Liverpool FC Team Talk/Gossip/Rumours 2018

Gbear

Gbear wrote: »

It's also worthless unless it's net spend and if it ignores wages.

Net Spend get's scoffed at.

That's despite it being basic maths and common sense.

MD1990

marklazarcovic wrote: »

Loads seem to think of cash when it comes to their clubs,like they are bringing their footie manager experience into real life..

See quotes like .. "be great if we sold him on for profit"

"Wouldn't sell for less than x amount""

"Let him sit in the reserves for the season,show him who's boss"

Even the manager hasn't a clue about the financial side these days.. but on here (boards.ie) .. financial experts aplenty .. people actually argue over it when they haven't a clue.

Some Liverpool fans even have their profile pic of Michael Edwards on twitter.:pac:

Truly bizarre.

Knex*

MD1990 wrote: »

Gomez has lost weight since Klopp arrived.

He won't be gaining weight in the future I hope.

Just needs more experience.
He is brillant prospect has all the attributes needed. I remember some on here wrote him off after a poor game when he played injured. Ridiculous stuff.

He will be a better defender than Maquire.

You think? Interesting.


Perhaps he just looks more muscular to me then, or something. He seems in excellent shape anyhow.

garra

x43r0 wrote: »

All-denim suits if we make a cup final!

Spice boys 2.0

The Canadian tuxedo is only worn to GAA finals and coppers

martyos121

RoboKlopp wrote: »

Net Spend get's scoffed at.

That's despite it being basic maths and common sense.

They haven’t used common sense since Mourinho took over, why start now? :pac:

MD1990

Knex. wrote: »

You think? Interesting.


Perhaps he just looks more muscular to me then, or something. He seems in excellent shape anyhow.

Klopp spoke about it a year ago.

https://www.thisisanfield.com/2017/07/jurgen-klopp-hails-lighter-joe-gomez-genuine-option-right-back-season/

garra

RoboKlopp wrote: »

Net Spend get's scoffed at.

That's despite it being basic maths and common sense.

In fairness net spend is irrelevant these days, with the plentiful revenue sources and endless cash floating about the game

5starpool

5starpool wrote: »

I thought we were the ones who lived in the past?

I like the present myself

garra

garra wrote: »

In fairness net spend is irrelevant these days, with the plentiful revenue sources and endless cash floating about the game

How It's all coming from the same pot.


Simple example.

Manager A has £200m to spend regardless of outgoings.
Manager B has £200m to spend but must sell £100m of assets


Surely Manager A is better off as he's not balancing the books every cople of years.

rossie1977

garra wrote: »

In fairness net spend is irrelevant these days, with the plentiful revenue sources and endless cash floating about the game

Its not though. Liverpool are not spending over £200m since January if they don't sell Coutinho.

Liverpool while a big club still need to sell to buy unlike Man Utd, City or Chelsea who don't need to sell their best players at their peaks and can keep improving their squads year on year.

Gbear

garra wrote: »

In fairness net spend is irrelevant these days, with the plentiful revenue sources and endless cash floating about the game

It really isn't.

Do you think we could've afforded to be as free as we have without taking in 150m quid in transfer fees?

And even if we could it would've meant a fallow year or couple of years following it, to avoid getting into a position where the club had taken on potentially dangerous quantities of debt.

Why aren't Spurs spending anything if these endless rivers of revenue are supplying their bounty to everyone in the PL?
They must've made nearly 150m from TV rights for PL and CL alone last season, but they hadn't two shillings to rub together when it came to investing in players.

But of course, the new contracts signed were "just like new signings".

Morzadec

For all the laughing at Net Spend, it really is the only metric that can accurately be used to asses a teams dealings in the transfer market, or whether a manager has been backed.

"Money Spent" is a useless and misleading metric. It only works if you never sell your players, particularly your best players. It ignores facts like Liverpool suddenly losing their most influential player last season. How can you ignore a fact like that when appraising how you work the market and how the team is performing relative to money spent in real terms?

