Mentality Monster Munch
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This is not about mentality, it's about physicality. Too many players who lose their individual battles, too many who do not compete physically. It's a game of small margins, watch the sequence for Leeds winning goal, 2v1 out in the corner no challenge, 3 v 2 in the box nobody attempts a block or a challenge.
You're right about physicality but it's about mentality too.
If we were playing City tonight, there's no way Milly would have allowed that cross to come in without a challenge
Sorry i just posted something in the main match thread that applies to this, I would say that the games we lost United, Forst, Leeds, - all three teams were at a stage where they needed to get a draw or win more than we wanted a win. They wanted it more so that they could stop the rot in their form, just like we played like we wanted it more against City at home.
I think that's a fair observation – in all 3 cases the opposition were more desperate than us and that was a big reason for why we lost. And against City we were the desperate ones.
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Imagine if Ming was our goalie.
It'd be like turning up for a comedy show every weekend.
One of the main reasons why we're not a lot worse, has been the countless times Allison has bailed us out this season.
It'd be like turning up for a comedy show every weekend.
One of the main reasons why we're not a lot worse, has been the countless times Allison has bailed us out this season.
Let's be honest, and I know some won't want to hear it or believe it, but this team is finished and needs an overhaul. The mentality is just not there anymore, and that was a big part of what made this team great, nevermind the fact that their legs are going too.
The problem is, FSG won't finance a serious rebuild, so we better get used to a period in the doldrums. We're not going to be in the Champions League next year, and the sides around us are going to improve while FSG sit with their thumbs up their arses banking on Klopp to work miracles again with £20m net spend.
We need an entire new midfield, a couple of defenders and an attacker. That's for the starting lineup. That's before we even talk about replacing squaddies (or sicknotes) like Firmino, Ox, Keita, Milner who will be gone at the end of the season. We need 7 or 8 top players NOW. That's not going to happen. Meanwhile, Salah, Virgil, Henderson, Alisson, Fabinho, Matip, Thiago are all in and around their 30s.
We're going to have to pretty much rebuild from scratch, and it will take time. But we're gonna have to compete with City, Arsenal, United, Chelsea, Spurs and now Newcastle. And we're gonna have to do it on a shoestring without CL, and soon, without Klopp. This could be another dark period coming up.
The problem is, FSG won't finance a serious rebuild, so we better get used to a period in the doldrums. We're not going to be in the Champions League next year, and the sides around us are going to improve while FSG sit with their thumbs up their arses banking on Klopp to work miracles again with £20m net spend.
We need an entire new midfield, a couple of defenders and an attacker. That's for the starting lineup. That's before we even talk about replacing squaddies (or sicknotes) like Firmino, Ox, Keita, Milner who will be gone at the end of the season. We need 7 or 8 top players NOW. That's not going to happen. Meanwhile, Salah, Virgil, Henderson, Alisson, Fabinho, Matip, Thiago are all in and around their 30s.
We're going to have to pretty much rebuild from scratch, and it will take time. But we're gonna have to compete with City, Arsenal, United, Chelsea, Spurs and now Newcastle. And we're gonna have to do it on a shoestring without CL, and soon, without Klopp. This could be another dark period coming up.
Lol, this is a bit much, even for you.
What are you disputing?
FSG simply don't invest enough in players, and Liverpool need to sell to buy, but there's nothing to sell that will fetch a high enough fee to fund several players like Coutinho did.
West ham have spent more than Liverpool on players in the last 5 seasons.
West ham have spent more than Liverpool on players in the last 5 seasons.
Rebuilds are rarely done through overhauls or in a single phase.
Klopp took a broken Rodgers team, and in just one phase, with 3 signings (Mane, Wijnaldum and Matip) turned us into a top 4 team.
Phase 2 was another set of signings (Salah, VVD and Robertson) to turn is into a very good team.
And phase 3 was a final set of signings (Alisson, Fabinho, Keita) to turn is into a truly world class team.
We don't need to necessarily go through that entirely again. We've already done one phase with Jota, Diaz, Konate and Nunez. They are all very good / excellent players.
It's not that FSG needed to spend 300 million more over the last 3 years. All that was needed was that Konate should have been bought 12 months sooner, and Diaz should have been bought 6 months sooner, and those respective windows should have been used to buy one extra 50 million player each.
We played two seasons' worth of games last year. The brunt of it was borne by three 30 plus midfielders, who look completely broken now. If they'd had the help of just 2 extra players in the 21-25 age bracket, the level of energy, fatigue and injuries in this squad would have been far lower. You simply cannot overburden the squad with this level of workload and not expect some sort of physical capitulation.
