Liverpool could easily be ‘also-rans’ without Jurgen Klopp
Did Jurgen Klopp have Liverpool punching above their weight? Are they going to fall back into the pack now?
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Is Liverpool season going to be a long and boring trudge?
Urgh. Itās that time after the Euros when I have finally come back round to paying attention to my club andā¦ urgh. Iām a Liverpool fan and its just hard to get excited.
Jurgen has gone. The great love of our life has left, and if I can continue the weird analogy a little longer, the new boyfriend has come in and underwhelmed, I mean he is fully bald. No one wants that.
Iām sure Arne will do fine (Which means 3rd-6th). Heās got a decent squad, he is obviously a talented coach, but then every manager in the prem is a good coach now, that wonāt get you very far. We all knew Jurgen helped us punch above our weight, and when we had a smattering of world-class talent that meant we could knock out heavyweights. I fear weāre not quite packing the same punch these daysā¦
And what do we have without Jurgen? We have FSG. And what are FSG? They are very good businessmen. That means they turn their Ā£300m investment into a Ā£4bn club valuation. That they did so whilst winning every club accolade available means there is not a lot to complain about. Unfortunately, it feels like Jurgen Klopp, shrewd player investment, and a healthy transfer kitty donated by Barcelona, were the very specific variables required for that outcome.
Iām desperate to be proved wrong. That FSG are suddenly going to splash the cash they must have been squirrelling away these last few transfer windows. That the combination of dramatically lowering our wage bill and bringing through our dirt cheap young players to fill out the squad, was done with player investment in mind.
Unfortunately, I fear it was done with the bottom line in mind, that Liverpoolās long running fiscal prudence is simply to ensure the owners never have to dig into their own pocket and because it provides maximum value when they inevitably sell the club, as none gets eaten up by club debt.
Iām sure weāll make a couple of signings. A sensible outlay for decent players. It wonāt swing the pendulum of success our way but it will quell some of the disquiet. But it wont allay my fearsā¦ Fears of mediocrity, of being also rans. Fear of a long, gradual descent that will have marginal effect on our valuation. I fear fan ire and the damaging affect disharmony brings.
But most of all, I fear a long old boring trudge through our seasonā¦.
Ed Ern
So many Liverpool questions but squad looks great
Very nicely timed article about Liverpool. Lots of chats going on all over the world wondering what chocolate Forrest Gump takes out the box. Issues from my side are:-
How much did Klopp hold everything together as (almost) the best manager in world football?
How effective and well run was that coaching team that everything had been honed over the years so it had been optimized to maximum potential and performance?
How do the players feel in pre season now everything is so (maybe) different?
Why wasnāt Trent locked down on a new contract last season? Was he crying in front of the Kop on the last day of the season as he has decided to leave on a free?
Is Mo staying or going ? I love the fact he has shaved his hair. Shows a focus. Always knew Harry Kewell was having problems once he started growing his hair longā¦.
Is Van Dijk happy to push on as captain and maybe retire from International football or does he want to ādo a Maneā and go chill out somewhere on a final big contract?
Does Edwards and the rest of the ābrains trustā go big early and look to move on VVD & Salah to reinvest or is this similar to Kloppās first season where Slot wants to review the squad and keep a good team ticking over?
I personally think Slot does look a good fit to aid continuity, I would have loved to see Pep Ljinders stay too as I think he is an excellent number 2 (but not a good number 1ā¦You heard it here first !)
The Squad is in excellent shape:-
Alisson / Kelleher (maybe) / Jaros
Robertson / Szimikas ā decent
VVD / Gomez / Quansah / Konate (possibly need 1 more hereā¦.)
Bradley / Trent
Endo / Curtis DM ā could be better but still decent
Mac Allister / Bajcetic / Szobo / Gravenberch
Diaz / Gakpo ā difficult to play them both which is a shame
Jota / Nunez ā maybe Jota & Nunez could somehow merge into Jonez ?
Salah / Elliott ā something here might be required such as Takefusa Kubo so maybe get him in now if Salah is leaving on a free next year
Still room for Doak / Gordon / Carvalho and a few other kids so the question is will this season be a chocolate caramel or that bloody horrible orange fondant monstrosity that always tastes of flowers and disappointment.
We will find out soon enough. Can we please not jizz on our chips if itās not an immediate 5-0 master classā¦
Hong Kong Ian ā LFC ā banning brackets from this day forth.