I'm sure it's soothing for them to look at this and feel better about themselves, but I'm sure most with any critical faculty know it's a really misleading and useless metric.

"Trophies won" is not really an absolute metric of success or the level your squad is playing at. Don't get me wrong it would be great to win a second tier trophy, but ultimately how I judge Klopp is the level he brings the squad to. How to define that? I'd say challenging for the elite trophies (Premier League and Champions League). Being considered amongst the top 8-10 clubs in Europe, being feared and respected by the elite clubs. That will bring you trophies and hopefully eventually an elite one at that.

Europa League has always been a stepping stone as far as I'm concerned, and I'm sure United fans if they were honest with themselves would think the same. It's why big clubs often value CL qualification over winning a domestic cup - it's because ultimately all these clubs want to be amongst the best.

Liverpool and United were probably on about level footing around the time Klopp / Mourinho took over in terms of squad quality. Since summer 2016, Mourinho has overseen comings and goings translating to an outlay of £307.25m, while Klopp's overall transfer activity cost the club £121.9m.

So that's £187m more in that time period United have invested in the transfer market. Or more than double, if you want to look at it that way. Inshort Mourinhoh has not been at all short of financial backing, and has had considerable more funds to work with than Klopp.

Time will tell, but I think most neutrals would say that Liverpool have the squad to be amongst the best in Europe, whereas United look like they're quite far off the most elite teams.

The fact is the club receives money when they sell a player, and usually invest this back into the team - you can't ignore that. A manager's transfer budget is of course going to include money made from outgoings

TitianGerm

Morzadec wrote: »

For all the laughing at Net Spend, it really is the only metric that can accurately be used to asses a teams dealings in the transfer market, or whether a manager has been backed.

"Money Spent" is a useless and misleading metric. It only works if you never sell your players, particularly your best players. It ignores facts like Liverpool suddenly losing their most influential player last season. How can you ignore a fact like that when appraising how you work the market and how the team is performing relative to money spent in real terms?

I'm sure it's soothing for them to look at this and feel better about themselves, but I'm sure most with any critical faculty know it's a really misleading and useless metric.

"Trophies won" is not really an absolute metric of success or the level your squad is playing at. Don't get me wrong it would be great to win a second tier trophy, but ultimately how I judge Klopp is the level he brings the squad to. How to define that? I'd say challenging for the elite trophies (Premier League and Champions League). Being considered amongst the top 8-10 clubs in Europe, being feared and respected by the elite clubs. That will bring you trophies and hopefully eventually an elite one at that.

Europa League has always been a stepping stone as far as I'm concerned, and I'm sure United fans if they were honest with themselves would think the same. It's why big clubs often value CL qualification over winning a domestic cup - it's because ultimately all these clubs want to be amongst the best.

Liverpool and United were probably on about level footing around the time Klopp / Mourinho took over in terms of squad quality. Since summer 2016, Mourinho has overseen comings and goings translating to an outlay of £307.25m, while Klopp's overall transfer activity cost the club £121.9m.

So that's £187m more in that time period United have invested in the transfer market. Or more than double, if you want to look at it that way. Inshort Mourinhoh has not been at all short of financial backing, and has had considerable more funds to work with than Klopp.

Time will tell, but I think most neutrals would say that Liverpool have the squad to be amongst the best in Europe, whereas United look like they're quite far off the most elite teams.

The fact is the club receives money when they sell a player, and usually invest this back into the team - you can't ignore that. A manager's transfer budget is of course going to include money made from outgoings

United also had Ibra and Sanchez on frees which won't show up on total spend or net spend figures.

dogbert27

TitianGerm wrote: »

United also had Ibra and Sanchez on frees which won't show up on total spend or net spend figures.

Exactly, Zlatan was on 367,000 pounds a week. Sanchez is on 490,000 pounds a week.

That's crazy money.

dogbert27

dogbert27 wrote: »

Exactly, Zlatan was on 367,000 pounds a week. Sanchez is on 490,000 pounds a week.

That's crazy money.

