Liverpool FC Team Talk, Gossip, Rumours 2024/25

Leeds early momentum bubble has burst. That pen miss was pivotal obviously. I'd expect Newcastle to go on to win this now as Leeds defending is atrocious, and they look so nervous everytime Newcastle get in around the box.

You want to release 4 centre midfielders in one window? In a window where we already need to bring in reinforcements in that position. How many are going to come in?

Bamford scores his penalty and it's a different story unfortunately.

Not if Firpo has anything to say about it

Newcastle getting 1 point is better then Newcastle getting 3 points.

Brighton next for them.

I've lobbed a wedge on Man Utd to win today - you can thank me later.

..

Chelsea away looks like the easist fixture in the PL right now so I wouldn't be getting my hopes up there. They are an absolute shambles.

Even if Liverpool wanted to sell Thiago, one of the hardest sales in football is moving on older players who are on huge wages! Nobody is coming in to take Thiago off our hands and give him 200k a week...for that reason alone he won't be going anyway.

Also just some schadenfreude; Chelsea are all but guaranteed a bottom half finish now.

We were led to believe in the past say several years that the role of a striker has adapted, that you need to be a Firmino, a Kane, even Aguero had great build up play, to be able to be part of the play always, defend from the front, go wide, go left, go deep, go right, hustle, it was the ''excuse' why Ten Hag didn't play Ronaldo, the greatest player every to play some argue, that Ronaldo didn't work, didn't have any contributions to the team as a whole, but then Haaland came along into the league, and Pep, obviously found a way to play with Mr 5 Touches,

he now plays 3-2-4-1 , and allows Haaland to just stand there, waiting to pounce. The two goal keepers , and all the subs, even those whose came on late, had more touches than Haaland in the Real Madrid game, but it's the case in most games, does Pep bench Haaland, call him lazy, scapegoat him, no, he adapted to the situation, unlike Ten Hag.

Should Liverpool have a player like this in our squad, or would Klopp simply not tolerate it like Ten Hag.

If City lose the CL semi then questions will be asked of Haaland and whether he is the answer, if they win and people will believe he was the answer all along. Along those small margins people will make up their mind on the position and City as a whole. I still don't know if he has improved them as a team as their weakness is still on the break as their style is still possession based that leaves them open to speed on the counter. What he does bring them is hopefully, or not depending if you want them to win, the ability to finish the chances they create. Like most things in life it will come down to the end product, will they win the CL or not. If they do then it was all worth it, if they fall short then questions will be asked. We will just have to wait and see how it pans out.

Should we change our style due to Haaland? No, because he is a once in a generation player. There aren't many 1.94m fast strikers with an eye for the goal that you can just snap up. You are more likely to end up with a Wout Weghorst, 1.97m, than Haaland so there you have your answer. If you can have 9 players that are brilliant at keeping the ball and have excellent technique to go with your 5 touch striker that is big and fast and scores loads of goals, then you are free to change your system. But only City have that luxury in world football.

Great point Liverpool should just get Haaland not sure why they didn't think of that one

They are going to win the treble

Has broken every goal record.

He has undoubtedly improved them.

They got 93pts last season

They're on course for 94pts this season

Is that much improvement?

They are in the final of the FA Cup.

A one goal win away from the CL final.

And what Rebel said yes. It is getting a bit sad trying to portray a +/- 1 point above 90 as some sort of evidence Haaland has made them worse.

He can't have been too bad if they beat arsenal 3 nil? I didn't see the game though

The only thing stopping the city juggernaut this year is Real Madrid. In a weird way I want the treble to happen to shine some sort of light on the financial doping that's been going on at city for a decade and that most don't seem to care about - remember the 100 plus offences where has that story disappeared to? Winning the league most years doesn't seem to be doing anything to highlight it so maybe the treble will.

If it wasn't for the background there would be a lot to admire about city and in fairness to them they have done everything right in terms of building club up, hiring the best manager etc but the whole thing is just rotten to the core on the financial side.

From last year maybe, but City at their best they got 100 points, scored 106 goals and lost only 2 matches. This year they have lost 4 already and can only get 94 points and have lost 2 more matches already. To match the goals scored in that season they have to score about 5 a match for the last three. They may not even be more clinical as Haaland is scoring from more chances, yet the team is scoring less than they did when they were lacking Haaland. They were creating more chances before he arrived. Maybe you can argue that is because he is there and they don't have to create as many chances, I would say the matches where he has 6-9 touches disproves this as they are not trying to create less but because of him in the side it is just a progression in the way they play.

As for winning the treble, they have done that already when they won all 3 domestic trophies. They lost in the QF of the CL to Tottenham when they had scored a goal but was chalked off for a very unlucky handball at the end of the match. Small margins but they could have won 4 that year just like we could have last year. They are a juggernaut of a team before Haaland came in, I don't know if he has changed them that much to be better. They are still competing for every trophy like they have done for the last 6 years. Now if they were blowing teams away like never before I would agree that he improved them, but what he has done is make them into a different side to play. Not sure you can definitively say it is better from last year or even from their best when they scored 100 points.

This is **** bizarre tbh.

It's very simple - IF City win the PL, FA cup and CL this season it will be the biggest achievement they have made under Pep. Getting to 100 points is impressive but winning the big 3 is the gold standard for any team.

Comparing point totals across different seasons and saying a team got 5/6 more points here means they are better is a massively flawed system. Nobody in their right mind would claim the 100 point season was a better season.

If City win the lot then Haaland will be hailed as the missing piece, Pep gets his first CL in over a decade, it will be KDB crowning moment in a City shirt and so on... This side would instantly be City's greatest ever team.

Once you have won the league title it means absolutely nothing if you end up on 85, 90, 95 or 100 points. Fans will argue it was more "dominant" or whatever but to sweep up the big 3 in silverware is far more dominant. That means you went toe to toe with every team that was able to compete with you that season and came out on top, you won! Not that you didn't drop points away at Brentford or Wolves.

That would be how I'd see it anyway.