(No More ) New Fekir's in a New Town: Summer Transfers II

He's definitely good enough to be a squad player, but he wouldn't massively change the dynamic of our midfield.

With Milner and Lallana likely to move on in coming season, we'll need to replace our experience and at 27/28 we'd get a few good seasons out of him as the experienced head.

He'd likely be on 150K/wk, but as a free, even at that wage it would be a good deal and save money for some other signings.

 

Although he's also played Wijnaldum and Milner in that role as well?

 

At Maggies, that's where he played. He can adapt to the deeper-lying role, but it ain't the best position to take advantage of his skill set.

The tricky part is that Keita and Gini would occupy the same/similar roles, so the question is whether to play Keita in a box-to box position with Hendo or to play him in a less advanced position and leave Hendo out.

 

Don't know, am relying on memory! Might not even be an entire match but a fairly sure he has at some point?

Wijnaldum even played a game at CB so have got to assume Klopp has some confidence in his defensive capabilities?

Yes, think that is generally true.

Yes, think that is generally true.

Agree.

 

Klopp initially played Hendo further forward but ended up moving him back into the 6 for a couple reasons: 1) He needed someone other than Lucas to play there and Klopp always tries to solve problems with players already in the squad and 2) Hendo is a poor finisher and Klopp wanted more goals from that position.

But the squad has evolved over the past 3 years, so while the solution to our midfield has been answered by playing Hendo as the 6, its not necessarily going to be the best solution moving forward.

There will be games that suit Hendo as a 6 and there will be games that don't. We've already seen that Hendo is the one dropping in and out with Keita, while Gini and Milner have been constants. Much of that has to do with preseason, but as Fabinho continues to bed in, the person it directly impacts the most is Hendo and moving him forward is a pretty good solution to getting him his minutes.

 

It would be a dereliction of duty if our squad planning for 12 to 18 months from now still includes a 33 - 34 year old Milner playing significant minutes.

He may be the fittest in the squad, but it only took 11 games of pretty much playing 90 in every game to break him. It's naive to believe he can continue at that pace for multiple seasons to come.

 

I hope he stays - can't think of a better player to have on the bench next season. however he may want to up his playing minutes somewhere else.

I can also see him stepping into a coaching role with us with no problem at all. he's a very very smart player, and if any player can get yoots to pay attention .....

 

He's definitely the type of player we should be finding a role for once their playing days are over.

 

Ox will be back next year and depending on the development of Jones, Woodburn and Grujic, does Milner get more than 1000 minutes?

 

Milner is a hard one to predict given he's such a phenomenal athlete who has reinvented his career a couple times already, I wouldn't rule out him perhaps becoming Klopp's go to utility man next season filling in everywhere and anywhere. Unless of course he chooses to move on to somewhere like Leeds where he'd be guaranteed more playing time and finish out his career back where it began.

I worry about Ox and whether he'll ever fully recover from that horrendous knee injury. Returning to football is one thing but getting back to his previous level is the big issue. I really hope he can . As for the others I can see Lallana and probably Grujic moving on after this season , Woodburn hasn't been progressing as expected , Jones remains a solid prospect though.