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Summer rebuild 2023

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The wounds of a Champions League final defeat in Kyiv were still raw for Liverpool, physically and emotionally, when they last spent big on a coveted, specialist defensive midfielder. The contrast between the arrival of Fabinho in 2018 and events since his departure is a clear illustration of a transfer operation swapping clarity for confusion.
News of Fabinho’s move from Monaco emerged within 24 hours of the 3-1 loss to Real Madrid. Mohamed Salah was still receiving treatment on a shoulder injury, and Jürgen Klopp had not even considered the possibility of Loris Karius suffering concussion, when the €45m transfer was finalised three days after a season of staggering progress had come to a shattering end. There were no rumours of a Liverpool move for the Brazilian and no drawn-out negotiations for a player who had attracted widespread interest. The sporting director Michael Edwards got the job done while leaving Klopp to focus on preparations for European football’s biggest night. Defeat in Kyiv would not derail Liverpool, as Fabinho’s arrival showed.

Now Fabinho is gone, Edwards too, and Liverpool are desperately searching for a replacement with the Premier League season under way and their two leading candidates for the role, Moisés Caicedo and Roméo Lavia, resisting their advances in favour of joining Chelsea on extensive contracts. A midfield rebuild that had started so impressively this summer, and the ambitions of a team that shone in spells at Stamford Bridge on Sunday, are in jeopardy as a consequence.

The past five days have been galling for Klopp, who was in ebullient form on Friday after Liverpool had a British record fee of £111m accepted by Brighton for Caicedo on Thursday night. Liverpool had known all summer of the Ecuador international’s preference for Stamford Bridge but Chelsea’s failure to get the deal done, and indications from Caicedo’s camp that he would be open to a move to Merseyside, presented a window of opportunity. It had closed without reward by Sunday night. Mauricio Pochettino almost had his man and Klopp was left taking cheap shots at Chelsea for always backing their managers in the transfer market. Jealously is an ugly trait.
If Caicedo represented the ideal pivot for a midfield enhanced by the summer arrivals of Alexis Mac Allister and Dominik Szoboszlai then Lavia appeared the more attainable one. At 19, and with only one season of Premier League experience in a relegated Southampton side, Liverpool initially viewed Lavia as a long-term project who could develop under Fabinho’s guidance. The Brazilian’s exit may have increased Lavia’s immediate importance but not Liverpool’s valuation. Three bids, the third amounting to £45m, were rejected by Southampton before Liverpool threw their resources at Caicedo. They are in danger of losing out to Chelsea again for Lavia despite going back to Southampton with a higher offer this week.

FSGOUT is trending again, as it does when Liverpool simply draw a game in truth, but criticism of the owners’ ambition and largesse does not stack up in the aftermath of a £111m offer for a 21-year-old with no Champions League experience. The cost of defensive midfielders has exploded and Fenway Sports Group has shown a willingness to keep up. But criticism of how they have allowed Liverpool’s once-slick transfer operation under Edwards to become beset by instability and muddled-thinking is entirely legitimate.


Liverpool can move smartly and effectively in the transfer market, as meeting the £35m release clause for Mac Allister, the £60m release clause for Szoboszlai and recent deals for Coady Gakpo and Luis Díaz have shown. But they have been found wanting strategically, first on the midfield improvements that were required last summer and now on Fabinho’s successor, and their reputation for executing deals has taken a battering in the past few days alone.
Edwards’ replacement as sporting director, Julian Ward, announced he was leaving after only six months at the helm, although he stayed until the end of last season to get Mac Allister over the line. Ward’s successor, Jörg Schmadtke, has signed only a short-term contract to help Klopp with what always promised to be a hectic window. FSG will have to appoint a fourth sporting director in two years when Schmadtke goes. Several other backroom figures have also exited in the past two seasons.

This is a first-world, elite-level, rich person’s problem that Liverpool are wrestling with of course. They have just missed out on a British record transfer, not destroyed all hope of reclaiming a place in the Champions League or challenging for the title. Klopp needs one player to allow Mac Allister and Szoboszlai to flourish either side of them and for Liverpool to acquire the solidity needed to become the sum of many exciting parts.
The Liverpool manager will not be spending the remainder of the transfer window in a darkened room with his head in his hands, lamenting the eight-year contracts that Todd Boehly is throwing around at Chelsea. But Klopp, FSG and “Liverpool reloaded” find themselves at a crossroads in their rebuild and must rediscover the vision and decisiveness of 2018 to take the right path. Perhaps a reunion with Edwards is required to show them the way?

https://www.theguardian.com/footbal...-clarity-for-confusion-in-the-transfer-market
 
So that’s where Morton is - I hadn’t realised he’d broken his foot.

