Liverpool FC Forum

Must admit i'm starting to get a bit concerned about this upcoming season, there were periods last year were we showed relegation form and as it stands right now i actually think that squad we had last year was stronger than this one.
If Virgil picks up a long term injury we really could be in trouble. We clearly need to bring one or two in, i'm not sure what the club is waiting for the season starts in 3 weeks.

Our squad is ridiculously thin! It was thin last season and we've lost Konate, Robbo and Salah we brought back Tsmikas, and Elliot (who we failed to sell) and bought Jaquet and Munoz. And now there's rumours that Mac allister wants to leave.

Marmadashvili, Frimpong, Ramsey, Chiesa.. these are back up players that wouldn't even get into a championship team.

We need a RB, a CDM, a Winger and a CB. This is the bare minimum.

How can we play Iriola style football with this bunch who were knackered 20 minutes into every game last season.



Worrying times

Thats disappointing from Mc Alister if its true. It was obvious he wasn't happy last season but would have thought he would be happy playing under Iraola. The gaffer said it himself that he rates him very highly and is an important part of our engine. Really dont think he would want to lose him this year.

If he does want to go then I hope he realises its going to take a serious bid for the club to agree.

Anyway Romano is posting that we have made contact with PSG for Barcola. Hopefully we go in with our maximum take it or leave it bid. If they dont accept then move on to another target.  Either way just put an end to it.

This team need quite bit of work especially defensively. If we don't recruit, were in for a tough season. As many said an injury to VVD and we're done at the back. Hoping for your 34 yr old CB to stay fit is a sad situation. If we can't get players I'd honestly consider loans or even players that are bit seasoned as stop gaps to keep us going.

It wouldn't do any harm to bring in a CH that can play RB as well but it seems the club is dead set against that. We have Van Dijk and Iraola is saying Jaquet and Gomez aren't far off with Leoni returning not long after that. Im sure we will have 2 of them available for Newcastle.

Barcola is dragging on a bit at this stage. If we aren't going to pay the asking fee then we should look elsewhere. I was reading a piece on Maghnes Akilouche from Monaco who PSG are supposedly in for. Would cost less than half of what they want for Barcola.  We play them on Sunday so maybe we could roll out the red carpet and wow the lad.

https://www.skysports.com/football/news ... -big-asset

Not impressed at all with the backing that they have given the manager so far. They have just given him players we couldn't sell. If Van Dijk gets injured we are fcuked. If isak gets injured we are fcuked.

I don't know if I saw enough in the pre season games of the fringe players to think there just might be a jewel in there. One, or two who might turn out to be a TAA, or a Fowler, or an Owen, or a Carragher... Players coming through the ranks and turn out to be homegrown legends.
Not from the games I've seen.
I had hoped under a new manager that someone like Koumas, or Chambers, Ramsay, date I say even Wright might just take the bum by the horns and say "Fark this, lads, I'm havin' that jersey."

IMO Nyoni has shown a bit of promise in this pre season.

redshade » Tue Aug 04, 2026 9:11 pm wrote: If we can't get players I'd honestly consider loans or even players that are bit seasoned as stop gaps to keep us going.

I said the same thing in a different thread. If we can't identify a long-term target that we believe is worth to spend a lot of money on, i.e. Barcola who we seem reluctant to spend what PSG is asking for (he's worth no where near that tbh), or if we believe that our long-term players are already at the club, like we seem to think about Jacquet and Leoni, then just go for a short-term signing or a loan. IMO Danny Welbeck for £5m on a 2 year contract was good business by Chelsea and we should do something similar. In any case, doing nothing would be the worst possible thing to do, we've had a lot of bad injuries to some players and we've no idea how or when they'll recover from them, signing no one will be a huge risk.

damjan193 wrote:IMO Nyoni has shown a bit of promise in this pre season.

I think he's been really good in preseason. Barely poot a foot wrong and showing a lot of maturity. He should get regular playing time this season.