MORE ON LIVERPOOL FROM F365:
š Liverpool in āfinal stagesā of talks for Ā£50m Salah replacement as La Liga chief responds
š Liverpool star āhappiest Iāve ever beenā as Slot style āsuits me and the ladsā better than Klopp
š Somehow, Liverpool may now be the Premier Leagueās biggest unknown quantity
North > South this season
I remember that Southampton team! Laurie McMenemy sure could sweet talk an older player and a European player of the year too. Young Moran was the under rated striker. I watched them perhaps thrice. Two 3-3 draws and a backs to the wall 0-1 away win on a rainy night at Anfield.
They were first on BBC radio 2 commentary, the late summer day that (Joseph) Kevin Keegan debuted in the blazing sunshine with a āmotorway of whiteā down the middle of their new shirt. I had to leave the Cornish beach, sit in the car with the doors open to liste , rum & raisin ice cream smears on my tanned face.
Oh! The august start of a shiny new season.
Not like in Spain where only one team will win for the foreseeable or France. At least Alonso has given a two team look to the Bundesliga.
But in England ā so many contenders!
How to rate their chances?
The quality of the manager? The depth of the squad? The on field chemistry?
Is Unai a neck ahead of Mikel? Then Ten Hag, perhaps Maresca, Howe, Slot and Postecoglou are all of a similar level.
With all the star players being over played these days and running around more than a lot, the youth players need to be ready to step up.
For this reason alone I reckon Liverpool will do well, perhaps better than expectations.
Liverpool a nose ahead of Aston Villa, NUFC and Man United, followed by Arsenal a nose ahead of Chelsea and Spurs.
Then there is always a smaller club that gets itās shit together, Iām going for West Ham United.
If my DAZN (ā the zoneā evidently) subscription gave me the Scudetto Iād watch the battle for Italy alongside Englandās top league. Alas, it does not so Iāll make do with the mellifluous James Horncastleās Tuesday updates.
Best new kit? Sporting Lisbonās in my humble opinion.
Can it really be almost 2025 already? TwentyTwentyfive!
Thatās 43 years since KKās Saints debut. In another 43 years all the super leagueās clubs will probably have a euro squad & coach and another national squad and coach and weāll have live footie 8 days a week.
Right. Itās cerveza oāclock.
If Alonso joined Liverpool thereād be four men from tiny GuipĆŗzcoa in Englandās top league.
Thatās like Paisley, Jock Stein, Ferguson and Dalglish all coming from Ullapool.
Peter (Lesley Ferdinand for England manager) Andalucia
Winning a transfer window is not a thing
Itās a sign of the time of year when we have people talking about who is making the best and worst or no signings or winning the transfer window. Blows my mind.
Of course, this is all egged on by media looking for clicks. It seems the worst offenders are those supposedly āsupportingā a team. Take the Liverpool Echo; headlines designed to give Liverpool fans a heart attack with all their best players being sold off, no one wanting to sign up to play for Slot and all their opponents āwinningā transfers. Get a grip!
Chelsea spent Ā£747m last summer, Ā£115m on Caicedo and Ā£58m on Lavia, who got 32 minutes. But there was a lot of crowing about how Chelsea beat Liverpool to those signingsā¦only to scrape into 6th, on the back of the truly best signing of Cole Palmer. Perhaps Liverpool won by forcing Chelsea to pay over the odds for their two DMs when they only paid Ā£40m for Palmer.
Newcastle, equally talked up their great signings, led by Barnes, Livramento and Tonali, only for Tonali to get suspended for most of the season.
Spurs, similarly, bought some great players in van der Ven, Porro, Johnson and Maddison only for their season to go tits up coincidentally with Maddisonās injury.
The point is that no matter who you signāeven proven grade A playersāyou canāt tell how it will all turn out.
Last season may have been an anomaly for injuries due to the non-stop nature of games the best players have had to endure over the last 3 years, but itās likely not going to change, at least until next season after a real summer off. Many players looked truly knacked during the Euros ā no surprise ā so it looks like you may want players who still have some mileage left in the tank. Who knows. None of us, really, until at least mid-way through the season.
Paul McDevitt
,,,I just saw the link to your previous Transfer Winners piece and thought Iād click.