Hope you have proof of the Sanchez figure :pac:

Morzadec

TitianGerm wrote: »

United also had Ibra and Sanchez on frees which won't show up on total spend or net spend figures.

Yup wages spent over this period would be an interesting metric too - it adds up to a huge amount of money and United have spent many more millions.

That Mourinho would feign jealousy at our supposed financial might is quite hilarious to be honest - what would Mourinho say if he had to work with what Klopp was given?! Probably would no longer be at the club

citytillidie

Morzadec wrote: »

Yup wages spent over this period would be an interesting metric too - it adds up to a huge amount of money and United have spent many more millions.

That Mourinho would feign jealousy at our supposed financial might is quite hilarious to be honest - what would Mourinho say if he had to work with what Klopp was given?! Probably would no longer be at the club

Jose going to a club with no money lol that would be the day.

Found this on wages based on 16/17 season

Manchester City
Total wage bill: £264.1m

Manchester United
Total wage bill: £263.5m

Chelsea
Total wage bill: £219.7m

Liverpool
Total wage bill: £207.5m

Arsenal
Total wage bill: £199.4m

Tottenham
Total wage bill: £126.9m

https://www.planetfootball.com/quick-reads/a-club-by-club-breakdown-of-wages-in-the-premier-league-championship/

dogbert27

RoboKlopp wrote: »

Hope you have proof of the Sanchez figure :pac:

Apologies, it's only 390,000 pound plus 75,000 bonus for every game he starts.

It doesn't look so bad when you look at it like that! :pac:

ShamoBuc

dogbert27 wrote: »

Apologies, it's only 390,000 pound plus 75,000 bonus for every game he starts.

It doesn't look so bad when you look at it like that! :pac:

That really is ridiculous.

garra

RoboKlopp wrote: »

How It's all coming from the same pot.


Simple example.

Manager A has £200m to spend regardless of outgoings.
Manager B has £200m to spend but must sell £100m of assets


Surely Manager A is better off as he's not balancing the books every cople of years.

Our net spend would be minus another 140m Stg if we had not sold Coutinho.

Assuming we had the cash to still buy the other players and we did so and also kept Coutinho, would/should Klopp be judged more harshly for not having won anything last year?

There is a law of diminishing returns from money when it comes to putting out a football team on a pitch, surely Ranieri taught us that much!

emo72

And when I seen Joe Gomez on Monday, I thought to myself he looks huge! Not just in height. This is in response to someone who thought he was small.

TitianGerm

RoboKlopp wrote: »

Found this on wages based on 16/17 season




https://www.planetfootball.com/quick-reads/a-club-by-club-breakdown-of-wages-in-the-premier-league-championship/

I know City has a different company that pays player wages through so most figures stated for them will only be player salaries.

Not sure if it's the same for United but apparently in the Liverpool accounts the Salaries are not just the players but all staff employed by the club.

Talisman

Gbear wrote: »

Dunno is that still the case with VVD, Becker, Fabinho. I'd say TAA and Robbo are bigger than Clyne and Moreno as well.

Robertson is around the same height as Clyne, he may be an inch taller. TAA is around 6 foot and Moreno is 5' 6".

Muahahaha

TitianGerm wrote: »

The biggest stage appears to be no problem either - achieving an 89% pass accuracy on his World Cup debut against Belgium and being handed the same set-piece responsibility by England manager Gareth Southgate in only his second cap.

It was only against West Ham that I noticed TAA has a part of his game as a dead ball specialist. Both Salah and Milner stood aside to let TAA take a 25 yard free and he got it up and over the wall before the keeper produced a fine save to stop it going top corner. If Salah & Milner are stepping aside obviously they have confidence from seeing him taking some great free kicks in training. Im trying to think when we were last a real threat from direct free kicks, Gerrard and Alonso were both superb with dead balls and frightened keepers when they stood up. Hopefully TAA is the next coming of that.

