English Premier League '16-'17 Discussion - Part 2

Gil wrote:Listen guys. If Arsenal can keep their main guys healthy (which is admittedly a big ask) only City can challenge them this season.

Perez/Giroud
Sanchez Ozil Walcott
Xhaka Ramsey/Santi
Monreal Koscielny Mustafi Bellerin
Cech

That is an incredibly strong team for crying out loud! How many Chelsea players would get into their first XI? How many United players?

Again, if they get lucky with the injury bug like Leicester did last season then they'll be hard to stop once they get going.

Ibra, Martial, Mhki, Pogba, Shaw, De Gea

Don't call me James wrote:Yeah you would know more than Klopp, good for you.

I'm not the one playing Henderson at DM and trotting out Moreno every week but hey Klopp's infallible so there's that. I like most of what he's done, but there's been some pretty obvious flaws (selling Allen after he outperformed all of our midfielders easily last year and at the Euros for example).

Curtinho wrote:

Don't call me James wrote:Yeah you would know more than Klopp, good for you.

I'm not the one playing Henderson at DM and trotting out Moreno every week but hey Klopp's infallible so there's that. I like most of what he's done, but there's been some pretty obvious flaws (selling Allen after he outperformed all of our midfielders easily last year and at the Euros for example).

You're also not the one with 2 Bundesliga titles and 2 European final appearances under your belt.

Our whole midfield was average and the sooner these players are gone the better we will be. He did absolutely the right thing by getting rid of Allen. And I hope Henderson, Lallana, Lucas, Stewart and Milner follow suit.

Sometimes it's not the smartest thing to change your whole team in one window as we learned multiple times under your beloved David Brent who kept turning over the whole squad with nearly 10 players every summer.

We can't keep our squad healthy, because we have a manager who would rather listen to what his players tell him about how they feel, rather than trust in the data and analytics and sport medicine staff that he invested millions into.

And just last year (and already with Ramsey and Iwobi this year) we have seen twanged hammies. Twice last year, that happened because he sent on players without warm up.

You need to give luck a chance. Our excellent squad management credentials don't. So shut the fack up about us finishing anywhere in the top 3 based on writing a bunch of names on paper without sparing a thought to who would actually end up being healthy enough to play through the season.

Don't call me James wrote:Free Cat lol you don't even watch PL, you have no place to make judgement calls on players.

Mane has been our best player so far. Matip is an unbelievable signing who's been injured for most of the preseason and barely got back and had amazing first 2 games. Karius also injured but will be the starter and is better than Mignolet. Marko Grujic is 20 years for the future with bags of talent. Just go back and look at his goal against Barca. Klavan is a very cheap 4th choice CB and improvement on Skrtel (who was awful). Manninger is 3rd choice GK improvement on Bogdan (who was a joke of a professional footballer).

Only one signing that doesn't make much sense is Wijnaldum. But Klopp brought him to score goals from midfield, let's see if he does that. So far he looks nothing different than a runner in midfield with little else.

Mané is a good player, very powerful and fast, but I meant that for 40 milion he is expensive, considering Dembele was avaiable for just 15... However, I'm probably overeacting to the price as nowadays every scrub goes for 30 or 40 milion. I'm just an old fart who complains about how things were before. So yeah, he can be a good signing.

However, you won't deny that Liverpool team is not really great, you don't even have a starting striker and keep playing Firmino there... not to mention Milner at Left Back, Lovren, and that midfield trio of Winjaldum, Henderson and Lallana...

Sri wrote:We can't keep our squad healthy, because we have a manager who would rather listen to what his players tell him about how they feel, rather than trust in the data and analytics and sport medicine staff that he invested millions into.

And just last year (and already with Ramsey and Iwobi this year) we have seen twanged hammies. Twice last year, that happened because he sent on players without warm up.

You need to give luck a chance. Our excellent squad management credentials don't. So shut the fack up about us finishing anywhere in the top 3 based on writing a bunch of names on paper without sparing a thought to who would actually end up being healthy enough to play through the season.

Yeah, Wenger should have been fired only for this reason a long time ago. It's ridiculous how ultra injury prone players never get injured after leaving Arsenal.

Talking of, how's Diaby been doing?

Is Joe Hart leaving City a good idea?

