'Even allowing for inflation, this thread is not worth 198 Terry Francises' - EPL 2017-18

agree about coutinho. he should have stayed until summer, but also prob the club should have told him to f off. maybe klopp didn't want the hassle. if they are gonna sell him it's good they just did it early in the window. i do worry the team will lose something without him and the early narrative seems to be we'll hope lallana and ox can do a job in his place :/

on stoke, would be funny if somebody at lasts gives it giggseh rest of season

Nothing could make laugh harder

As fantastic as Salah has been, Liverpool don't have another player capable of orchestrating attacking play in the way that Coutinho does, the jump in their performances since he came back from injury has been massive. Might be better off just throwing money at a proper playmaker or #10 in the transfer window.

That said, they've got enough attacking threat elsewhere and that + VVD should probably see them okay until they can reinforce in the summer. There's going to be a big hole in central midfield without Emre Can as well.

Keita coming in will help with the hole-in-the-midfield thing. i agree tho, a number 10 and a proper quality holding midfielder would be high on my list of priorities if I was FMing this Liverpool team

assuming goalie goes without saying here

oh yeah that too.

Peter Beardsley: Racism & bullying accusations against Newcastle U23s coach

Still such a punchable face after all these years

Looks like the midwife beat you to it

that's solidly in orange card territory

can is not partic great imo. keita is more a replacement for coutinho than can i'd say, based on what i've read/youtube. he's more attacking.

dunno if the rise in form is solely due to coutinho - he's been great but the team generally has been improving.

i think robertson is really good btw - barely mentioned but he looks fantastic to me.

Can can do one imo, no great loss. Robertson has been superb, surely made the position his own now. Great cross on him and can actually defend, genuine upgrade on moreno

yeah he looks a total bargain at 8m

Loved how Everton clearly targeted him the other night and apart from an early couple of scares he kept bolasie in his pocket for the rest of the game

yeah and he was well up for the fight too - that team could do with more of that, vvd looks like that kind of competitor too. i do think a proper bastard central midfielder would be good, albeit one who can play a bit.

i know that's prob retrograde thinking but they are obv a bit mentally weak when the pressure comes on.

For sure

Yeah it's less that Can is irreplaceable or anything and more that you just don't have another player like that. A proper powerhouse central midfielder who can pass and turn defence into attack would do so much for Liverpool right now, but you've looked thin there for several years, especially given the game Klopp wants to play.

i think to an extent keita will be that but he's not like a defensive midfielder. box to box, people say. the clips i've seen he looks like a guy who travels with the ball well.

Yeah I think you need both and there's maybe a bargain to be had in someone who could play alongside Keita and protect the back four. Would probably turn you into genuine title contenders, or would in normal times at least.

Hearing rumours that Liverpool are looking to Roma's Kevin Strootman as that central midfielder powerhouse.

what's the consensus on Strootman these days LBI? for a couple of years there it looked like he might be a tragic permanent crock but he seemed to be getting back on track last season.

would be a funny transfer if it happens, rated so highly for so long that you'd expect Roma to pitch for as much of that Coutinho money as they could get, but then how much are Liverpool realistically gonna pay for a guy pushing 30 whose legs are held together with sawdust and superglue?

Consensus is... not good. It's pretty weird actually. The two players who perform at top European teams but are consistently doubted in Holland are Wijnaldum and Strootman. Because they have been piss poor for the Dutch XI. I'm a minority putting this down to the Dutch XI shambles instead of with the individual players. Both are practically first on the team sheet of their respective clubs, week in week out. Fact they don't perform well with the Dutch team doesn't mean a lot to me.

Strootman has had his injury problems, but he's on the mend. Both Juve and Inter have expressed interest in him in the last 2 years but he didn't want to leave (mostly due to repaying back Roma's patience and help when he was injured).

I can see why Liverpool would need *someone* like him, though it'd be a gamble to actually go for him.

If you were being charitable you could say Wijnaldum has blown hot and cold for Liverpool this season but I'd be surprised if he wasn't one of the players Klopp was looking for an upgrade on.

I had the idea Gini successfully transformed from a flamboyant, scoring #10 to a reliable "invisible-but-in-a-good-way" passing #6 under Klopp, and that Klopp valued this transition.

he has been poor this year. stopped scoring and goes missing for long periods. i still think selling joe allen was silly.

I believe he's been poor but 'stopped scoring' is rather obvious when you've got four, at times five players in front of you scoring all the goals no?

i still think selling joe allen was silly.

same

Yea he was improving all the time. A handy player to have on the squad

Henderson needs to go too. He offers nothing atm

seeing as you're all here, thoughts on Solanke thus far? has he had many minutes? feel like i've only seen him coming off the bench late in games

Brucie was semi-recently spouting off to the press about how stupid it was for Solanke to waste himself sitting on the bench for a big team (again) and he ought to demand a loan mov (lol did you have anywhere particular in mind Steve?). managed to upset all our fans by talking about how "the larger clubs should set up positive relationships with the smaller ones" when it comes to loaning out players.

Hard to have an opinion on Solanke yet tbh. I haven't seen him play enough yet

fair enough, knew he wasn't starting but hadn't kept track of whether he was getting 3 mins or 30 when he was coming off the bench

Wijnaldum is one of those players where I like the idea of him more than the reality I think. Runs a lot, keeps the ball, still not sure what he does very well tho.

Solanke is impossible to judge right now. The positive, I guess, is that he's getting more minutes overall than I expected

some talk that Liverpool are trying to hijack Bayern's move for Goretzka

seems something of a fool's errand if there's any truth in it

Goretzka moving on a free as well right? imagine the wages youd need to offer to talk him out of going to Bayern

and as or something noted upthread, midfielders are all well and good but spend some of this ludicrous loot on buying a fucking goalkeeper you plums

not sure about solanke, he's played loads and prob been unlucky not to score but i thought origi showed promise last season.

yeah I imagine Bayern have been tapping him up for some time

I'd sell Liverpool Romero for 50m or so

is there any credibility to the rumors of buying alisson from roma?

Re: Liverpool' goalkeeping woes - I think Klopp desperately wants Karius to happen but the lad is so bloody slow in every department

something about a slow Lloris

Yesssss

He's dropped more than an L that's for sure.

Liverpool most interesting 2018 team gunning for a 2021 title tbf. It can happen if they do everything right (and get a good goalie and three defenders and a CM and keep Klopp).

I hope Derby come up, if only because I'm going to burst if I don't get to use 'have the Rams stopped screaming yet Lloris?' line at least once in my life,

Brilliant

:D

Thread dellivers

i hate Derby and now i want them to get promoted too

I didn't think I'd ever become a Candy Crush Fc 4 promotion fan, but Brum exiting the opposite way is pretty sweet as well.

if Brum, Albion and Stoke all go down this season i'm likely to tear some intercostal muscles