I think you’re just ignoring the obvious, change in formation, change in style, breaking down a lot if the automation in picking up positioning and movement

These are the reasons players haven’t been at their best

I look at the goals last season and the players are 433 in play for almost all of them playing as thry did under Jurgen

Massive changes were made this season

Two things.

One - I absolutely have taken into account the change of system. You'll see in most of my comments, that I mentioned bieng hindered by the way we set. The midfield is killing us overall, but it's mainly off the ball, but Mac isn't even doing the basics with the ball at the moment. And if it was simply down to the set-up why hasn't Grav's form nosedived? The system actually hinders Grav more, as he's being pushed further forward.

Two - You weren't watching close enough last season, if you think we were playing 4-3-3 and setting up the same way as we did under Klopp. Szoboslai played most of last season as a number 10, and often times as a second forward. It was a million miles away from the 3 industrious midfielders we've been used to over the Klopp years. And it's equally different this season, neither of the 'deeper' midfielders offer any sort of protection in the midfield compared to last season. It's just baffling.

[Nineteenx]

Watch the game watch the goals from last season look at the players positions

You know punditry didn’t have us playing 4231 either

We started trying to play more Slot like at a couple of points and hard a lot of poor first halves but the players in play automatically went into old familiar patterns so much of the time to get the job done That’s what automation a d time built understanding does and how it works

If you’re really watching watch how many tackles Macca makes and where he puts himself he uses the ball well enough too it’s not helped by a few things

Jota was frequently deeper, Trent was further up for cross fields Mo and Diaz were frequently both high Robbo was making more intelligent runs and use of the space with the LFWD for Macca to pick a pass

Go back and watch again

[Steveo]

Grav has been a shadow of the player he was for much of last season. A feint shadow at that.

[miller0863]

I wouldn’t be averse to replacing both wide forwards (Olise and Diomande would be good) and a proper 6. That would probably be a net spend of around £80-90m

That should still leve enough in the budget to replace Konate if necessary.

If Konate stays we could keep Gakpo as well as bringing two in. We have definitely been short a player in the wide forward positions this season

[teesred]

I wouldn’t be averse to replacing both wide forwards (Olise and Diomande would be good) and a proper 6. That would probably be a net spend of around £80-90m

That should still leve enough in the budget to replace Konate if necessary.

If Konate stays we could keep Gakpo as well as bringing two in. We have definitely been short a player in the wide forward positions this season

I think Dinner Jacket is Konates replacement. Only way I think another CB comes in is to replace Gomez which I guess could be very likely.
I'd love us to sign Olise but I reckon it will be more likely someone like Bowen for the right side.

[Nineteenx]

Jacquet is not an adequate replacement for Konate nowhere near his level of quality

If he is it’s another monumental fuck up, even if Konate gets an extra 150k is 3.75 million 18.75 m over 5 seasons

It’s a false economy to spend 60m on a replacement and pay wages on top of that

[Nineteenx]

Grav has been a shadow of the player he was for much of last season. A feint shadow at that.

Despite was was claimed about 4231 last season it wasn’t every match had us down as 433 there was loads of analysis on our ‘midfield 3’ as a 3 Salah stayed up top Jota was deeper Diaz played right up and down the line but was often on the shoulder for the ball in behind

A midfield 3 is much better for me

[jozza800]

I wouldn’t be averse to replacing both wide forwards (Olise and Diomande would be good) and a proper 6. That would probably be a net spend of around £80-90m

That should still leve enough in the budget to replace Konate if necessary.

If Konate stays we could keep Gakpo as well as bringing two in. We have definitely been short a player in the wide forward positions this season

Don't think we'll be getting a LW since we keep hearing that we already have the best LW in the world. I like Gakpo, he's far better than he has shown this season but Slot is on crack if he thinks he's best LW in the world.

[Nineteenx]

He was also on crack when he claimed that fucking woeful attempted old Dutch football that trashed our season was style over trophies and talks about football in the Erevidersie as if it compares to other leagues competitiveness