Liverpool FC Team Talk, Gossip, Rumours 2024/25

I'd read security guards intercepted the men but haven't seen the video.

Annoying.

No need for it

Newcastle can sign players on loan from PIF-owned Saudi clubs after vote:

the corruption continues

Elliot with a lovely goal tonight. Scored a free kick as well.

Yeah, all of those that voted against the ban are voting in their own self interest;

Newcastle - Saudi Owned and the chief beneficiaries.

Sheff Utd - Saudi Owned.

Man City - part of City football group.

Chelsea - part of BlueCo ownership group who also own Strasbourg, and reportedly plan on expanding further

Everton - courting a multi-club ownership group as new owners.

Forest - share owners with Olympiacos.

Wolves - owners are in the process of buying a Belgian side, and also partnering with another multi-club ownership group (and are also just big fans of any little leveraging deal they can get their hands on via Mendes).

It's a disaster of a ruling though, particularly something as flagrant as allowing Neves to join - one of the best midfielders in their whole league, never mind his own team, being loaned off out purely and transparently to help someone in another league. Like, if you can do that, then there's nothing stopping Newcastle from having players sign for massive fees and wages at one of the Saudi Clubs, and then getting loaned out 5 minutes later for free and small percentage of the wage. It completely bypasses FFP.

Nunez continuing his goalscoring form during the international break.

And he got a second

Mo, Diaz and Nunez is our best front 3, so I think it’s gotta be them - unless either of the two South American lads end up particularly wrecked after the travel. Fingers crossed they come back in good shape.

I'm leaning this way too

Jota is the most likely to finish one of the few chances we are likely to create.

Whatever about the front three,if Jones is fit then I would definitely be going for him over Gravenberch in midfield

Because as good as Gravenberch has been he can go missing in games and that's not what we need in our toughest game of the season. I would go with Jones because he will be more disciplined in midfield and block the lines that city try to play through. Bring Gravenberch on alright after 70 mins when things open up a bit. But we need discipline on the field especially at the start so the game isn't lost before we realise it

The furthest distance to travel and last to play from our forwards wasn't he?

I think Klopp will go with Gakpo against most of the better teams we play this season. He is almost a Firminho 2.0 in how he operates on the defensive/pressing side of things, and this weekend he will be expected to be dropping deep a lot to give Rodri something to think about...Nunez on with 30 to go to cause havoc!

Same. Ask him to stay on his feet.

That midfield three with Gakpo makes alot of sense.

When is the last time we managed a league win at the Ethiad?

Can only remember the CL 2nd leg 1-2 in 2018

Interesting stat that Liverpool have had the early Saturday kick-off, following an international break, 14 times since Klopp joined.

The next nearest team in that time period is Spurs with 8.

I'm not one for conspiracy theories but such a discrepancy is, at the very least, desperately unfair.

Yes, that was our last league win at the Eithad, 8 years ago this weekend!

To counter that though, we look way more threating with Nunez on the field. I seen a stat recently that we have the highest xG rating in the premier league with Nunez and Salah as 2 of the starting front 3, we drop to 6th with any other combination that includes Salah but not Nunez. The simply facts are that Nunez presence alone garners more attention from the oppositions defence and our wide players, particular Salah make hay with that extra space. If Nunez doesn't start this weekend, then the job of defending Salah becomes a hell of a lot easier...

I'm sure that's part of it but Man Utd get big viewers numbers too and have had half the 12.30pm starts after international breaks.

Well it's not so much that the EPL put us in that slot so we can be on BT : it's that BT will always pick our games to the max allowed (6 games, I believe) and 12:30 Saturday happens to be the BT slot. Then we are vulnerable to situations like this weekend where we are picked by Sky (17:30 slot) but the authorities veto that time. This can happen for games against City/Everton/others.

There's also an added indirect complication in that Sky are always going to hold back enough Liverpool first picks (which they control) to have full access to our title-challenge/Top4-challenge fixtures from GW33->GW38 at the end of the season when there are no international breaks. So the 6 BT games are more likely to happen at international breaks.

You share my same concerns. I really don't know how we're going to approach this game, but we can't play the Trent in his now usual inverted role, Doku is most likely going to tear him to shreds as it is, never mind giving him a full quarter of the Etihad in extra space. The only way we get anything from this is back to our traditional 433. I even imagine a scenario of Gakpo, Nunez and Salah up front with Gakpo playing deeper to give us a 4-4-2 shape without the ball. We simple need the space in front of our full backs covered and 4-4-2 will help that...Use Nunez as a focal point and hopefully he can garner at least one chance for himself or Mo...id bite your hand of right now for 1-1!!

Sure we would love to control the ball and tempo of every game we play but if there is ever a game where we won't have control but will have acres of space to play players in behind due to how city themselves play this is it and Darwin trumps Gakpo every time in this scenario for me and it's not even close. For me Gakpo is more for the games where will be facing a back four just sitting deep and we need to open the lock so to speak with tidy passing or quick feet/thinking or whatever but for games where we will have space to run into, which is rare enough for us these days, I'm going for Nunez all day long.

For me the return fixture at Anfield would be more suitable for Gakpo as you would assume we would have slightly more of the ball. Having said all that you kinda just have to start whoever is fit and ready to start for this one given the horrendous international fixture schedule this week for alot of our players, which is a shame really cos for this one you really want both teams firing on all cylinders if possible for the spectacle of it if nothing else.