Liverpool Banter 2

25 Jul 2026 23:22:11
8 mins into pre season and Gomez goes off injured. You can’t write this s***.

25 Jul 2026 23:22:00
Joe Gomez should be sponsored by Walkers. 🙈

25 Jul 2026 23:18:40
Joe lasted all of seven minutes. Great start to the season for him.

25 Jul 2026 23:17:56
Joe Gomez didn't even last 8 minutes, and people don't want to bring in a proper centre back??

He's a complete liability, has been for a long time.

25 Jul 2026 22:12:11
Jeremy Jacquet out of our first pre season match with an injury.

Fair to say, his integration into becoming a Liverpool player has now been completed.

25 Jul 2026 22:22:24
It's just precautionary, but this did make me laugh. People will be saying we need 2 CB's now.

25 Jul 2026 22:36:59
Slot's fault. Down to training.

25 Jul 2026 22:40:32
Tonight is the start of our new Andoni Iraola DNA future?

Nashville to be renamed "Smash"-ville after tonight!

Best of luck, Andoni, "You're the Man".

25 Jul 2026 22:42:12
I thought at least Ramsey would start.

25 Jul 2026 22:51:05
It's not a worry. We still have a 19 year old coming off an ACL, an injury prone player, and a 35 year old who can play there.

25 Jul 2026 22:52:19
Frimpong's chance to show Iraola why we don't need a new rb, Barry. Ndiaye has the same opportunity in terms of a cb. The whispers coming out the club are that Ndiaye has really impressed Iraola so far. Hopefully, he shows us why tonight.

25 Jul 2026 23:14:55
We should sign 7 CBs cos they keep getting injured.

25 Jul 2026 23:17:11
Gomez injured 7 minutes in.

25 Jul 2026 23:17:18
Gomez is off injured already.

The man is cursed.

25 Jul 2026 23:17:52
Gomez down and subbed off 8 mins into the preseason... Tale as old as time.

25 Jul 2026 23:18:31
Imagine telling me Joe Gomez is a good reliable squad member. What a joke he's still at the club.

25 Jul 2026 23:19:50
Gomez injured 7 minutes into pre season. 🤦‍♂️

25 Jul 2026 23:23:18
Good goal, Morrison.
Gomez? Seriously.

25 Jul 2026 23:23:51
Apparently we don't need to sign another centre back.

25 Jul 2026 23:25:54
Yis know Live Chat is open, lads? I'm feeling lonely in there.

25 Jul 2026 23:26:17
I remember a time, people on here said he wasn't injury prone. 😂

25 Jul 2026 23:31:26
As robust as a bag of kin Quavers. Ffs, get rid.

25 Jul 2026 23:32:36
Well that was unforeseen.

25 Jul 2026 23:43:59
These two kids at cb are all over the shop positionally.

25 Jul 2026 23:50:01
Gomez minor niggle now. Sign 3 CB's. Panic stations.

25 Jul 2026 23:54:10
You know as well as anyone, MK, we need another CB.

25 Jul 2026 23:56:03
First half report:

4231 Jones & McConnell as double pivot with Elliot in front. A little slow and disjointed, but 6 of our team are kids vs. a fairly experienced Sunderland team. Clearly more of an effort to get the ball forward quicker with less faffing around between the CBs. A more definite CB -> Full Back -> Midfielder approach and then try and go from there.

Although, frequently enough, they'd go back to a CB from midfield to recycle if they couldn't keep going forward, but there is a clear effort to get the ball forward quicker in the build up than under Slot.

Most of the time when we do get it to an attacker, it is to Rio. I'd like to have seen Elliot, Morrison and especially Wright get involved more.

25 Jul 2026 23:56:34
Mk, the only centre back we have that has played senior football and is currently fit is 35 yr old Virgil. Jaquet, returning from shoulder surgery, and not fit atm. Leoni, returning from ACL, and not recovered. Gomez injured/always injured. Am I missing anyone? Except these 2 kids that could be good but look like they don't know whether they are coming or going atm.

26 Jul 2026 00:01:31
If I speak...

26 Jul 2026 00:02:35
MKS, It doesn't matter if it is a minor niggle. He constantly has minor jiggles. He cannot be relied upon for two games of 90 minutes back to back.

