Liverpool Banter Archive November 04 2016

04 Nov 2016 14:16:05
Hi eds, ...............

{Ed002's Note - This is the Liverpool page - take it elsewhere.}

04 Nov 2016 21:55:08
this isn't first post I've seen like this why do people just send fullstops. is it just to be a wind up yeah?

04 Nov 2016 23:22:45
lf-c, funny. atleast i hope its a joke for humanities sake.

05 Nov 2016 02:23:14
Why I .........

{Ed002's Note - It is nothing whatsoever to do with Liverpool - you are on the wrong page.

05 Nov 2016 05:44:28
Lee can you please .

04 Nov 2016 13:21:57
I've seen a few people suggest we have too many centre backs or that we shouldn't sign one and block off Gomez from the first team. However I just wanted to put forward my take on the discussion.

Matip - Easily our best centre back. He looks strong in the air and on the ground, has quick reactions to make up for his average pace (although he isn't what I consider to be slow anyway), he has great composure and ball skills, but most importantly his positional awareness is very good. You can visually see him reacting to the movements of both his own team mates and the opposition which shows just how switched on he is. Without a shadow of a doubt, he is here to be the lynchpin of our back 4 for the next 5-10 years. I hope once he settles in he can become a leader as well.

Lovren - currently a starter but after initially showing improvement under Klopp, the lack of competition at the heart of our defence has seen him slip back into bad habits. He is making rash decisions, losing concentration and once again getting beaten far to easily in both aerial and ground duels. His leadership and ball skills are also not good enough to make up for his lack of defensive ability and I can see him being replaced before the start of next season.

Sakho - clearly not wanted. Will be sold as soon as a buyer is found.

Klavan - he is alarmingly similar to Lovren. Rash, prone to concentration lapses, and lacks conviction in the tackle. He is however better in the air and on the ball. Where he badly falls down though is that his complete lack of pace prevents him from recovering from his rash decisions or positional volatility. Contrary to what Klopp has said he was clearly only signed as back up after the Sakho fall out. Klopp couldn't exactly publically admit that Klavan was just coming in as cover though. Good man management is giving the player a chance to break into the team at least.

Ilori - again, will be sold as soon as a buyer is found.

Lucas - whilst he is actually a midfielder and had a very uncharacteristic nightmare mistake against Leicester, I personally would have him starting alongside Matip in the short term. He is positionally excellent, deceptively good in the air, easily better on the ball than all the above, and also the best leader amongst our defensive options. His main weakness is that his injuries have robbed him of the little pace he had and his only way to cover for this is to bring people down if they are going to beat him. He is a very good tackler, probably the best in the squad, but he is too intelligent to just let people go past him.

Gomez - still a teenager and just back from a year out with a knee injury. He will need at least 2 more years as a squad player or with the academy before he is ready for the regular physicality of being a Premier League centre back. He has plenty of time on should not be rushed. Young players don't just bounce back instantly. Flanagan and Shaw are prime examples of how it takes time to get back to the level you were at before.

Realistically looking at our options we have only Matip good enough to start, with Klavan, Lucas and Gomez as competition and cover. Now considering Gomez needs time and Klavan and Lucas are getting on a bit we really should be looking to replace Lovren, Sakho and Ilori as none of them are at ages or wages where they will be satisfied with being bit part players. Only 1 player would be needed to replace them seeing as Lovren is the only one of the 3 who gets near the first team, but ultimately Lovren is not good enough to start for us. He had a good end to last season competing for a place with Toure, Lucas and Sakho. However he has shown this season that none of his learnt lessons have stuck and he will always be unreliable.

Lovren, Sakho and Ilori are all predominantly left sided centre backs so we should be looking for a player to come in and play on Matip's left, with whom he can form a good partnership. This would give us Matip and the new man as the starting pair with experienced back up in Klavan and Lucas, and Gomez learning his trade looking to bring competition for places over the next few years.