For him? Yes, I think so. Better than spending the time on the bench if he's not in Pep's plans

I think so too. Torino are psyched to have Hart. He'll start every game in a smaller, but solid, ambitious team. I think all parties will benefit from that move. Pep gets his GK, Hart gets gametime and new experience, and Torino get their star.

Frankly, I'm not really a big fan of Joe Hart, but kudos to him for leaving his comfort zone and going to continental Europe into a non-English speaking country to play.

I can't believe there is actually a halfway decent GK that you don't find cute. Smh. I'm disappointed rwo.

And here I was, thinking of taking GK lessons :/

free_cat wrote:

Mané is a good player, very powerful and fast, but I meant that for 40 milion he is expensive, considering Dembele was avaiable for just 15... However, I'm probably overeacting to the price as nowadays every scrub goes for 30 or 40 milion. I'm just an old fart who complains about how things were before. So yeah, he can be a good signing.

Dembele chose them over us, Mane was next in Klopp's plan and dammmmm he's good.

free_cat wrote:

However, you won't deny that Liverpool team is not really great, you don't even have a starting striker and keep playing Firmino there... not to mention Milner at Left Back, Lovren, and that midfield trio of Winjaldum, Henderson and Lallana...

We keep playing Firmino for a specific system, Origi and Sturridge do not start and probably never will against the big 5 teams. They always start against everyone else.

This probably shows you only follow the bigger Liverpool matches

Doesnt matter, Window sucked either way. Can't wait for January.

That moment when David Luiz goes on the overlap and asks Kante for the ball:

https://vine.co/v/5BOeWBXKVgX

Sri wrote:I can't believe there is actually a halfway decent GK that you don't find cute. Smh. I'm disappointed rwo.

And here I was, thinking of taking GK lessons :/

stop flirting with the mods

Art Morte wrote:That moment when David Luiz goes on the overlap and asks Kante for the ball:

https://vine.co/v/5BOeWBXKVgX

No more signings this summer, another season of mediocrity beckons. Enough is enough, I'm a winner, I want to win.

free_cat wrote:
Mané is a good player, very powerful and fast, but I meant that for 40 milion he is expensive, considering Dembele was avaiable for just 15... However, I'm probably overeacting to the price as nowadays every scrub goes for 30 or 40 milion. I'm just an old fart who complains about how things were before. So yeah, he can be a good signing.

However, you won't deny that Liverpool team is not really great, you don't even have a starting striker and keep playing Firmino there... not to mention Milner at Left Back, Lovren, and that midfield trio of Winjaldum, Henderson and Lallana...

Mane was £30m+£4m in add ons. For Liverpool who throw away similar money on the likes of Benteke and Carrol and what everyone else is going for in this market this is quite a bargain. And honestly, for a club with out financial strength it's surprising that our record transfer is still £35m.

We asked about Dembele, he had made up his mind that he wanted Dortmund. Nothing you can do when the player doesn't want to come.

We have 2 starting strikers who are of very high quality. Both Sturridge and Origi are very good CF's. Three things: first both Sturridge and Origi came back into preseason late and Firmino was involved in preseason from day 1, second both Sturridge and Origi suffered niggles right before the start of the season so they were further behind in match fitness (Klopp is notorious in that playing players who just returned and those who are not ready), third our schedule at the start of the season means we're playing top teams like Arsenal, Spurs, and Chelsea, Klopp prefers Firmino's pressing up top against these sides. Those 3 things combined is why Firmino has been starting. Not because we don't have CF's. Origi and Sturridge are very good.

Yes, LB is an issue and we weren't able to find the right player to bring in this summer. It looked like Klopp wanted Chillwell all summer (who is highly rated) but Leicester wouldn't let him leave. So instead of a stop gap signing Klopp decided to fix it in-house and play Milner there. Klopp likes Milner a lot. If he doesn't play him at LB, Milner would not be getting much game time.

Lovren has improved since Rodgers left. I don't know why but he is much better now to the point that he's not 100% a liability like he used to be. Certainly not any worse than John Stones, or Cahill, or 40 year old Terry, or David Luiz, or Blind, or Otamendi, or Mertesacker. Skrtel was the biggest culprit in our defense for the past 5 or so years. He's thankfully gone.

