Liverpool FC Team Talk, Gossip, Rumours 2024/25

He's not really the problem, team is imbalanced and tearing itself apart. No amount of training or talking will fix it,it will self tune in time.

Watched the Madrid game for the 1st time in ages. They too look like a team out of sorts. Held at home and poor in front of goal. Thing is, even if by some miracle that our team remember how to play and we somehow sneak past them, we'll hardly go any further.

Is it time to try Trent in midfield?

The season is pretty much a write off either way so nothing to lose.

Trent was not all that bad for ye, he got exposed when the subs came on. Played a sublime ball to Sarah outside of the foot.

I'd go looking at the midfield before the digs on trent.

He was able to make Mitoma out of the game because he brought the game to him going forward so Mitoma had to track, Trent had the cover of midfield when he did it.

The subs killed that, Mitoma had trent the rest of the game.

Trent hasn't been great for ye lately but not a game where he should take the blame.

When presented with the opportunity he hasn't wanted to change the personnel - that is his failure as a manager.

In the 2018/19 season, the team finished second in the league with a 97 point total. The money was available to make signings but Klopp publicly declared that he chose not to because his group of players deserved to try again. That summer, the club signed a 17 year old defender for £2M and a couple of reserve goalkeepers on free transfers.

Man City's level dropped for the 2019/20 and Liverpool got a free run at winning the league. Dejan Lovren finally got the message that Klopp no longer wanted him and he left at the end of the season. Klopp was happy for him and didn't see the need for signing a replacement. Liverpool began the next season with three centre backs that had played for the senior team, two of them were known to be injury prone. At the time it seemed ridiculous that neither Klavan or Lovren had been replaced, but according to Klopp there were some young defenders coming through so things should be okay.

The 2020/21 season was a missed opportunity to build upon the success of the previous season. When van Dijk had a season ending injury and the inevitable injuries to the other two defenders piled up, Klopp didn't turn to the two young defenders. Instead he gutted the midfield and destroyed the balance of the team. Nothing changed in the winter transfer window until Fabinho suffered an injury. All of a sudden it was panic stations and the club had to find defenders in the few days before the window closed. The young players continued to be ignored until the loan signings were also unavailable. Having Nat Phillips and Rhys Williams available saved our season and the team scraped into the Champions League places as both Leicester and Chelsea lost form for the final 4 games of the season.

Wijnaldum left in the summer of 2021 and Klopp made it known that he didn't need to be replaced. In the press conference where a journalist dared to question the decision we got to see the petulant side of Klopp. He challenged the journalists to name a player that was available for transfer that was good enough to replace Fabinho, Henderson or Thiago. The 2021/22 season was amazing but the team came up short in the two competitions that they wanted to win. Van Dijk, Fabinho and Thiago had been overplayed and were being patched together by the end of the season.

Last summer, it was obvious to everyone that Liverpool needed an able body for the midfield and when Klopp's preferred option chose to sign for Real Madrid, the manager got the hump and decided to make do with what he had. He had exhibited the same behaviour in the past but Edwards and his staff had been able to convince him to change his mind on alternative options. In August, three of the midfielders suffered hamstring injuries (Henderson, Keita and Thiago) and this prompted Klopp to acknowledge that he got it wrong thinking that a new player wasn't needed for midfield. It didn't help that the players the club had passed on signing because of Klopp's earlier decision had moved to other clubs or were no longer available because it was the last week of the transfer window.

It was never likely that the team was going to repeat the feats of last season. However with Klopp having the final say on transfers and nobody from the current recruitment staff apparently able to convince him to change his mind when he gets recruitment decisions wrong, there has been a serious impact on the development of the team. This season is a write off because of that failure and it shouldn't be a surprise that the senior recruitment staff have chosen to move on.

There's no doubt that Klopp is a great football coach and man manager but in his time at Liverpool it has been quite evident that responsibility for player recruitment should not be part of his remit. By all means he should be involved in convincing players to join, he's a great ambassador, but the club should keep him away from the important business of identifying the players needed and deciding which of them to recruit.

Klopp should focus on his own strengths and trust the recruitment staff at the club to do their jobs.

Trent was the first player subbed off yesterday. Not really sure how you thought Milner was Trent from 59 minutes onwards???!!!

Joao Cancelo being ousted at City? Maybe the strangest move of the window

Just due to our resources it'll always take us longer to rebuild than City, but right now it feels like we should be way further along in said rebuild. Not enough groundwork is being laid this season, it feels like we're just going out week after week with the same performances just to get this season over with.

Definitely feel like we should be treating Fabinho the way Cancelo has been today.

Even if we don't replace him in this window, simply not having him available would probably benefit the squad, as there are constantly hopes that "this time he'll play well".

He won't.

This season is already close enough to a write off, throw Bajcetic in there and see if he's up to the challenge over the next few months, anyone can look good in one or two games, might be time to see what level he's really at. Hendo can do a job at 6 if needs be, albeit at a slower pace and lower level than previous years.

It's all fantasy anyways as there's no way Klopp will part with Fab in this window. He'll still play most of our games, and we'll suffer badly for it.

I still wouldn't be looking at City's outgoings as all signs of good business, I'm sure there are plenty in the City camp frustrated they're losing the league to a team they just sold 2 good players to.

New baby with colic has had me up to all hours, getting zero sleep myself. Apologies, scratch my comment as it makes zero sense.

This where our recruitment policy has went wrong, we are afraid to dump an underperforming player while they still have value. There is just far too much sentimentality in our squad, its been allowed fester and we are lumped with player with little value. Fabinho should be gone in the summer if he can't recover form, Firmino should not get a new contract, Gomez should be sold, tell henderson you can stay but your no longer a starter.

I still maintain if we couldn't compete with City we should of sold key players to refresh the squad. We now need 200m min. to fix a broken squad and don't have it.

We are ruthless enough ,

Jones, Ox, Milner, should be gone already ,

In the summer we should look to move on Ox ,Naby , Jones , Milner, Phillips, Gomez, & Fab is he does not improve,

Id also seriously look at cashing in on Trent if we can get a crazy price ,

Id keep Bobby

Firmino is the least if our issues now, we can keep him around & he can be behind Nunez & Jota as CF choices even Gakpo ,

If he does go i wouldn't want him replaced every penny we have available needs to go on midfield its that big of a mess ,

He declined long before this season we can agree, should of been sold instead of hoping he comes back into form. We aren't ruthless and we need to be with limited funds vs City, we used to be a selling club and thats fine if you have funds to keep the squad fresh but we don't.

What if we had sold Salah when he was worth 200m?

To be fair when Nunez was signed it was to demote Bobby to no 2 CF ,Diaz was Manes replacement ,

Injuries to Diaz , Jota ,Nunez have kind of hidden that ,

Still can't get over how Liverpool have managed to **** it all up.

Hubris. A hell of a drug.