At this point, I think you just accept this shit. There's another few weeks to ago, and then we can hopefully reset in January. Klopp takes some part of this blame, but you can't change who he is as a manager. There are certain managers who'd extract more in the short term from this squad by making conservative tactical changes, but Klopp does not believe in short termism, so why even expect it? For a future title challenge, I'd trust him more than any manager in the world, and that's all that matters.
You're right of course that that'll require money, but I don't think it really requires a HUGE investment. It's perfectly possible with a 100-150 million investment over a couple of transfer windows.
Klopp took a broken Rodgers team, and in just one phase, with 3 signings (Mane, Wijnaldum and Matip) turned us into a top 4 team.
Phase 2 was another set of signings (Salah, VVD and Robertson) to turn is into a very good team.
And phase 3 was a final set of signings (Alisson, Fabinho, Keita) to turn is into a truly world class team.
We don't need to necessarily go through that entirely again. We've already done one phase with Jota, Diaz, Konate and Nunez. They are all very good / excellent players.
It's not that FSG needed to spend 300 million more over the last 3 years. All that was needed was that Konate should have been bought 12 months sooner, and Diaz should have been bought 6 months sooner, and those respective windows should have been used to buy one extra 50 million player each.
We played two seasons' worth of games last year. The brunt of it was borne by three 30 plus midfielders, who look completely broken now. If they'd had the help of just 2 extra players in the 21-25 age bracket, the level of energy, fatigue and injuries in this squad would have been far lower. You simply cannot overburden the squad with this level of workload and not expect some sort of physical capitulation.
At this point, I think you just accept this shit. There's another few weeks to ago, and then we can hopefully reset in January. Klopp takes some part of this blame, but you can't change who he is as a manager. There are certain managers who'd extract more in the short term from this squad by making conservative tactical changes, but Klopp does not believe in short termism, so why even expect it? For a future title challenge, I'd trust him more than any manager in the world, and that's all that matters.
You're right of course that that'll require money, but I don't think it really requires a HUGE investment. It's perfectly possible with a 100-150 million investment over a couple of transfer windows.
I don't disagree with any of that, per se. But the midfield rebuild should've been started 2 or 3 years ago. But we're still relying on the likes of Milner to plug gaps. We had to start the rebuild from a position of strength, but now, by the time we get those midfield replacements, we're going to need to replace other areas of the team because we sat on our arses.
Had we shipped out Keita, Milner, Ox a couple of years ago and replaced them with players who are actually useful, the transition would've been seamless. But now, in the next year or two, we're gonna have to replace those 3, as well as all the other players in their 30s that I mentioned earlier.
The thing is, now it's going to be harder than ever to get into the Champions League to attract the players that we need to remain a top level team.
We're probably going to be saved by the ESL (which will happen). Champions (sic) League will be yesterday's news.
"Saved". I'll stop watching football when that comes in.
So will I. It's not like fans are important is it.
Dmishra made some pretty good valid points.
However I’m quite sure the global pandemic was a major factor in our spending in the last 2 years.
was watching this in the pub with the Mrs and she said exactly the same thing. That Leeds wanted it more than we did. Which, is inexcusable.
Bring out the hairdryer.
Nah, I think they're hiding behind that. They've routinely aimed for a modest net spend regardless of the economic climate.
Yeh I’d go along with that, although I’ve not checked all the figures in detail. But from what I can recall, we’re mid table when it comes to net spend. So mid table finish is about right.
This team's core principles revolve around pressing hard and intelligently. You can't keep doing that when your squad's core (best players) is aged 30 and over. This is the one flaw in Klopp's system, requiring the heart of the team to be under 30.
Also I get tired of hearing from some that Thiago was Ginis's replacement. He wasn't. We decided to change strategy when we bought Thiago instead of replacing like for like in Gini.
And even when we bought Thiago we failed to read the specific "usage instructions" which we still haven't fulfilled. Thiago needs TWO hardworking top-class midfielders to do the heavy lifting for him instead we have one player (Fabinho)...now that Fabinho is tired/exhausted... we're seeing that you can't support a player like Thiago without the support in place. Nobody is doubting his hip swivels and excellent passing but without TWO top-class players, we sometimes fail to get a proper grip on games in midfield.
Before we bought Thiago it was RARE to see Liverpool lose midfield battles but since we've bought Thiago its actually quite common to see this. We only got away with it last season because of how amazing our attack and out balls options (Mane/Diaz/Salah/Jota/Firmino). Now without an outstanding attack, our weak midfield is getting exposed.
Dont get me wrong I love Thiago this isn't a reactionary post as you might think. Honestly back when we bought Thiago I feel we should have replaced Gini properly and then spent money on an attacking midfielder that can dribble with the ball instead of buying Thiago. I still view Thiago as a semi-luxury player...the irony at the moment is that we kinda need him even though I feel we dont have the players around him to use him properly.
