Liverpool FC Team Talk, Gossip, Rumours 2024/25

Looks like Rodri is out for the season. Has done his cruciate.

I think they definitely will and unfortunately they'll throw so much money at him he'll go.

While he's still coming inside to help build play, we're not doing that box-midfield transition thing anymore since Mac and Grav are in there - that's where Trent was at his worst and most frustrating I think, doing the passing and fun stuff from midfield but not any of the defensive work that has to come with it.

West Ham has dropped to all members now, so you can go in and buy them pretty easily. Some £27 tickets too. The new Upper Annie Road stand is great too.

Sure but I seem to remember him being in a full pace sprint back to defend, either as the last man or not, on several occasions already this season. That is simply not a memory I have of him ever really doing under Klopp. Again it could totally just be my perception and I could be wrong on this.

We've actually conceded two but who's counting 😁

Are we really doing everything in our power to be the best, since we won the league. We did before we won it, with the signings we made, but since? Not so sure, we haven't gone above and beyond to get our man, although we have aimed for the stars when trying to sign the marquee signing, from Mbappe, to Jude, to Tchouaméni, to Zubimendi, they all had green lights from the owners.

Not sure why we sold Fabinho at 29, and gave ourselves issues.

Because he couldn't run?

OK, OK. Apart from not being able to run, not being able to kick, not being able to tackle, and being offered 40m in a transfer fee, what did Fabinho ever do to deserve being sold?

The very definiton of a player on the scrap heap, playing in Saudi in what should be his prime and hasn't played for brazil in 2 years.

Anyone else just feel it's trents way of telling the owners we need to spunk on big players to help him achieve his goals or he's off?

I mean,he's loving slots training,he would do anything to captain us to the majors,I can't see him going unless there's no major investment,let's face it,we are due it.

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By Tim SpiersSep 24, 2024

346

It had to be Rodri, didn’t it?

The man who, before this season, according to football data website Transfermarkt, had missed just five games through injury for Manchester City since joining the club in 2019, is out — and possibly for the rest of the season.

Why did it have to be Rodri who suffered a serious knee injury during the 2-2 draw against Arsenal on Sunday? Because football rarely fails to deliver cruel twists of irony and it was Rodri who, just last week, said players could be close to striking because they’re playing too much football.

Now, the man who never gets injured is badly injured, just weeks after being moderately injured (with a hamstring problem).

Has Rodri been felled twice in quick succession because he’s been overplayed in recent years, his body churned into mince by an unrelenting, never-ending football schedule that is full to bursting? Well, without access to Manchester City’s personalised load data and whether Rodri was already in the ‘red zone’ heading into the Arsenal game, it is impossible to be sure.

And, yes, players have always got injured and, yes, serious knee injuries aren’t always workload-related. Maybe it was just a case of bad luck, move on, nothing to see here.

What we do know, however, is that more football tends to lead to more injuries and a serious one to a player who many believe could win the Ballon d’Or next month will only amplify people’s concerns.

Within the sport, Rodri’s remarks had already garnered waves of support. “Rodri is right,” Real Madrid goalkeeper Thibault Courtois said in a conversation with Spanish streamer Ibai Llanos. “People say we earn a lot of money, that we can’t complain – and that’s true – but we have to find a balance because the best aren’t always going to be able to play.”

Thibaut Courtois backed Rodri’s calls for footballers to play less (Angel Martinez/Getty Images)

Chelsea head coach Enzo Maresca agreed. “In terms of games, it’s too much,” he said before the weekend game at West Ham. “I don’t think we protect players. For me, it’s completely wrong the amount of games that we have.”

They were not alone. Aston Villa captain John McGinn expressed similar reservations, as did Liverpool goalkeeper Alisson, City manager Pep Guardiola, La Liga president Javier Tebas and Barcelona’s Jules Kounde.

But while coaches and players are largely of one accord, the schedulers beyond the domestic leagues, like FIFA and UEFA, appear to have far less appetite to cut down on matches.

UEFA president Aleksander Ceferin told Gazzetta dello Sport two years ago: “It’s easy to attack FIFA and UEFA, but the thing is simple. If you play less, you get less money. Who should complain are the factory workers who get €1,000 (£843; $1,110) per month.”

Meanwhile, FIFA claims on its website that: “Of primary importance in football’s present and future is the protection of player health and wellbeing.

“The suggestion for an overhaul of the calendar could include mandatory rest and preparation periods with fewer matches, fewer travels and less time away from clubs and families as a result.”