So our CBs for the season opener are: Ndueke and Ndiaye. No pressure on the young lads then. Ease them in gently.

Jacquet is injured/not playing as a precaution.

Leoni is out for at least another month. Virgil may/may not be eligible as he played an entire season without missing a game and then every minute of his nation's games in the World Cup.

And who else is there? You don't win nothing with kids.

26 Jul 2026 00:04:48
Rome, I've been saying it all summer, mate. I want a Rb who can also cover Cb, for exactly this reason. Gomez is injury prone. Jules Kounde or Arnau Martinez would be spot on.

26 Jul 2026 00:05:54
Red-Will, I've been saying for months we need another CB.

26 Jul 2026 00:14:17
I know people didn't rate him on here, but we should have never sold Quansah. He was treated appallingly by Slot and would have taken clownate spot last season if we'd kept him.

26 Jul 2026 00:19:24
As much as I like Harvey Elliot, that performance in the first half certainly won't impress Iraola.

26 Jul 2026 00:43:26
Don't we need a right back to cover the right back that has to play centre half?

26 Jul 2026 03:39:17
Thought McConnell looked very good and suited Iraola's system.

26 Jul 2026 04:50:16
Who was that Italian bloke who came on in the second half?

26 Jul 2026 05:34:25
Jacquet and Leoni have played senior football. They were starters for Rennes and Parma respectively before coming to us. They are young but they are highly rated and sought after by other clubs before coming to us

26 Jul 2026 06:33:55
I said who are fit. They are both injured.

25 Jul 2026 21:32:33
I think people are thinking I am saying we will win the league with this squad. No! We need fresh talent and strength; it's essential. But players like Ramsay was Scottish player of the season when he was 18 or 19, Elliot, Chiesa, Wirtz, etc.

could benefit. Sometimes a new manager can bring out the best in certain players and develop new youngsters who weren't given a chance and Slot was very limited in this category.

25 Jul 2026 22:08:47
Ramsey was Young player of the year in Scotland. The general gist of your post concerning Ireola, I hope you're right, but this whole Slot should have played more kids, as someone who follows the academy, I simply know it's naive and was just another stick to beat with.

25 Jul 2026 22:30:57
Hailstones, if you're looking at Chiesa as an option, you can forget about challenging for trophies.

25 Jul 2026 22:57:56
Have you watched the Scottish national team? I could win young player of the year up there.

25 Jul 2026 23:02:51
Flo, I only get to see highlights and bits on YouTube from our youth teams. Are there any players you think could step up this season?
Heard good things about the young cbs we got in Jan, Abe and Morrison. Are there any others to look out for?

25 Jul 2026 23:33:47
I always think we will win the league always have always will.

26 Jul 2026 00:45:43
Even if Slot was still manager, Scousejohn?

26 Jul 2026 03:41:43
I disagree, Florian, part of a manager's responsibility is to watch the academy, see players who might be worth giving game time to, create opportunities for them to be tested in the first team. Slot failed this brief spectacularly. It is not another stick to beat him with, it is genuine criticism of something he did poorly.

25 Jul 2026 20:54:32
So just say theoretically the door was closed on Diomande and Barcola, what names would be thrown about as possible and good enough alternatives? I’d like to see suggestions besides Rayan as that’s been done to death. Any other suggestions?

25 Jul 2026 22:05:28
Godts
Yildiz
Moleiro.

25 Jul 2026 22:20:05
El Mala.

25 Jul 2026 23:11:28
Maybe El Mala, but not sure how suited he is to the RW. He looks good on the left and through the middle, though, more mobile than Gakpo through the middle.

Maybe Gakpo, Rio, Munoz and El Mala to rotate on the wings. El Mala and Gakpo can offer cover for Isak through the middle.

Elliott, Szobo and Frimpong to offer an option on the right, if absolutely necessary, to manage other players' minutes here and there on a cup game in early rounds.

Then reassess in January.

RW market is not the best, to say the least.

26 Jul 2026 04:52:01
Diaz, Nunez?

25 Jul 2026 21:28:24
Ed033 could you do a poll please.

Would you be annoyed if Yan Diomande didn't move to Liverpool

Yes

No

{Ed033's Note -


Yan Diomande poll

25 Jul 2026 21:57:47
I hope we stay clear, looks more trouble than he is worth.
With the agents he is worth, I think he will be a nightmare. Madrid fit him and his team perfectly.