Muahahaha

RoboKlopp wrote: »

Hope you have proof of the Sanchez figure :pac:

Sure we all know that his widely reported wages go down by about 100,000 a week, soon enough Sanchez will be paying Utd to play for them :rolleyes:

dogbert27

Muahahaha wrote: »

It was only against West Ham that I noticed TAA has a part of his game as a dead ball specialist. Both Salah and Milner stood aside to let TAA take a 25 yard free and he got it up and over the wall before the keeper produced a fine save to stop it going top corner. If Salah & Milner are stepping aside obviously they have confidence from seeing him taking some great free kicks in training. Im trying to think when we were last a real threat from direct free kicks, Gerrard and Alonso were both superb with dead balls and frightened keepers when they stood up. Hopefully TAA is the next coming of that.

Suarez

charolais0153

Muahahaha wrote: »

It was only against West Ham that I noticed TAA has a part of his game as a dead ball specialist. Both Salah and Milner stood aside to let TAA take a 25 yard free and he got it up and over the wall before the keeper produced a fine save to stop it going top corner. If Salah & Milner are stepping aside obviously they have confidence from seeing him taking some great free kicks in training. Im trying to think when we were last a real threat from direct free kicks, Gerrard and Alonso were both superb with dead balls and frightened keepers when they stood up. Hopefully TAA is the next coming of that.

Coutinho and suarez were great free kick takers!

Bandana boy

charolais0153 wrote: »

Coutinho and suarez were great free kick takers!

the count was great

he must have had more than a half dozen scored direct from frees with us

Morzadec

dogbert27 wrote: »

Suarez

Suarez in that season was arguably the best I'd ever seen. You just felt like there was almost a 50/50 chance of him scoring when he was lining one up.

By far and away the best direct free kick taker I've seen at the club.

Morzadec

Hate to link to Marca, but here's some of Suarez's freekicks for us if anyone needs reminding how good he was!

http://www.marca.com/en/football/barcelona/2016/08/21/57b9ab1be5fdea6b1e8b45ac.html

eigrod

rossie1977 wrote: »

Its not though. Liverpool are not spending over £200m since January if they don't sell Coutinho.

Liverpool while a big club still need to sell to buy unlike Man Utd, City or Chelsea who don't need to sell their best players at their peaks and can keep improving their squads year on year.

Is right. It took FSG 4 years to recover from the Andy Carroll & Stewart Downing disaster and not until Coutinho was sold was any Liverpool manager truly able to compete at the top level of the transfer market.

marklazarcovic

I agree,in hindsight,selling Phill was the best thing we have done in the transfer merry go round,as we are far stronger now having used those funds.

martyos121

marklazarcovic wrote: »

I agree,in hindsight,selling Phill was the best thing we have done in the transfer merry go round,as we are far stronger now having used those funds.

It was impossible to admit or identify at the time, but in hindsight he just didn’t work hard enough when Klopp played him in midfield. He was great out on the left wing, but I’ll take Mane and his pace in that spot any day of the week.

Phil is a top class player and would walk straight into the starting eleven of any team in the world, but we are better off without him in a way because the system doesn’t suit him perfectly and you can’t leave a player of his quality on the bench.

Someone is inevitably going to have a pop at me for implying that he isn’t good enough for us, but just to be clear, I’m saying the opposite. He was too good to leave out, and the functionality of the team suffered a little for it. I haven’t worded all of that perfectly, but hopefully people will get what I’m trying to say.

Bandana boy

martyos121 wrote: »

It was impossible to admit or identify at the time, but in hindsight he just didn’t work hard enough when Klopp played him in midfield. He was great out on the left wing, but I’ll take Mane and his pace in that spot any day of the week.

Phil is a top class player and would walk straight into the starting eleven of any team in the world, but we are better off without him in a way because the system doesn’t suit him perfectly and you can’t leave a player of his quality on the bench.

Someone is inevitably going to have a pop at me for implying that he isn’t good enough for us, but just to be clear, I’m saying the opposite. He was too good to leave out, and the functionality of the team suffered a little for it. I haven’t worded all of that perfectly, but hopefully people will get what I’m trying to say.