Yet it is FIFA’s expansion of the Club World Cup to 32 teams at the end of July in the U.S. that has poured fuel on the schedule fire, particularly if you’re of a Manchester City or Chelsea persuasion.

City, who play Watford in the Carabao Cup tonight, 49 hours after the Arsenal game finished, could play up to 75 games this season if they reach the final of every competition they’re playing in, while Chelsea could play 74.

Throw in 10 internationals scheduled during the season and someone like Rodri (if he wasn’t injured) or Bernardo Silva has up to 85 matches scheduled between early August and mid-July, which works out at one every four days.

It is undoubtedly too much. Rodri estimated last week that 40-50 matches per season would be ideal, but anything above that leads to an inevitable drop in performance levels due to fatigue.

Rodri is facing a prolonged spell out (Michael Regan/Getty Images)

The immediate counterargument for this subject is often centred on the fact players are earning hundreds of thousands of pounds per week, so they have no right to complain about how much they are flogged.

It’s kind of a moot point given we are the ones who suffer, not just the players, if Rodri, Kevin De Bruyne or [insert players from your favourite team here] are in the treatment room rather than on the pitch. And besides, does money really excuse riding roughshod over player welfare? Is it OK to flog a player earning £200,000 a week, but not one banking £100,000 a week? Where is the cut-off point?

And we’re all complicit, too, right? Clubs are happy to take the money offered to them for extra games in UEFA or FIFA competitions without putting up a protest as to the welfare of their players, or will organise energy-sapping two-week-long pre-season tours to the U.S. or the Far East, which are purely exercises in making money. Or they’ll do post-season tours to Australia after a gruelling season and before a summer of two big international tournaments, a la Newcastle and Tottenham Hotspur.

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And we, the media, or fans, we’re all complicit in that we just keep gobbling all the football up in our metaphorical goal mouths. We pay Sky Sports, TNT Sports, Amazon, CBS and whoever else to watch the games, we incessantly scour social media for football content, or play fantasy football, or download club apps.

The whole thing is disgustingly gluttonous. Brian Clough’s famous quote on football being screened on television (“You don’t want roast beef and Yorkshire pudding every night and twice on a Sunday”) became absolute decades ago.

And it’s not going to get any smaller anytime soon. The Champions League has expanded to 36 teams, the Club World Cup is going to 32 teams, the World Cup is growing from 64 matches to 104, women’s football gets bigger every year, there are more than 1,000 EFL games on UK television this season, and there’s even a new competition for non-League and Premier League under-21 teams.

What makes it stop? Player strikes would get decision-makers sat around a table, but it is hard to see anything other than the calendar being condensed so that more sustained breaks can be taken, i.e. at the end of a season or for a bigger mid-season winter break. Competitions, aside from perhaps the domestic top flights, are not going to decrease in size when they are currently getting bigger.

Dwindling audiences are probably the only thing that can slow football down. There are signs that the younger generation are less interested in watching live football and more bothered about highlights, given dwindling attention spans and the prohibitive cost of attending live matches, but we are talking about the kind of drop-off that takes a long time to make a tangible difference to the revenues of TV companies.

A tipping point will be reached at some point. It may take a deluge of injuries, or early retirements, or a drop in the standard of football owing to fatigue. Until then, money trumps everything else — we all feed the football money machine.

We’re all to blame.

'' I'm not taking you off because you're s h it , I'm saving you minutes for the CL FINAL '''😅

Was thinking about this

Kelleher

Bradley Quansah Gomez Tsimikas

Jones Endo Nyoni

Chiesa Jota Gakpo

Would be an alright lineup

I'd guess 10 of the same players too.

The only question mark, for me, is does he try and start Nunez again and keep him in form now, or does he rest him midweek before a start away to Wolves at the weekend in what is a bigger game?

That's still a strong team, West Ham are in need of a win badly, i could see them field a strong 11.

I'd say definitely start him against West Ham. Chiesa, Nunez and Gakpo to start?

Its a pity Elliot is injured.

If Jaros starts tonight, I'll be worried as it means that Kelleher is being protected and needs to be fit for the foreseeable.

If Kelleher starts, it means that Alisson should be back sooner.

I'm so just used to Klopp, and his way of communicating injury news, that I'm worrying!

Klopp used to tell us about a small issue, or say nothing at all, and next thing it would be a 2 or 3 month hamstring injury.

I didn't hear tbh. If he did, then my point/worry is fairly moot!

Conditions tonight should be interesting, lots of wind and rain

Think we sold all the young bucks last summer!