25 Jul 2026 22:06:01
I don't think this will be close.

25 Jul 2026 23:14:30
I wanted him initially but I'm over it now.

I want Barcola. If that doesn't work, maybe go for El Mala and just go with him, Gakpo, Rio, and Munoz for now.

Not ideal, but there's not a lot of decent options.

25 Jul 2026 18:51:03
People say Slot won the league with Klopp's team, so in theory why can't Iriola do well with Slot's team? Players like Wirtz, Isak, Frimpong, Elliot, Chiesa could thrive under new management.

We also have lots of potential in this youth team. Calvin Ramsay a RB, Keiron Morrison, Sonnie Lambie, Nyoni, Leoni, the new Austrian CB. I trust our new manager to trust in all above players mentioned.

25 Jul 2026 19:35:40
Ramsay is 22, mate.

Looking forward to Iraola working his magic with all players.

25 Jul 2026 19:45:42
Hailstones, people who said that were wrong to say that cos Klopp wasn't there to coach the team, get them prepared and ready to play every game, and was responsible for the day to day running of the squad. Slot did all of that season and gets all the credit, plain and simple.

So what you are now saying makes no sense cos the squad Iraola has now is nowhere near at the level of the squad Slot took over. That is just a fact, so your theory falls flat on that alone.

I'm not gonna get into debunking the rest cos it will be just too painful to read.

Hence, we can all be excited about the season and that's okay, but I propose that we not put unnecessary pressure on Iraola like we didn't put on Slot when he started, and let the man do his job. You know, like we did with Slot, for ex.? If a league challenge/title comes out of that then, we will all be here for that. But before then, let Doni cook and see what that brings.

25 Jul 2026 19:45:59
Ramsay turns 23 in a week. Klopp didn't fancy him, Slot didn't fancy him. He barely got a game at Preston, Wigan, Bolton or Kilmarnock.
I'm all for giving young players a chance, but this lad isn't even a Championship player.

25 Jul 2026 20:01:16
As a man who took Yeovil from National League all the way to Champions League victory in FM24, I can personally vouch for Ramsay's ability, and tell you he is misunderstood and simply needs the right quality of manager.

I believe the matter is settled now.

25 Jul 2026 20:06:08
Klopp didn't win the Premier League with that Klopp team! We can't diminish what Slot did in his first year. I think he became a victim of his own success. Won it with ease, expected to do the same again.

I think he became super complacent and thought he could do the job while going back to visit his family every week. I'm not saying we should have got rid, but I think we have to give him some credit.

25 Jul 2026 20:08:24
Klopp on Ramsay:
"He is an outstanding talent. We scouted him over a lot of games and he did exceptionally well.

"For a young age - the way he plays - he is a real player. He is really involved in everything. He's a real talent and I am really excited about him.

"When he arrived here, he had this issue with the back so he was out. Now I've seen him two or three times training, but it is the first few sessions. Now we know much more about him as a boy.

"He is outstanding, well-educated, friendly - a really good boy. Now we start working, that's it. How it is for all of them in that age group: the sky is the limit.

"The start of his career was really good. Now we had that little interruption, but we are not done. We have to make sure we can work with him as much to give him the best chance of having the best possible career."

(End quote)

5th Element, not sure it's fair to say Klopp didn't fancy him.

Ramsay, unfortunately, broke his leg not long after battling back from a spinal fracture, and by the time he was back fit and sharp again, Slot was the manager. Injuries have devastated Ramsay in his development years, and it's extremely unlikely he'll bounce back to have a career with Liverpool in my opinion. I only shared this because I thought it did Klopp a massive disservice to lump him in with Slot as someone who doesn't even give young players the time of day.

Ramsay will probably play a few games on the tour but he'll need a minor miracle to still be here by the end of August. He was a very good player pre-injury though and was a first team regular up in Scotland by 18 years old.

25 Jul 2026 20:09:51
Olired, Slot doesn't get all the credit, Klopp built that team, took them from scraping 5th to a comfortable 3rd, increasing the points tally by nearly 20 in a single year whilst replacing 8 first-team players during his rebuild. None of whom were anywhere near the quality that Slot got with his transfers at the time.

