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.

The problem with or CB's though mate is that their age profiles arent great, when i say the two young lads are young i mean like they couldnt possibly be paired together, they are far too young for that. Virgil and Joe are at the other end of the spectrum, Virgil's 35 now as we know the older you get the more susceptible you are to picking up injuries, particularly pulls and strains. Speaking of injuries i keep forgetting that Leoni hasnt kicked a ball in anger in nearly a year, you know what the more I think of it the more convinced i am that if we go into next season with just those 4 then we are asking for trouble.

I think we definitely will need another CB and as Yakka says, the age profile is not great but I would not want it to be Stones. It would be foolish to go into the season with two very young and two old  CB’s, asking for trouble. I think we certainly need one Guehi level and aged player and sell Gomez as he’s too injury prone as versatile as he is. We need a very good 25/26 year old defender just entering his prime, and he needs to be very fast if we will play with a high press. Also I’d right off Leoni for another season at least as he did have a very bad injury, he’s young enough to recover well but it won’t be the following season, 2 years I’d say to get to actual 100%, and that’s assuming his mentality is good, easy to get depressed when you are recovering from a bad injury and not playing well. A lot of great talented young players fell off the radar after they got a similar injury. He should make it but no guarantees at all.

Im not against us bringing in another CH lads and think we where awful stupid letting Konate go. They dont seem to want to part with Gomez either and have spoken about wanting Jaquet and Leoni to be the future. Likewise I think we would be in a world of trouble if we suffered an injury to Virgil. I have no faith in Gomez staying fit either. My opinion is still the same as end of the season in that we need a CH, DM and a RW but so far all we got is competition for Rio at LW. 

Iraola will find out soon enough what the pressure is like here to match expectations of the fanbase and owners. Like all the other managers we had he will be expected to compete with less. I like iraola and what he says but if we make the job nearly impossible for him he could walk at the end of season 1. If he decides that he cant improve us he will.

Still plenty of time to go in the window so hopefully we act soon.

Wow!! Morgan Rodgers to Chelsea for £117 million pounds!!  The world is gone mad.