I understand what your saying but your wrong here
he was perfect at the head of the second three in that team and was better cover than we have in the club in the front three (I hope Shaq proves me wrong there)

he added another dimension in long range shots and direct free kicks that meant teams could not just sit deep and let us have the ball .

We all hope Keita will match this but as good a start as he has had he will be an immense signing if he does match the count in this regard.

Potential Underachiever

It's been said before but.....The Count is the worst nickname ever!

Morzadec

martyos121 wrote: »

It was impossible to admit or identify at the time, but in hindsight he just didn’t work hard enough when Klopp played him in midfield. He was great out on the left wing, but I’ll take Mane and his pace in that spot any day of the week.

Phil is a top class player and would walk straight into the starting eleven of any team in the world, but we are better off without him in a way because the system doesn’t suit him perfectly and you can’t leave a player of his quality on the bench.

Someone is inevitably going to have a pop at me for implying that he isn’t good enough for us, but just to be clear, I’m saying the opposite. He was too good to leave out, and the functionality of the team suffered a little for it. I haven’t worded all of that perfectly, but hopefully people will get what I’m trying to say.

I get what you're trying to say and I agree with you to an extent - Keita's all-action game and ball winning high up makes him a better fit for Klopp. But we still will really miss Coutinho's qualities in a lot of matches I think.

Let's see how we get on this season against teams parking the bus. It's something we've struggled with for years, United too, a lot of teams can struggle with this.

City don't really struggle here. And they showed against Huddersfield they have the luxury (and ingenuity, let's be fair to Pep) of changing the system and personnel to most effectively play against a team who are going to defend on the 6 yard box. They took all the pace out of their attack (Walker, Sterling, Mahrez, Sane) and put in all their guile and best finishers (the Silvas, Jesus, Aguero, plus the crossing ability out wide of Mendy).

There's no doubt that we're probably the most electric team attacking when teams give us any space behind. But imo there is still a question mark when we play the Man United's and Burnley's of this world (luckily WBA got relegated and Everton changed manager!) - resolute, well-drilled defences who will happily concede possession and defend deep.

For those games, guile and ability in tight spaces, clinical finishing, potent wide players are all key I feel. Coutinho would offer a lot there.

I'm fascinated to see how good Keita can be in these games and I hope he can do the job. Shaquiri as another option could provide some of this guile. But I do think we might be lacking the creativity City have in midfield, players like David Silva.

I think this is the main reason City are big favourites - the consistency to break down teams who come to "park the bus"

garra

garra wrote: »

Our net spend would be minus another 140m Stg if we had not sold Coutinho.

Assuming we had the cash to still buy the other players and we did so and also kept Coutinho, would/should Klopp be judged more harshly for not having won anything last year?

There is a law of diminishing returns from money when it comes to putting out a football team on a pitch, surely Ranieri taught us that much!

I think you're slightly missing the point. No way would Klopp have been given as much cash if Coutinho wasn't sold. We haven't a limitless pot of cash and need to sell out top players every couple of years. That's unfortunately how it is.

Klopp appears to be spending well though which is great after a lot of wasteful years of spending under the Kenny & Rodgers regimes.

martyos121

Bandana boy wrote: »

I understand what your saying but your wrong here
he was perfect at the head of the second three in that team and was better cover than we have in the club in the front three (I hope Shaq proves me wrong there)

he added another dimension in long range shots and direct free kicks that meant teams could not just sit deep and let us have the ball .

We all hope Keita will match this but as good a start as he has had he will be an immense signing if he does match the count in this regard.

We are a far better team with the money used from his sale, I don’t know how you can say with any degree of certainty that I’m wrong like you have done, when you just look at the impact VVD alone made. Add in Keita, Alisson and Fabinho (in time) and we’ve benefitted massively from that transfer.

What he brought to the team, we don’t miss too greatly. I’m happy to sacrifice his ability to score from long range for the midfield we currently have, three players who can win the ball back and at least one who can create a lot of chances like Keita or Milner.