Lots of good wins in there until I found my club āwinningā the summer of 2019. Now listen. Iāll big Everton up until the day I die but we havenāt been winners in a transfer window since we brought big Rom back. That was ten years ago.
Since then, weāve blown over 500M on transfer fees that got us a bang average squad the not even Martinez, Koeman, or Benitez could get anything out of (just goes to show how really, really good a manager Ancelotti is.)
So, when you do your Transfer Losers piece, I guarantee weāll be heading that one up on numerous occasions. I looked up our incoming transfer list on Toffeeweb that dates back to 1990, and if you start with Koeman (and transfer āguruā Steve Walsh) in 2016, youād be absolutely stunned at the amount of money weāve punted away for bang average or below average players. Did we get a few good ones? Yeah, sure but for the amount we spent, you expect a better success rate.
I thought about listing a number of the duds we bought but frankly, the list would be too long and would bore the F365 readers to death so Iāll refrain.
Iām hopeful that our new DOF, Kevin Thelwell, along with Sean Dyche can work within our very, very limited means going forward so that we donāt find ourselves on the ālosersā list in the future.
TX Bill (buying Onana for 33M and selling for 55M is good business for us, more please) EFC
Lead balloon?
Thereās no real football yet (pre season isnāt real)
And this has always annoyed me since I was a child (Iām 52ā¦)
āIt went down like a lead balloonā
But lead balloons go down incredibly, almost perfectly, well..
Never got it. Never made sense to me
Roll on Mid-August (Iām glad Mick Mills doesnāt still play for Ipswich as that boy could play! And may have given Mo a rough time from left back and they are our opening game) for some real actual football.
Al, LFC
More pedantry and Man Utdās donut formation
Since people in comments seemed to enjoy debating their fave nonsensical phrases hereās some more.
Where I come from (points for guessing) people will often relay a third person conversation they were having with someone where their response is āso I turned around and saidā
Why were you facing the wrong way when talking to someone?
Also for some reason people infer that Asda or Tesco is a person whose house your going to visit when they announce āIām to going to Asdasā
On the subject of football Iām gonna have to agree with whomever said (Badwolf maybe?) United revision is a little unfair on Ten Hag for last season. United spent the entire season missing their centre backs and shoehorning people into left back. Of course they looked shit. However on the rare occasions Ten Hag got to field his starting 11 they won and looked decent too.
The only issue really (showcased against Coventry) is United tend to leave a big gap just in front of their back four which everyone exploits. In the cup semi Coventry manager noticed and made changes in midfield to exploit it and suddenly started scoring goals. Ten Hag did nothing about that problem at all. It was pretty clear to everyone watching that space just in front of the right centre back was being exploited and Ten Hag took off Mainoo and brought onā¦.Eriksen.
Now either Ten Hag believes Eriksen to be a totally different player than everyone else on earth or he ignored/didnāt see the issue in midfield which Coventry had been exploiting and just scored from.
This happen multiple times in the season and is what lead to all those crazy looking scores against ālesserā teams. If Ten Hag has fixed that blind spot of his United will probably do very well. If not itāll be largely the same.
Lee
The definition of insanity
Enzo Maresca on continuing his style of football after Chelseaās drab as hell draw with Wrexham.
āI have no doubt. I think you are going to concede in different ways, so you need to decide in which way you need to concede a goal.ā
āSometimes teams that try to build from the back concede goals but I think you are going to score more than you concede.ā
So Chelseaās new manager wants to win games by outscoring the opponent. Chelsea, a team renowned for not putting away chances. A team who havenāt had a half decent striker since 2017. A team whose starting goalkeeper (Sanchez) is infamously bad at playing it out from the back.
What can go wrong?
Will (itās alright though, weāve only spent Ā£95million so far on a bunch of unknown children this summer.)
To clog or not to clog
Thanks for taking the time to respond Fat Man and to answer your question quickly, no thatās what I meant by tackles and passion. I also canāt tell if your whole mail is a pisstake or not but Iāll respond as if you were being serious.
There is a lot between a Michael Brown ātackleā and a walking football tackle that the game is lacking these days (walking football is the non-contact version of football you might prefer ā all the sidewards passes a man could ask for and not a slidet-ackle in sight.).. Fast, aggressive, strong but ultimately fairā¦. and entertaining. It builds up energy in the crowd and amongst the players and ultimately results in a better overall spectacle.