So yes, we are currently over stocked in central defence, but it is unfortunately with quantity and not quality. You only have to look at our front 3 to see the contrast. Here we have 6 senior centre backs fighting over 2 positions with only 1 of them being good enough both in the present to long term and Gomez still recovering. Yet in attack we have Coutinho, Sturridge, Origi, Mane and Firmino (5 players) fighting over 3 positions all of whom could start the next game without the quality dipping. Yet it is amazingly our defence which lacks competition! Quality is far more crucial than quantity. This is something Klopp has always lived by during his Dortmund days. So do not be surprised to see 3 or 4 of those 6 senior centre backs move on and only be replaced by 1 superior player.

The best defence in the Premier league is Tottenham's and yet they only have 3 senior centre backs in Alderweireld, Vertonghen and Wimmer. The difference is all 3 of them are quality. Having quality over quantity also allows them to give game time to the younger guys like Dier.

We have too many okay defenders and not enough good defenders. That needs to be changed and it will be changed. We can't carry on conceding more than a goal a game with a 1:9 clean sheet ratio and expect to compete every season. When arguably your second best centre back is a midfielder who has had 3 major knee injuries, and your best left back is a right winger, you know you have frailties at the back. Do not let the number of bodies fool you into thinking we have a good level of defensive competition.

04 Nov 2016 13:54:24
We should have avoided Klavan and signed a class replacement for the already gone Sakho. But then Gomes still a puzzle which needs to be carefully addressed. Matip is without a doubt a regualr starter, The next one are all gambles. A team competing for top honors need two class players at the back.
Lucas would leave by end of this season and I don't think Klavan is anywhere near good enough. That leaves us with same old Lovren and Young Gomez to play aongisde Matip.
Spurs is a brilliant example as well Arsenal. Two starters who are pretty much brilliant.

04 Nov 2016 14:40:13
Yeah to me young gomez needs his chance. He's got so much potential, himself and matip can be special imo.

04 Nov 2016 15:32:56
Gomez deserves a chance to prove himself. Why does he need to play in the reserves?

04 Nov 2016 15:32:56
Gomez deserves a chance to prove himself. Why does he need to play in the reserves?

04 Nov 2016 16:09:30
Excellent post Adam now we just have to trust our scouts to find a top quality CB . In the case of Gomez he does deserve a chance Ron but it will be hard to come back from a severe knee injury, so he has to be eased back in.

04 Nov 2016 17:23:55
I don't see why gomez needs 2 yrs to get back, every individual is different and he has more natural ability than flanno. He just needs to get back playing to build back up fitness and sharpness and i expect to see him back to his best in 6 months or so.

I do however agree that with the departure of sakho we will be light on a quality cb to partner matip who for me is also just decent and no worldie. We will see what edwards and klopp will come up with in january, but i suspect this won't be adressed until the summer.

04 Nov 2016 17:41:50
I think you far too critical of Lovren. He gets beaten easily in the air? He has a far better aerial duel won percentage than Matip, and while he is not great, I think he has more than stepped up and found a better level than the one he was under Rodgers. He makes mistakes due to his concentration levels, I agree, but the mistakes have gone down this season and I hope he kicks on and continues to improve.

04 Nov 2016 17:54:29
Eds - Can we have a separate page for long essays please? LOL (just kidding) .

04 Nov 2016 18:45:20
Stats on duel percentages are really not that great AG. For example if Matip wins an unchallenged header because he positioned himself well it is recorded as a clearance or an interception instead of a duel won. If you check the stats Skrtel had better duel stats than Agger because Agger was intelligent enough to win possession without having to throw himself into challenges all the time. Lovren doesn't read the flight of the ball, he just tries tussling with the man he is marking. If he just attacked the ball instead he would win far more headers. Plus you are also not accounting for the fact that Matip since he has arrived has usually marked the biggest aerial threat in the opposition team whilst Lovren tends to mark players he should beat easily. From corners they also defend different zones. Players who are better in the air are put in the more difficult scenarios because they are better equipped to cope with it. So they usually have slightly worse stats.