You are right about our midfield. it's very weak. We all complain about it all the time. We missed out on our main target Mahmoud Dahoud because BMG had already sold multiple midfielders and they refused to sell him. Wijnaldum is a questionable signing. Henderson is awful. Lallana should not be a starter. All of these problems have been compounded with the absence of our 2 DM's Can and Lucas leading to Hendo playing there like a headless chicken.

If Liverpool are holding out for Dahoud next year they're going to be very disappointed. Bigger teams than us want him, and he'll choose them.

Maybe Strootman will avoid getting too much attention and we buy him this summer. Dream signing. Go into next year something like:


Getting ahead of myself there a bit, but drool.

Curtinho wrote:If Liverpool are holding out for Dahoud next year they're going to be very disappointed. Bigger teams than us want him, and he'll choose them.

I agree

Curtinho wrote:If Liverpool are holding out for Dahoud next year they're going to be very disappointed. Bigger teams than us want him, and he'll choose them.

Maybe Strootman will avoid getting too much attention and we buy him this summer. Dream signing. Go into next year something like:

Strootman
Can - Wijnaldum

Getting ahead of myself there a bit, but drool.

Dahoud is a tidy player from what ive seen of him but tbh I don't think he is anything to wet your pants about.

Bigger teams like who?

First of all Dahoud is NOT that big of a name and then:

-Barca and Atleti are banned in the transfer window.
-Bayern just signed Sanches for crazy money and he's already got plenty to compete against. Doesn't make sense to bring another kid in to the mix.
-Madrid have Kroos, Modric, and Kovacic who all play his best position and Modric/Kovacic bring the exact same thing he does to the team.
-United just got Pogba, Mou will not play anybody else but a battering DM or some sort of physical player (i.e. Fellaini) next to Pogba.
-City and Pep are going to be all over Weigl because that's who Pep is lacking in his current team not someone like Dahoud. Gundogan and Fernandinho can bring similar things to team.
-PSG have Verratti, they will building around him. No room to shoehorn someone like Dahoud next to him. Krychowiak has just been signed to be the destroyer so Verratti can do his thing. Motta, Matuidi, and Rabiot are all still there.
-Juve just signed Pjanic who is a bigger name and plays the exact same role. And they are already stacked with talented players here.
-Arsenal just signed Xhaka to be the controller. Arsenal ain't signing anyone else for another 10 years

Dortmund are a real legit challenge to get him. They will most likely be all over him. Hopefully us showing interest this window pays some dividends.

We are not getting Dahoud.

Don't call me James wrote:Bigger teams like who?

First of all Dahoud is NOT that big of a name and then:

-Barca and Atleti are banned in the transfer window.
-Bayern just signed Sanches for crazy money and he's already got plenty to compete against. Doesn't make sense to bring another kid in to the mix.
-Madrid have Kroos, Modric, and Kovacic who all play his best position and Modric/Kovacic bring the exact same thing he does to the team.
-United just got Pogba, Mou will not play anybody else but a battering DM or some sort of physical player (i.e. Fellaini) next to Pogba.
-City and Pep are going to be all over Weigl because that's who Pep is lacking in his current team not someone like Dahoud. Gundogan and Fernandinho can bring similar things to team.
-PSG have Verratti, they will building around him. No room to shoehorn someone like Dahoud next to him. Krychowiak has just been signed to be the destroyer so Verratti can do his thing. Motta, Matuidi, and Rabiot are all still there.  
-Juve just signed Pjanic who is a bigger name and plays the exact same role. And they are already stacked with talented players here.
-Arsenal just signed Xhaka to be the controller. Arsenal ain't signing anyone else for another 10 years

Dortmund are a real legit challenge to get him. They will most likely be all over him. Hopefully us showing interest this window pays some dividends.

1. Who knows what club will need/look for what next summer or the summer after
2. Gladbach is already a CL club.
Unless Liverpool make top 4 there's no reason for a player like Dahoud to join a club like Liverpool, just for the sake of transfering. he might as well stay at Gladbach for another year or two and see if he can make a bigger step up then.

Dahoud is a big talent. I'm sure Bayern will sign him for like €20M or something.

Personally I'd look to Franck Kessié before Dahoud anyway. Guy looks dynamite from what I've seen.