07 Jan 2018 02:13:44
And so the cycle of moaning starts again.

Firstly i would like to say thankyou for all the memories, the crazy goals and all the trophys that we were never able to win with coutinho. Its just a shame he was not able to leave more amicably as he really was something of a local hero, if more than anything the manner of how he has left has gutted me far more than the fact that he has. The fact i had more empathy for suarez when he left than coutinho, even after suarez tried to eat a man, says a lot.

But the earth keeps spinning and the reds will keep banging in tricky goals. At least we have a good team now as opposed to when suarez left.

But now we get into the really fun debate of who should replace coutinho, and already, people are getting a bit upset, namely that mahrez may replace him. From my point of view the criticism is a typical unfair assessment of thinking every player in a foreign league is better because we do not watch them every week.

Two key things here. Firstly, i think people are drastically overstating how good coutinho actually is and that we have somehow lost in this scenario. Coutinho is a good player but even in this insanely inflated market, he isn't worth anything close to £140 million. We have fully mugged barcelona off, they are still reeling and panicking from the neymar transfer. I don't even think he is clever enough for their team to be honest. He is a very direct player whose game mainly revolves around running at the defense and cutting inside, or shooting from range. And he is very good at it, albeit not with the consistency barcelona need. He is not intelligent enough to control the game like iniesta or gerrard, nor is he intelligent enough to run a defense ragged with selfless play like firmino, messi or hazard. Even though he has good balance and feet, he still isn't a patch on players like zidane, ronaldo, ronaldihno or neymar. He is a good player, we have lost our talisman, but he is not that great. Dare i say it, he is quite one dimensional. Very good at what he does, but i do not think it will be too difficult to replace, and he could be quite a selfish player on the ball.

Secondly, we now we have to replace him, who can we realistically get? All the best players are at clubs who are never ever going to sell to us. Isco, hazard, silva, ozil, these players would be ideal replacements but are never going to happen in a million years. So the next person who comments on a post saying 'no, we need to buy top class players' should instead post a lengthy essay on which player they are referring to, why they would be an ideal replacement and why they are obtainable, because i am really not seeing many options.

Lemar could be an option. Draxler, could be an option. Brandt could be an option. Fekir could be an option. I don't watch these players an awful lot, but then again i don't go around telling people how amazing these players are compared to mahrez, when the reality is that i have just not watched these players enough to understand the flaws in their game. From what i have seen of lemar he has talent, but at £90 million it is not the same kind of refined talent that de bruyne or hazard had on display when they moved to the premier league, talent and consistency so great that it was clear adapting to the new league would never be a problem. For me lemar has the potential to be a bit risky, a bit of a flake, another markovic or di maria waiting to happen. So does draxler, so does brandt.

In england, we very much have a culture of fantasising over foreign names we have never seen kick a ball, and also not appreciating the talent we have in our own country and not giving it a chance. Mahrez is a very good player who is premier league proven, a former player of the year winner, who shares a lot of coutinho's attributes. He is coming into his prime years and has attracted the attention of barcelona in the past, which is no mean feat. He is also, let us not forget, a premier league champion, already winning more with leicester than coutinho has with us.

So why the stick? Well, he has been the unfortunate victim of the english press and was somehow blamed for ranieri's poor management and incompetence, a scapegoat for the failure of their 'flavour of the month' manager. I have a hard time making these allegations of poor attitude stick. As long as the lad really wants to join liverpool then the rest will follow. I haven't heard anything but complaints of poor attitude for almost every player liverpool have bought in recent times. Mane, van dijk, chamberlain, wijnaldum. they've all turned out alright. I don't think klopp is stupid enough to buy someone he considers trouble.

Like i say, fans are more inclined to think players they have never seen play are better than those in their own league, and i think that seems to be the key to both the mahrez transfer and the key to klopps transfer policy. Klopp himself knows the difficulties of adapting to the premier league. He understands the importance of buying players from within the league, players who are settled in the country and already have a grasp of what they are joining for when they move to your team. Its the reason why he was willing to splash out so much on van dijk, because he has realised that having a vocal leader who is composed and comfortable is more important than a foreign player who may have more talent on paper, but is not comfortable in the country. A lot of our signings are more in their mid 20's now as opposed to around 20, which is also a deliberate shift under klopp. Based on the success and logic of that approach so far, i really don't understand the uproar over mahrez, it makes perfect sense to me. And even if you do not want to sign mahrez, please leave a decent explanation why and what you would do differently in this whole situation, rather than bashing the club and players who haven't joined us yet, and generally making january an even more unpleasant month than it already is.


1.) 07 Jan 2018
07 Jan 2018 08:03:01
Why do you assume that no-one has watched players based abroad multiple times? People do watch more than just the premier league. Similarly, many folks will only ever see mahrez on match of the day (outside of the two games against us) . that's hardly an accurate assessment either.