I am a fan of certain stats but you have to be careful when using them to make comparisons. Lovren has definitely improved but he is slipping up again now. I would not be surprised to see Lucas start this weekend after Lovren's performances in recent weeks. He is costing us goals. 2 in the last game alone regardless of whether or not he scored one. I do not think he is a bad player, but I do not think he is good enough for us if we want to be title contenders and regulars in the later stages of the Champions league. Go back to 2008 and we had Carragher and Agger in their prime as well as Hyypia still doing a job as cover. It often goes under the radar but losing Hyypia was the first step in Rafa's decline. Agger was always injury prone but we replaced Hyypia with Skrtel who never lived up to expectations and couldn't provide the same level of cover as Hyypia when Dagger was out. Then when we lost Carragher and Agger as well our once solid defence that could shut out Madrid or Barcelona started shipping 6 goals against teams like Stoke.

We have not had a genuinely top class centre back since Carragher retired. I hope Matip is the first to break that trend and that one or two more follow.

Ron, on Gomez I think we need to be patient. Not all players start their regular senior careers at 18/ 19 years old. He has had a bad injury and he needs a year of reserve football at least before he can get back to the level required to play first team Premier League football. After a year or so he will probably then be ready for cup appearances or maybe even a full back role in the first team to cut his teeth. How many U21 centre backs do you see who are first choice at a top European team? I can only think of Varane in recent years. Gomez needs to be nurtured and developed. Throwing a young player in at centre back is a risk even if they haven't missed 12 months with injury. Gomez isn't even fit enough to get back in the U23's side yet and we have no idea how good he will be when he comes back. He has plenty of time and i Hope a very bright future with us, but rushing him will only damage his body and his confidence when he inevitably starts getting hounded for every little mistake.

I think next summer we may move on everyone except Matip, Lucas, Klavan and Gomez then sign a new partner for Matip. Gomez should for me be an u23 regular for a couple of years making the cup competition squads and then by 21 years old he will hopefully be ready to start fighting for a starting berth.

I do not want to see him going the same way as John Stones because Gomez is a much better defender who could well be special if developed properly. The last thing we want to do is throw him in at the deep to initially impress, get a big contract to hold on to him and then get crucified when his form dips off (as it inevitably will as with all young players) and then the media go into a frenzy about how he was just another overhyped young English player; just months after they led the hyping bandwagon! Let him develop at his natural pace. We should not even be discussing an 18 year old who has been injured for 12 months as a first team option. It is ludicrous. He needs to be kept out of the limelight to learn his trade, so that the expectations of everyone (including the player) are kept in check. Like we are doing with the likes of Woodburn and Ejaria despite their performances in pre season. If you give a young player everything at 18 you can end up with a Raheem Sterling who thinks he has made it already and starts focusing more on money than their performances. Sterling is actually a great example of a player who had everything required to become world class, but got too big for his boots when he was made the main man of a big club at just 20 years old. Last season was a major reality check for him and he may come back from it, but why make the same mistake with Gomez? Patience is key.

04 Nov 2016 22:25:56
For me, Lovren has been great this season until we faced Palace. You can keep your stats, MK - they will tell a different story depending on who the fullbacks and DM are in a game; the speed and height of the opposing forwards; and a stack of other factors. Whether or not Lovren should be a first-choice centreback still remains to be seen but I've liked his partnership with Matip so far this season.

04 Nov 2016 23:06:06
Lovren has improved a lot compared with last season.

I think the lad is desperate to do well and klopp seems to rate him highly.

I think with a new keeper and centre half partner that it will be up and down for a while.
I think the defence appears a lot mor solid with Milner at full back.

045 Nov 2016 10:05:39
I agree on all except Lucas, he's got too many errors in him. My preference would be to keep Lovren this season, buy another CB in the summer and focus on Gomez becoming third choice.

04 Nov 2016 12:14:45
I'm not going to pretend I had heard of him before last week, but everything I have read about Michael Edwards impresses me.