Klopp deserves huge credit; he laid all the groundwork and left Slot with a team perfectly ready and capable of challenging for a title. Without that, Slot would have won absolutely nothing.

25 Jul 2026 20:13:56
Flight is correct, but I also think, to an extent, so is Hailstones. I think Slot had the league wrapped up within about 6 months in that first season. His tactical tweaks were good, he made good substitutions, and he played a blinder by moving Gravenberch to DM and Diaz to ST. After those first 6 months, though, the days off and lack of fitness started to catch up with us and we fell apart around about February time.

Within a week, we lost the Carabao Cup final to Newcastle and the PSG tie in the Champions League.

After that, things never recovered. On top of the fitness continually deteriorating, Slot seemed to become obsessed with PSG. Luckily the title was wrapped up in those first 6 months and we could coast home. So whilst I think the baseline fitness from Klopp's time helped initially, Slot's tactical tweaks also made a massive difference.

25 Jul 2026 20:21:29
The style of football will be totally different from Slot's, which was Passing Backwards First, Sideways your Second Pass, Forward pass the Third choice!

Under Iraola, his style of football is: Pass Forward First (Vertical), Sideways Pass your Second choice, and Pass Back the last option!

Shankly, Paisley, Fagan also offered the same advice to their glorious sides.

Look to Pass Forward First all the time, not pass the buck to someone else. They have been doing that in every Iraola triple training sessions from what I've seen.

25 Jul 2026 20:35:17
We thought that Slot was the Paisley to Klopp's Shankly style impact.

I think he ended up as a Joe Fagan. Hugely successful over a short tenure, but undone by off field tragedy.

Slot deserves huge credit for the title. His lack of ego led to him basically sticking with the squad he inherited, and his tweaks worked a treat.

In that first season, don’t forget that we topped the Champs League table, and I think were only beaten twice before claiming the title.



He wasn’t a traffic cop, giving directions - he deserves huge credit for it.

His second season was awful, but the first was great.

He came across as a smart and decent man. He just didn’t have the tools to turn things around.

But I don’t think any other new manager would have won us that title.

So, while we look to the future, let’s not downplay that achievement.

25 Jul 2026 20:59:39
Slot does get all the credit, Chewy, just like any other manager, in any other league that won a title, in the history of football. Last year was the only time in 40 years I have ever, ever heard one manager getting even partial credit for a different manager winning a league. That's how bad it got.

25 Jul 2026 21:00:49
I'm sure that Andoni will have a better idea than any of us IKFAs, so why don't we wait until things play out?

25 Jul 2026 21:40:13
Just worth mentioning, that in the last few 2 years at least of Klopp's time here, it wasn't really his tactics either, it was Ljinders.
So Slot didn't really take over from Klopp, he took over from Pep and made a clear and obvious improvement before it started going south.

25 Jul 2026 21:46:52
MK, I think Ramsey was just very unlucky. I remember being excited at us signing him, for big money from the Scottish league. But, unfortunately, injuries at the cruelest times have killed him. He's hardly played for years now, and he's not alone. Chambers and Deann's are similarly talented, but have had similar bad luck. I still don't agree with the whole criticism of Slot last year for not playing him, but that's not important. The main thing now is the lad can stay injury free and craft a decent career for himself.

I've no doubt he will. On the losing to Newcastle and PSG in a week, fair enough, the Newcastle performance was very poor. But PSG, we were penalty kicks away from beating a team who walked the rest of the tournament, including winning the final 5 nil, even if I will admit they were the better team over the two legs. Because let's face it, nobody wuda cared PSG were better if we'd have got through.

25 Jul 2026 21:49:43
Don't talk sense Westwood.

25 Jul 2026 21:50:05
Can we get a signing done so we don't have to drag Slot back out for something to talk about. 😂

25 Jul 2026 23:21:51
Klopp gets massive credit for leaving the team in a fantastic state. Ready to challenge for a title. That can't be argued against in any way, shape or form. The reason it was the first time you heard of it, Florian, was because it's so rare that a manager actually walks away having undertaken the responsibility of a rebuild and leaving the team in a prime position to challenge for titles.



The entire fanbase, even Slot, recognizes the importance of Klopp's foundations. If you want to ignore it, go right ahead. The fact remains, if it wasn't for Klopp's building and development in the 2 seasons previous, Slot wouldn't have won so much as a raffle.