In end Apr this year.

Liverpool loanee Tyler Morton to undergo operation on fractured foot

[article]"We have another injured player, Morton is out for the season, he has a fracture on his foot. He got it in the first half, he played the whole second half, he's incredible, a tough boy,” Jon Dahl Tomasson revealed.

"He couldn't walk after, he will have an operation. It's disappointing as it's a position we are stretched.

"We are disappointed, that is football, we can't turn it around. He had a lot of pain at half-time but played the second half and that shows the character of the boy with a fracture.[/article]
 
Linked to Johan Bakayoko this morning, a Belgian left footed right-winger at PSV. 20 years old, so would take up one of the U21 NHG places. I wonder if Palace have asked to take Ben Doak on loan as part of the Doucoure deal.
 
If we are after Bakayoko then Salah is off, that's what the journos over here are saying, they can't understand why we'd spend 30mil on him otherwise.

Also he seems to be very hit and miss
 


[article]LIVERPOOL have built a cage football pitch nicknamed the ‘Melwood Arena’ at their AXA Training Centre this summer in an effort to 'create the street' and improve their attacking play.

Pep Lijnders revealed that the arena had been inspired by the gaiolas (cages) of Portuguese street football.


“I asked Jurgen what the budget was last year and said I would love to build a gaiola, which is like a street pitch,” the Dutchman explained. “Jurgen in these moments is brilliant.

"I tell him the idea, ‘This is what I want, because of this, this and this.’ I really believe that we need to be better in the final third, more creative, [that] in the small space we need to hold the ball better.

“We can develop 100 exercises, but the best thing would be if we create the street. It took a while to build it, it cost a lot of money, but we had a good budget, so that was cool.

“Now we have a 20 x 40m pitch, with boarding, nets and big goals, to train this offensive aggression. We designed it ourselves. I asked the players what we should call it [and] we call it the Melwood Arena (after their former training ground).

“It has natural grass, with sprinklers so they can water it before (playing). It has to be natural grass, exactly the same as the deso pitch we have (at Anfield). On one side it says ‘Melwood Arena’ and on the other side - and Vitor (Matos) make this quote - ‘This place belongs to the ones who only have winning in their mind’.

“It comes from Porto, because at Porto we said, ‘We love the ones who hate to lose.’ The ball is constantly in play and doesn’t go out. We play 5 v 5 and winner stays on. And what I see in these moments… the creation, the type of goals, it just blows my mind.

"I really believe the player has to be with all he has into the session. Not just the legs, not just the lungs, but also the brain, the heart. That is why I love to go back to the old days, where it was winner stays on, the street.”


Lijnders also likes to use something he calls the ‘identity game’ at Liverpool.

He explained it like this: “Two teams play each other and the other team is waiting in the other half. So one team is always defending the halfway line and attacking the goal; and one team is defending the goal and attacking the halfway line.

“When they pass the halfway line they play against the team there."

Lijnders said both the 'Melwood Arena' and identity game were inspired the same objective: stimulating competition and getting the players to uphold their honour.

"I believe that football is about honour - you want to be the best you can be," he said. "Because how can I inspire Mo Salah, after how many games? But I put Mo Salah in the identity game and tell Mo, ‘you pick six players,’ and then I say to Trent (Alexander-Arnold), ‘you pick six players,’ and I say to Virgil (Van Dijk), ‘you pick six players,’ and play the 7 v 7 identity game.

“You know how it goes? You know how it goes?! They train with a knife between the teeth! You reach levels you could not reach without that. So I try to play with the honour of the players a lot. They don’t know, but that’s what I try to do, because that’s the only way to improve.

“This is something you need, this hunger, this passion. You need to stimulate something.”[/article]

 
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Was about to post the video above - painful watch, but quality. At least we still got sense of humour.
 
This is what @Frogfish has been banging on about our midfield:

369654355_689445806550099_7457559121905456207_n.jpg
 
@dmishra

Neil Jones:
"Liverpool are still keen to add at least one more player, possibly two before the transfer window shuts — a midfielder and a versatile defender. "

LOL LOL
 
Five days to go and we don’t have a great track record with “last minute” signings
 
Why the “big money” part of that. I don’t rate any incoming player by price tag.
I know what you mean. High prices are no guarantee of high quality, and lower priced players do turn out to be really good acquisitions. It's how they perform that counts, of course.

I can see why people would be more reassured by a big money signing, more money does usually denote better quality and performance. I think it's a matter of perception. Alexis Mac 'only' cost £35m, not a massive fee, yet people seem happy with that, whereas Endo was only £16m and some were disappointed. I'm optimistic that both will be good for us.

Anyway, regardless of the price tag, we still need a couple of more players in, don't we?
 
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