People who go out to hurt the opponent intentionally are losers and thatās not what Iām referring to at all.
By Passion I mean, literally passion. I love my club for some stupid reason but Iām passionate about it. I have a stronger connection to the club and the players when I feel that reciprocated. Nowadays that is very few and far between, I would sum up the way players come across to me by referring to the scene at the beginning of Basketball at the unveiling of new signing TownsellĀ In fact the whole intro basically works about the corporate sanitisation of sport and itās a f**king amazing timeless classic of a film.
Townsell: āAfter playing for New England, San Diego, Houston, St. Louis, A year for the Toronto Argonauts, plus one season as a greeter at the Desert Inn. Iām happy to finally play here in the fine city of Miami!ā
Official: *whispers in his ear* āItās Minnesotaā
Townsell: āWhatever, shiiiiitā
Basically players donāt care about any club and emit almost zero passion into the ether so raising my passion levels is more difficult now. When the Roma boys of old grabb and kiss their badge, I feel it. Same with the Neviller. I donāt feel any passion with almost every single player. just mindless trained zombies, stumbling through their script, devoid of anything behind the eyes.
So thanks for replying but no, not at all what I meant.
Now my questions/Assumptions;
ā Was that a typo on contact and you meant combat? Because yes it is not a combat sport, but sorry it is a contact sport. All over the field, even when tackles arenāt included itās a contact sport. Contact everywhere at almost all times. Throw-ins, hey thereās some contact as people jostle for space. shoulder to shoulder as you both run to a ball, wouldnāt you know it, contact again. Badminton, now that is a non-contact sport. And a sweet one.
ā Cloggers? Is someone who aims to hurt their opponent? And the cloggers in charge are?ā¦.. managers? The Refs? The TV Money men? Iām lost on this one.
ā Let me get this straight as your logic is baffling and Iām getting a whiff of Sci-Fi hereā¦.
The Past:
Mavericks ā yes
Cloggers ā Yes
The Present:
Mavericks ā No
Cloggers ā No
So when the Cloggers kicked all the mavericks out of the game was it like a terminator John Connor time travel situation or what? Did the cloggers travel into the past to kill the baby would-be-skillful mavericks, so in the present day there are only nefarious cloggers running the game? Thatās somee premier league level QAnon shit budā¦
Then to wrap this mess up. I used the old internet and technology to find out how injuries have changed and guess what.
The 90ās had a higher proportion of contact injuries ā fractures, dislocations, tears, etc. 72.7% to 28.6% muscle injuries.
The 2020ās are the complete opposite. 27.3% contact injuries and 71.4% muscle injuries.
If the cloggers are still in charge and unskillful players and still allowed to kick skillful players out of the game, they arenāt very good at it.
Still have no idea if your email was trolling but Iām afraid youāre talking shit buddy
Moses
Look to the wonderkids
For mavericks we are in a bit of a funk that will swing back. Pepās cut-back goal drills are a bit dull and the euros have shown just how tactically astute coaches have gotten now.
However, I think something is in the offing. Pep is starting to buy dribblers again.
Doku last season, Savio this season. Endrick is coming in for Real Madrid.
Perhaps this is in the forward-looking acknowledgement that all the micro-tactical drills are now being stymied by ever more capable managers, so the OGs are looking to mavericks again.
Pep isnāt anti-maverick, yes he got rid of Ronaldinho but also produced Messi. The sort of maverick that chips the ball over Almunia while 3 yards out, not to the goal or to anyone else, no, to himself in order to volley it in the back of the net.
Guler, who produces both outrageous brilliance and refuses to defend, is also in the safe hands of Ancelotti.
We may not be seeing it yet, but something is happening. The mavericks are making a comeback.
Jonas, Enfield, MUFC
Oh captain, my captain
Re international captains, I give you the 08/09 United squad with 7 ā Van der Sar, Ronaldo, Berbatov, Giggs, Park and Fletcher; Rio also captained England briefly around that time.
The 93/94 squad had 8 past, present and future international captains ā Schmeichel, Cantona, Ince, Giggs, Robbo, Keano and Beckham. Supplemented by leaders in Bruce, Pallister, Hughes and Butt; no wonder we walked the double that year and narrowly missed out on the domestic treble. The FA Cup win against Vinnie Jonesās Wimbledon in particular was beautifully savage.
Wooden ships and iron men.
Garey Vance, MUFC
