It took a little while, but we saw a lot of him that season, and he started a Champions League final.
It was about 4 months before Robertson was a regular starter. With no competition to speak of. And despite looking good in his early appearances. My point is just that Klopp will play you when he thinks you are ready. So following on from that, any new recruit should expect to get limited starts in the first year unless you are a VvD/Allisson/Salah calibre player AND have limited competition for your place.
This isn't the kind of club that signs players like Mbappe & Haaland... I'd expect them to be at Madrid & United next season, respectively. And that will probably win United the league. That's if they don't win it this season. This is my exact stance and where I've been for a little now, overall. For the most part, they've added to the squad when they really needed to... which is good, overall! Jota, Tsimikas, Thiago, Konate all good signings, for instance, and even though the Kabak & Davies papering over the cracks/injuries might not have worked out, at least the issues were acknowledged with those deals and the attempt was made. But the issue remains -- has there been, and is there now, an opportunity to further deepen that squad without exorbitant/irresponsible spending? In an effort to go for a title against the likes of City/Chelsea/United, with the attacking depth they have? I think the answer is yes. And it was yes last summer (mitigated somewhat by Jota, who was quite good), and it was definitely yes in summer 2019 when they did nothing. Now, they have to balance all of this with the wage bill, which with all these extensions is definitely going up. So more than ever, with them signing up these core members and hopefully also getting Salah & Hendo (at least for a couple more seasons), I'm more sympathetic to their situation/perspective. But they still should get another attacker to make Shaq/Origi/Mina redundant. Maybe they can approximate the loss of Gini with extra minutes from Elliott, Jones, healthier Ox, healthier Naby... they could get away with that despite not really replacing Gini. But I wonder if Salah/Bobby/Mane/Jota/Minamino is enough. Just don't know if there will be enough goals there over the course of a full season, with whatever injuries and absences occur. Fortunately Mane & Salah could potentially only miss 2 matches for AFCON, and on top of that it's Brentford and Palace. So. If they are really healthy this year, they still could really push in both the league & the CL. That's the nature of the talent of the first 11.
But it’s still easy to convince a player who had just been relegated at Hull City. It wouldn’t have been hard to convince him to come to Liverpool and fight for his place at left back, when a midfielder was played there the previous season. Even if he was made to wait, he knew the position was there for the taking. It’s a very different scenario to convince young, established, highly sought after stars to come to Liverpool at this moment. Yes, all players need to fight for their place, but at the moment there aren’t many available places to fight for. Even a “Salah caliber player” would be a hard to recruit. It’s really hard to get the next Salah and Mane while Salah and Mane are still playing every single game. Mane and Salah both were starters from the very first game. If Liverpool already had established superstars up front at the time Salah was leaving Roma, I doubt he would have chose to join Liverpool.
I thought they already did win it after the opening weekend's game? ... And then Chle$ki won it last weekend...and West Ham won it yesterday... How many teams can win this league in one season???
Yes, well... I've heard this kind of thing before; they weren't supposed to be that good the past 2 seasons, their defense wasn't supposed to be good... they go on to finish 3rd, then 2nd, with a combined 80 goals allowed over 2 years. Now they're better, Varane and Sancho aren't even integrated yet, what will they do if they get Haaland and buy a good 6? This does assume Pogba stays. Maybe he will leave and give them a greater hill to climb. Heard a lot of these kinds of jokes last August/September as well... we know how that ended up. United are a really good side, pretty obvious by now, Ole is less of an issue for them than their defensive midfield, and they might sort that out before this weekend! So if they do... well, just don't say I didn't warn you.
Liverpool are among several clubs monitoring PSV Eindhoven playmaker Noni Madueke. Liverpool have reportedly lined up Sevilla winger Lucas Ocampos as an option to bolster their attack this season. Marcus Thuram has been heavily linked to Inter Milan, but Liverpool could make a transfer swoop following an injury. Eduardo Camavinga has just one year left on his contract with Rennes, and both Liverpool and Manchester United have been credited with a transfer interest. Liverpool making a move for Mikkel Damsgaard would surely spell the end for Takumi Minamino.
United 3rd in 2019/2020 - hmmm how did that happen? by beating Leicester on the last day of the season, finishing level on pts with Chelski ahead on goal difference. I mean they were on the verge of being out. Last season - United's vaunted defense: 44 goals allowed. Liverpool: 42 goals allowed. Yes - Liverpool who started Nat Phillips and Rhys Williams down the stretch. Sorry - they really aren't that good and Ole makes a huge difference.