We need to invest in a player like Brighton's Caicedo in the winter or we risk finishing outside of the European Conference league...
Also I get tired of hearing from some that Thiago was Ginis's replacement. He wasn't. We decided to change strategy when we bought Thiago instead of replacing like for like in Gini.
And even when we bought Thiago we failed to read the specific "usage instructions" which we still haven't fulfilled. Thiago needs TWO hardworking top-class midfielders to do the heavy lifting for him instead we have one player (Fabinho)...now that Fabinho is tired/exhausted... we're seeing that you can't support a player like Thiago without the support in place. Nobody is doubting his hip swivels and excellent passing but without TWO top-class players, we sometimes fail to get a proper grip on games in midfield.
Before we bought Thiago it was RARE to see Liverpool lose midfield battles but since we've bought Thiago its actually quite common to see this. We only got away with it last season because of how amazing our attack and out balls options (Mane/Diaz/Salah/Jota/Firmino). Now without an outstanding attack, our weak midfield is getting exposed.
Dont get me wrong I love Thiago this isn't a reactionary post as you might think. Honestly back when we bought Thiago I feel we should have replaced Gini properly and then spent money on an attacking midfielder that can dribble with the ball instead of buying Thiago. I still view Thiago as a semi-luxury player...the irony at the moment is that we kinda need him even though I feel we dont have the players around him to use him properly.
We need to invest in a player like Brighton's Caicedo in the winter or we risk finishing outside of the European Conference league...
FSG spending limits have held us back, no doubt about it. But I also feel, our transfer committee has lost the ability to make signings like Wijnaldum, Matip, Robertson, Salah.
I don't think FSG is limiting the number of transfers. I am sure they limit the total budget. We need to rediscover our ability to make that budget stretch. We have not been able to find a value for money RB stand-in for TAA for years now. We need players in the right age profile 21-24 who are ready to explode onto the next level within six months to a year. Jota was one of the last signings we made that way. We signed Nunez. We could have spread that over two signings if we were innovative.
The players we spend time chasing are so obvious that every kid with football manager can recommend them. We don't need Julian Ward. Like mongs, we spend ages chasing Tchuoumeni and Bellingham. Apparently, we were also in touch with Mbappe. Why, I have no clue? Maybe, it made us feel better that we were in the big leagues. I am betting we will spend a good part of this season and the winter transfer window chasing Moses Caicedo culminating in him moving to Chelsea for 90 million. Our transfer chases are honestly so obvious and boring.
Screw Bellingham, Tchuoameni, Mbappe, Caicedo. We have the best coach in the game in terms of fitting pieces together to create a system. Rediscover our mojo and sign three left field out of the box value for money signings for 100 to 120 million and we will be on our way to competing for the league. If we waste time, fighting for players whose selling clubs value at 100 million with Utd, Chelsea, and Madrid - then we will be in the same boat with James Milner starting games next season also.
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This maybe optimistic but the very real fear of us not making the CL next year will prompt FSG into action this January. Participation in the CL is so crucial to the value of their asset and their business model that there will be some twitchy arseholes around the boardroom.
And with Newcastle fast developing into a club who will be regularly in the CL, the margin for error, both in terms of investment and player recruitment, is getting smaller. I wouldn't be shocked to see us on the market in 2 years if the Super League does not rear its ugly head again. We may well be riding a wave of being at peak value right now.
And with Newcastle fast developing into a club who will be regularly in the CL, the margin for error, both in terms of investment and player recruitment, is getting smaller. I wouldn't be shocked to see us on the market in 2 years if the Super League does not rear its ugly head again. We may well be riding a wave of being at peak value right now.
Can't come soon enough.
It's funny how we are pretty much the only club that continues to blame covid for our owners ongoing refusal to fund the team to a reasonable level.
We won the Champions League and then our summer transfers were a Championship level sub goalkeeper and.... nothing. This is not on covid, thats just an easy out for an ownership group that was caught out by not getting a lottery win from the Super League format.
Honestly think they should have sold up once that deal fell apart, that was their end goal and they clearly had no appetite to go further without it.
FSG has shown no appetite to sell any of its sports franchises. They are in acquisition mode now. The best time to sell was about a year ago when interest rates were low, and money could be borrowed on the cheap. Now, interest rates are high and most likely going to remain high for the next one or two years. So it will be difficult for folks like Boehly to get the cash to buy us out. We are also running out of rich nation-states with monarchies who want to buy sports franchises. I can see them dilute their shareholdings and selling part of us to investment vehicles like Red Bird.
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