For a start, Ed001's endorsement carries a lot of weight as far as I am concerned. Considering Edwards apparently argued against Benteke and for Firmino without the benefit of hindsight which we now have, you have to say that proves he at least has a degree of understanding when it comes to good and bad transfers.

What I do want to do though is congratulate FSG on learning their lessons and finally separating the role of CEO and Technical Director out. Ian Ayre has tried his best but it is completely illogical to have the person working on transfers to also be working on the finances. It would be like a company in the real world employing one man as a Research and Development director, as well as a Finance director. The two roles are far to different to combine. You need to have two heads working together for this; one person taking calculated financial risks which he has to sell to the other more conservative money man. I am keen to see who becomes our new CEO though as whoever it is still needs to have enough understanding of the game to accept that risks have to be taken to progress in this game.

Back to Edwards though, I am glad that he has more of a technical background than a financial background. You need your main man on transfers to be a football man first, and a businessman second. He not only played the game at a relatively high level as a kid, but since being released as a player he has educated himself in the sport and worked his way up through various performance analysis roles (which again suggests he has a very good understanding of the game) .

Finally, and most critically in my opinion, he has a good relationship with and apparently the full support of Jurgen Klopp. Ultimately, this guy is the bridge between Klopp and the money men at the top. Thus, he needs to have these sorts of ties with the manager. They must work together with the scouting systems to identify and agree on the best players to take us forward. If Klopp really wants a player I believe we now have a person we can trust to both drive the transfer through, but also someone with the footballing brain to tell Klopp when he might be wrong (Caulker anyone? ) .

Overall, I think this is a massive step forward for the club both on and off the pitch and it is certainly something FSG ought to be congratulated on. It is not easy for people with little football understanding to run a football club successfully but after years of having people more akin to a businessman (Rodgers, Werner, Ayre, Comolli etc) in the hierarchy of the club they now have people like Klopp and Edwards who are passionate football men. Whilst I am a massive believer than it isn't always important with regards to understanding the technical sides of the game, they also both played the game so at the very least they understand the passions and frustrations of football. Liverpool FC is now seemingly back in the hands of people who have what happens on the pitch (and not the board room) in their best interests. That not not only pleases me greatly, but also excites me going forward.

I think we have some very good years on the horizon fellow reds!

04 Nov 2016 23:10:38
As long as Klopp has the last say on the signings.

Does anyone know if Klopp has the final say with the under age players?

05 Nov 2016 08:48:42
Good post Adam but caulker is unfair. I think that he was an inglethorpe recommendation which klopp trusted.

04 Nov 2016 08:00:22
Hi eds, can you really see coutinho leaving in January or even this summer? I can't see him getting a game ahead of MSN at Barcelona and I can't see him getting in the front 3 at RM, then there's midfield, he would have to compete with Kroos Isco and moderic at real and busquets iniesta rakatic at Barca, I know his form has been more consistent recently but he has been guilty of having a blinder and then be quiet for a month sometimes in the past. Just my thoughts or maybe I'm wrong, what's your view on it eds?

Many thanks

Henlow red.

{Ed002's Note - He won't be leaving in January and the summer is a long way off. He has made it clear that he wants to be playing at the highest level - that has been explained.}

04 Nov 2016 09:48:42
Long term iniesta replacement maybe.

04 Nov 2016 11:00:08
Barcelona will have to sell someone big to bring in Coutinho. Real is facing a transfer ban. PSG could come in. Pastore and Lucas Moura could be on their way out may be?

04 Nov 2016 14:12:15
I don't see why any footballer would want to go to PSG they're in a league of their own at the minute hard to see that changing within the next few years. He's almost certainly going to end up at Barcelona but hopefully we get a couple more years out of him.

04 Nov 2016 14:47:12
Barca can't afford him.

03 Nov 2016 22:03:59
Question for Ed001. What did you think of Guti back before he retired?

{Ed001's Note - I wasn't a big fan, at times he could be brilliant, but mostly he was just flitting around the edges of games, and he seemed to always be fiddling with his hair.}