IMO we will see a VVD / Allison type transfer next summer for our front 3 and potentially another large outlay the following summer for our midfield. While Mbappe would be interesting (albeit a daydream), I might not completely dismiss Haaland as he has a somewhat reasonable buyout clause next summer. Certainly his wages and Raiola are potential barriers but I’m confident Klopp / Edwards et al. will continue to set us up for success post Klopp’s departure. In my dream - I saw Haaland in ‘22 and Camavinga in ‘23
I’d agree with Hobo and said this last year too - Utd have a lot of talent and will be very good. Not terribly deep but the talent alone could overcome Ole’s shortcomings. They may not win the league or CL, but they should be comfortably challenging. The top 4 teams will be very interesting to follow this season.
Well, I said they would be top 4, their defense would be good, they'd be at 38 goals allowed without major injuries... 44 is above that, but they've signed Varane & the league was basically over for them for most of the year. I figured they'd improve on their 66 goals scored, and they did. So, I mean... overall, my sentiments were pretty clearly accurate. United also at a period in December had 10 players injured. I'm not saying this makes their hardship equal to Liverpool, just like Liverpool's injuries in 18/19 didn't make them equal to City in terms of hardship... but lots of clubs were hit with injuries last season, due in part to the compacted season. So again, check with me at the end of the season and we will see where they stand again, I guess? I mean I hope you're right, I just see no evidence why you would be. Your arguments at this time last season didn't blow my socks off, and didn't seem to pan out from what I can tell. Maybe the anti-United guys will be right this time. We'll see what happens! See you in April for I told you so's. I will agree that Ole is not a great manager, but a decent manager who can motivate his players who has a very talented squad, that person can win a league. Ranieri did it. Hell, even Brenny came close.
That’s why I’m not fussed about the reported lack of transfers. Talking of transfers, is anybody else bemused by Real Madrid’s alleged £160 million bid for Mbappe, a player it could quite conceivably get for no transfer fee next season?
From the Daily Mail Mino Raiola 'demanded £820,000 PER WEEK for Erling Haaland to join Chelsea, with a £34m agent's fee AND a salary for himself in £257m package' before Blues moved for Romelu Lukaku TBH I just cannot see Mbappe or Haaland coming to Liverpool. The wages, the packages, it will stink up the place.
Bloody hell! That's him at Dortmund forever, then. That is until another mug of a club agrees to deal with him.
I think the Mbappe move to LFC can only happen if 1) for a variety of reasons he really wants to come here and 2) he sees out his contract at PSG. If those 2 things happen LFC can offer him 30m a year for 5 years. the total payout would be 150m. he would be getting paid as much an Neymar and more than Messi. The reports that I read he was going to be the third highest pd player. So going to lfc he would be paid more
Agreed. Unfortunately it looks like neither of those two things are happening. He seems to want to go to Madrid, and Madrid are willing to pay a huge fee instead of allowing him to become a free agent.
imo the rumours involving him and us were started by his agent to get RM to go big. I've never taken any of them (or the Haaland ones) seriously.
If he really wants to go to Madrid, why would they pay all that money for 1 year. They should just let him run out his contract and save 150-180m. It seems ludicrous for them to make that bid and unless there financial issues have been exaggerated, I don't think they can afford that kind of payout.
So the question is why would RM even contemplate making this move for him now? If he really wants to go to Madrid, certainly its in both RM and his interests to run down the contract and do it next summer: more money in his pocket, less money in PSG's and more money for RM to get players to support him. So the only reason RM would make a move now, knowing what it would cost, is because they believe they can't get him on a free next summer because there will be others at the table. I saw some rumblings today that the RM bid and subsequent rejection are basically RM trying to save face by projecting that they are doing all they can to get him, but in reality they aren't going to do what it actually takes to get it done, you know, like the Ev traditionally does. What is curious to me is why PSG would reject the 160M RM bid. We know they don't really need the money, but getting it certainly allows them to more believably balance the books. Perhaps they think they'll get him to sign a new deal or maybe they are planning a legal challenge to the Bosman ruling. Perhaps its worth 160M to them to have Neymar, Messi and Mbappe take 1 shot at trying to win the CL.