And you say that he added a dimension where teams couldn’t just sit deep and let us have the ball, yet they still did and a lot of them were successful in doing so? I miss his free kicks, absolutely, but it’s a myth that we can’t break down extremely defensive teams without him.

I know it can be perceived as controversial to say we’re a better team having sold one of the most talented players in the world, but we are, because we used the money to address glaring weaknesses and we’ve turned them into strengths. Would you take Phil back and lose VVD, honestly?

RugbyLover123

Bandana boy wrote: »

I understand what your saying but your wrong here
he was perfect at the head of the second three in that team and was better cover than we have in the club in the front three (I hope Shaq proves me wrong there)

Was he perfect for the head of the second 3? The 6 role? I'm not too sure, maybe against the weaker teams but I don't think he'd have the presence that role requires defensively in the big games. In possession fine, out of it, I'm not too sure.

In before "he'd do a better job then Henderson".

Coutinho is a strange one. At the start of Jan losing him seemed like the end of the world. Now, I don't even think of him in a 'what if' kind of way. Which I have done in the past with Torres/Suarez even Sterling. Maybe that's credit to Klopp more then anything else.

garra

RoboKlopp wrote: »

I think you're slightly missing the point. No way would Klopp have been given as much cash if Coutinho wasn't sold. We haven't a limitless pot of cash and need to sell out top players every couple of years. That's unfortunately how it is.

Klopp appears to be spending well though which is great after a lot of wasteful years of spending under the Kenny & Rodgers regimes.

The only point I was trying to make is that the difference in "net spend" (between selling Cout last year and not selling him) would not have any relevance to me when judging Klopp's or the team's performance last season or this season.

If we had unlimited funds and didn't sell Cout last year and still bought the same other players, I would not consider our resulting worse "net spend" position as anything of relevance whatsoever.

martyos121

Morzadec wrote: »

I get what you're trying to say and I agree with you to an extent - Keita's all-action game and ball winning high up makes him a better fit for Klopp. But we still will really miss Coutinho's qualities in a lot of matches I think.

Let's see how we get on this season against teams parking the bus. It's something we've struggled with for years, United too, a lot of teams can struggle with this.

City don't really struggle here. And they showed against Huddersfield they have the luxury (and ingenuity, let's be fair to Pep) of changing the system and personnel to most effectively play against a team who are going to defend on the 6 yard box. They took all the pace out of their attack (Walker, Sterling, Mahrez, Sane) and put in all their guile and best finishers (the Silvas, Jesus, Aguero, plus the crossing ability out wide of Mendy).

There's no doubt that we're probably the most electric team attacking when teams give us any space behind. But imo there is still a question mark when we play the Man United's and Burnley's of this world (luckily WBA got relegated and Everton changed manager!) - resolute, well-drilled defences who will happily concede possession and defend deep.

For those games, guile and ability in tight spaces, clinical finishing, potent wide players are all key I feel. Coutinho would offer a lot there.

I'm fascinated to see how good Keita can be in these games and I hope he can do the job. Shaquiri as another option could provide some of this guile. But I do think we might be lacking the creativity City have in midfield, players like David Silva.

I think this is the main reason City are big favourites - the consistency to break down teams who come to "park the bus"

A lot of good points in there tbf, but as with my previous post, I disagree with the theory that we were better at breaking down defensive teams with Coutinho than we are now. I’ve seen enough of Keita in the last two seasons and his first few games for us to know that he has the creativity to match Phil, and he’s a great dribbler in tight spaces too, mainly further back on the pitch but I’ve seen him dribble his way into the box and create chances from it too.

It’s impossible to compete with or compare ourselves to City for any number of reasons, so we just have to do our best to ignore them and focus on making the team as functional as possible. I honestly thought we played much better football as a team in the last few months of the previous season. I wouldn’t have thought it was possible at the time we sold Coutinho, but then Ox really stepped up as well as Gini and Milner.

