Liverpool FC Forum

I was excited when he came back but maybe he's not as good as we initially gave him credit. Maybe it was all down to Klopp after all. In any case, best of luck to him but neither him nor Hughes will be missed.

I do feel for Iraola though. He's just arrived from a smaller club to one of the biggest clubs in the world and he'd have to build new foundations from the ground up while sporting directors are leavig the club, and with the sort of expectations there are in Liverpool he'll definitely be up against it.

Liverpool are looking at Bradley Barcola, Brighton's Yankuba Minteh, Said El Mala of Koln and Lille's Matias Fernandez-Pardo - The Athletic

.... and all these are better than English and Scottish lads?

Apparently John Stones is out of contract, he was 32 in May, he'd do us for 2 or 3 years until the likes of Leoni and this new French lad get more experience.

Yeah I agree would add depth to our defensive line and bolster our squad.

Stones played well in this tournament but the reason he's out of contract at City is because you'd be lucky if he's fit to play for 20 games total in a season. He's always been injury prone and with his age it's getting worse. We'd be getting another Joe Gomes in our ranks, we'll never be able to rely on him being fit enough.

damjan193 wrote:Stones played well in this tournament but the reason he's out of contract at City is because you'd be lucky if he's fit to play for 20 games total in a season. He's always been injury prone and with his age it's getting worse. We'd be getting another Joe Gomes in our ranks, we'll never be able to rely on him being fit enough.

Totally agree.
If he's not fit enough to get a new deal at City then we would be mad to give him one. Iraola needs fully fit players that work hard to implement his style and we already have enough question marks within the squad. Van Dijk is there to guide the new lads.

From the media reports it seems like Iraola doesn't seem to want to let anyone go which I find worrying. Especially when a good few are set to walk for free next year.

I wasnt pencilling Stones in as an ever present in our line up, you'd hope this new French kid who's supposed to be the second coming of Franco Baresi and Leoni will be able to step up to the plate and partner Virgil, they 're not going to learn their trade sitting on a bench.
I just thought it might be an idea to have an experienced, quality CB on our books in case something happens to Virgil, if something does happen we are going to be struggling big time in terms of leadership at the back.
I think until the club starts bringing players in Iraola is doing the right thing to not let anyone go, we didnt have the biggest of squads anyway and we lost 3 influential players in Mo, Robbo and Ibou at the end of last season, we havent replaced them yet. Given we need numbers in Stones may have been an inexpensive way of padding out the squad

I think they consider Konate replaced with Jacquet, Robbo with the returning Tsimikas, hell maybe even Salah with the new Spanish lad Munoz. So in terms of quantity at least, we're around the same numbers as last season.

ycsatbjywtbiastkamb wrote:I wasnt pencilling Stones in as an ever present in our line up, you'd hope this new French kid who's supposed to be the second coming of Franco Baresi and Leoni will be able to step up to the plate and partner Virgil, they 're not going to learn their trade sitting on a bench.
I just thought it might be an idea to have an experienced, quality CB on our books in case something happens to Virgil, if something does happen we are going to be struggling big time in terms of leadership at the back.
I think until the club starts bringing players in Iraola is doing the right thing to not let anyone go, we didnt have the biggest of squads anyway and we lost 3 influential players in Mo, Robbo and Ibou at the end of last season, we havent replaced them yet. Given we need numbers in Stones may have been an inexpensive way of padding out the squad

I get what your saying Yakka but think it would be a bad move bringing him in just because of who he is. I also think another CH is way down the clubs priority list seeing as we already have 4. If it was as a replacement for Gomez then maybe but bringing one injury prone lad in to replace another isnt moving us forward. His wages would also be big and would probably cost us more than renewing Konate. Letting him go was a bad move just like letting Kelleher go. 

Last year they left Slot with a small squad for some reason, probably financial so every chance they will do it again. I also fail to see how lads that where surplus to requirements then won't be now.  Thats what they need to address. Move those on because they aren't going to improve us. They aren't being offered new deals (rightly so) so its just kicking the can down the road. 

If Iraola has a bad season he will walk so nows the time to back him with players that will improve us instead of handing him a roll of cheap duct tape.