Must admit i used to be against short term, stop-gap, sticking plaster type signings but as others have mentioned when you are forking out 100m plus you dont need to get many of those stupid money signings wrong to land the club in a bit of trouble financially.
Barcola is a bit of a risk imo, from what i've seen of him he's quick and can go past a man but he always seems to fv.ck up all his good work with a heavy touch or poor cross etc, i think end product is a bit of an issue with him, if he cost 40m then hell yeah go get the lad but 100m plus?

ycsatbjywtbiastkamb » Wed Aug 05, 2026 10:26 am wrote:Must admit i used to be against short term, stop-gap, sticking plaster type signings but as others have mentioned when you are forking out 100m plus you dont need to get many of those stupid money signings wrong to land the club in a bit of trouble financially.
Barcola is a bit of a risk imo, from what i've seen of him he's quick and can go past a man but he always seems to fv.ck up all his good work with a heavy touch or poor cross etc, i think end product is a bit of an issue with him, if he cost 40m then hell yeah go get the lad but 100m plus?

Agreed. From what I've seen of him for PSG and France, it's all fart and no splash

I hope to God Iraola is not a yes man, apparently he was genuinely trying to claim, with a straight face, that VVD, JG,Jacquet and Leoni are more than enough to go into next season with. Hopefully he is just putting a brave face on for the media and is screaming blue murder behind the scene's because that defence is nowhere near good enough to go into next season with in fact we could go down with that back 4 and i'm not joking.

For a start the 2 kids [lets face it at 19 and 21 in CB terms they are practically babies] neither of them has played a single premier league game yet, we dont know if they can cope with the intensity of 1 game never mind 60, i'm not just talking about playing week in week out against quality attacking players like Haarland and Saka i'm talking about being bombarded by long throws, having to mark CB's like the pair from Arsenal or that Byrne from Newcastle who have made their way forward for set pieces.
Thats without mentioning the elephant in the room in the form of Leoni is still months away from full fitness and even then who hits the ground running after being out for 12 months with an ACL? The answer is no one, tbh i've written him off until next season, when he comes back he will be like Bambi on ice for 6 months, thats not having a go at the lad everyone is like that after an ACL.

So that leaves us with Joe Gomez who is literally made of glass and was never the second coming of Franco Baresi anyway and Virgil Van Dyke who was the second coming of Franco Baresi but is 35 these days which is basically the age the likes of big Sami and Jamie Carragher called it a day. We are expecting him to hold the fort and carry our defence [yet again] at an age when a lot of players are thinking about hanging their boots up for good. We dont ask much of the big fella do we? I'll tell you something else as well, looking at Curtis Jones and a few others we still cant tackle a sausage dinner in the middle of the park,Iraola has got 3 weeks to light a fire under their @rses and if he cant and our players are as passive as they were last year.....with this back 4? Could be f.vcking carnage.

He comes across as no nonsense tbh and has spoke about needing players so we really cant afford to mess him about. After working with the youth so far I'm sure he knows a lot are no where near good enough.

red till i die!! » Thu Aug 06, 2026 8:15 pm wrote:He comes across as no nonsense tbh and has spoke about needing players so we really cant afford to mess him about. After working with the youth so far I'm sure he knows a lot are no where near good enough.

I hope so mate because it's easy to forget just how bad we were last year, there were periods when we were losing 8 games out of 11 and shipping goals like they were going out of fashion. Only for there being a 5th qualifying position [which we still made a meal of securing, we stumbled over the line on the last day] we would have went from champions to missing out on the CL. Cant help but feel sorry for Roy Evans, he never finished outside the top 4 but lost his job because only the top 2 qualified in those days and he was unlucky enough to run into prime Ferguson and Wenger. One year he nearly won the league but we blew it down the home stretch [the famous finishing third in a two horse race season] when David James who had been decent up to that point earned his 'Calamity James' moniker.
If we dont strengthen i fear the worst i genuinely do, we were dreadful last year and i mean a year, we played poorly for a calender year.

Honestly cant forget how bad last year was and also think just changing manager won't fix a lot of the problems. I really hope we offload Gakpo, Jones and Elliot for Mbaye, Barcola and a defender. More than likely we have to sell to offset some of the spend and that could be why things are dog slow.  If they decide just to add a RW then I think we are in trouble to even challenge for 4th next year.