Instead of one player getting a lot more touches of the ball than others like Phil often did, we became a bit more unpredictable, Trent and Robbo started getting a lot more touches high up the pitch because VVD provided that extra bit of security at the back to let them wander.

I just like our football more since he left, that’s the basis of my argument, and I think in the long term it’s a more effective style of play, one that will hopefully win us major trophies. The spine of the team was shaky looking this time last year, Lovren and Matip in defence with a questionable goalkeeper behind them and no real protection in midfield. Now we’ve added a colossus in VVD who gives confidence to the entire back line, we have a goalkeeper who can actually save shots consistently and can ping the ball around like Xabi Alonso and one of the best defensive midfielders in the league in Fabinho once he adapts. The spine of the team now looks incredible, and the sale of Coutinho facilitated that. We would’ve signed all those players eventually if Klopp had his way, but with the money generated in January, we were able to do it all in 7 months, and we’re much better off for it I reckon.

Harry Palmr

Morzadec wrote: »

And they showed against Huddersfield they have the luxury (and ingenuity, let's be fair to Pep) of changing the system and personnel to most effectively play against a team who are going to defend on the 6 yard box.

Town didn't leave their own half in either game against Liverpool last season and lost 6-0 agg. They are just not very good.

gimli2112

I think when Coutinho was good he was great but never consistent. I think he'll shine more with Barca playing duds every other week.There was always a more important player than him in the squad, sometimes more than one. I'd have liked him to stay but not at the expense of VVD and AB. Even saying that the goalie hasn't been around long enough but I'm willing to gamble he's better the lads he replaced.

The squad's also strengthened considerably with the likes of Ox, Fab and Shaq with thanks to the Coutinho money.

blade1

Who's this Coutinho lad that keeps getting mentioned?

OwaynOTT

blade1 wrote: »

Who's this Coutinho lad that keeps getting mentioned?

He's better known as The Count.

charolais0153

martyos121 wrote: »

It was impossible to admit or identify at the time, but in hindsight he just didn’t work hard enough when Klopp played him in midfield. He was great out on the left wing, but I’ll take Mane and his pace in that spot any day of the week.

Phil is a top class player and would walk straight into the starting eleven of any team in the world, but we are better off without him in a way because the system doesn’t suit him perfectly and you can’t leave a player of his quality on the bench.

Someone is inevitably going to have a pop at me for implying that he isn’t good enough for us, but just to be clear, I’m saying the opposite. He was too good to leave out, and the functionality of the team suffered a little for it. I haven’t worded all of that perfectly, but hopefully people will get what I’m trying to say.

Coutinho salah mane would be a good front three.
In champions league final,i would have liked to see coutinho come on instead of chamberlain. Coutinho is a proven big game player. Goals against man city in league title race and league cup final a year or two ago, against man u/dortmund in europa league....

Against crystal palace how many goals would we gave scored only for the penalty. Another day,Thats a drawn game. Coutinho is a game changer,a magician,a player that scores goals from nothing. Eleven palyers arent going to win a bloody league,15 or 16 are. What happens when one of the front three gets an injury,literally no rotation is possible.

City leave de bruyne,d silva and agururo on the bench...top class players

Riesen_Meal

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l6DWh2NkIHI

Mane chatting with the Copa lads....

dogbert27

OwaynOTT wrote: »

blade1 wrote: »

Who's this Coutinho lad that keeps getting mentioned?

He's better known as The Count.

When did the o get added?

~Rebel~

garra wrote: »

In fairness net spend is irrelevant these days, with the plentiful revenue sources and endless cash floating about the game

rossie1977 wrote: »

Its not though. Liverpool are not spending over £200m since January if they don't sell Coutinho.

Gbear wrote: »

It really isn't.

Do you think we could've afforded to be as free as we have without taking in 150m quid in transfer fees?

More than this, Net Spend is a far better reflection of where the team is. If you spend 200m, but with net spend you only break even, then obviously you have sold a lot of high quality talent, and so expectation should be much lower than if you spend 200m outright.

It's gross spend that is largely an irrelevance.