UEFA Champions League 2018/19

[field442]

In two years they’ve also ditched Mignolet, Milner, Moreno, Lovren, Klavan, Clyne from their defence. To say it’s just one player joining is ridiculous.

I’m not saying it’s one player. People are making the argument that he has spent loads and wouldn’t have been able to do that here to fix the squad. He has a defense made up of an academy prospect, a player bought from a relegated team, a bosman signing and Van Dijk.

 

[DanDare]

Feels like we're in the period Liverpool went through when they bought players like Lovren, Lallana, etc.

Liverpool give me hope because it shows in a relatively short time, with the right moves we can get back to competing.

 

[Giroud12]

All terrible results need to be covered at this point. I back Pool tonight ht'ft at 3/1... Looked strongly at them to qualify at 25/1 ffs and didnt even cover it. Not that it would have been any consolation at all. This is the ****iest £60 Ive ever won. I feel like donating it to ISIS or something.

Where did you get 25 / 1? I got nowhere near that

 

[Giroud12]

Cheeky straight swap offer, Wijnaldum for Özil?

 

[TheEconomist]

Cheeky straight swap offer, Wijnaldum for Özil?

I reckon they would part with wjinaldim for £30m cash. Otherwise it'll have to be Özil + 40m

 

[Jasard]

Missing out on Klopp was disgusting. Guardiola too. I can't see any other manager upcoming that gives the edge like they do. You look at what Klopp is getting out of some fairly average players then look at what we are getting out of our best players..

All about good signings for us to get anywhere which is impossible at this club.

Limbo for 3 or so years at least for us.

 

[Makingtrax]

Missing out on Klopp was disgusting. Guardiola too. I can't see any other manager upcoming that gives the edge like they do. You look at what Klopp is getting out of some fairly average players then look at what we are getting out of our best players..

All about good signings for us to get anywhere which is impossible at this club.

Limbo for 3 or so years at least for us.

Klopp struggled until he got VVD and Alisson etc.

Klopp and Pep both had the advantage to be able to buy the players they wanted to suit their style of play.

They’d be banging their head against the wall watching Mustafi, Iwobi, Kola etc. and doing no better than Emery or Wenger.

 

[Jury]

He’s scored huge winning goals two games in a row. That’s not too shabby for a ****e player.

He was rubbish last week. 3 goals later—irrespective of the games he got them in—suddenly means he’s actually very good? You could have told us this last week. No... you couldn’t have!

 

[razörist]

A-M is absolutely ****ing clueless as per. Absolutely brilliant substitution from Valverde taking off Coutinho for Semedo to get more control of the game.

Valverde is a coward, should be dominating with the material he has not counting on Messi to carry him everywhere. Even you could do what Valverde does.

He's a coward who's team's 3-0 up against a top side and who's team is gonna batter Ajax in the CL final while tears are streaming down your face.

Well...

 

[Mohamed7]

It makes me laugh when people say there’s nothing Emery could do with average players. Well, no sh*t! Top managers can make average players look good, and average managers are made to look good by top players. Unfortunately for him, he’s average with average players.

You are being extremely harsh on Unai and too generous with Klopp.

Remember Klopp finished 8th on his first season with Liverpool albeit he signed with them in October. Still though, he only missed a handful (and change IIRC) of matches where Brenden was in charge. He reached Europa League final which he was well beaten by Unai.

The following season, 2016-2017, he was only able to finish one point ahead of us despite not having any European matches. He could rest everyone easily throughout the season as he was also knocked out of the FA Cup on the fourth round, while we reached the final and won.

My point is, Klopp did it progressively. He did not do anything extraordinary with what he had. The same with Mourinho. He complained so much about not having the required players to challenge the title despite spending excessively. Look at Pep's first season with Man City, you would think him having a world class team, he could compete with Chelsea to the title. He did not.

In short, your remark of top managers making average players look good is not at all true. At least not when you consider the collective achievement of the club.

 

[Mohamed7]

Klopp struggled until he got VVD and Alisson etc.

Klopp and Pep both had the advantage to be able to buy the players they wanted to suit their style of play.

They’d be banging their head against the wall watching Mustafi, Iwobi, Kola etc. and doing no better than Emery or Wenger.

This is exactly my point.

 

[Let's play Aubamawang]

He’s scored huge winning goals two games in a row. That’s not too shabby for a ****e player.

Not like either of his goals last night required him to do anything other than keep it on target because the keeper had no chance.

 

[Trilly]

I am sorry but I cannot disagree with you more. With the exceptions of Van Dijk and Allison, all the other players they have bought in recent years are within our price range, including Suarez, Coutinho, Mane, Salah, Firmino, and Robertson.

And if things don't work out and when their players want out, they managed to get good money out of their assets (Suarez and Coutinho). While we decide to leave 60m on the table for Alexis, and got absolutely nothing in return for Welbeck and Ramsey.

This is textbox financial mismanagement. At the end of the day, we got exactly we deserved. 5th place and hoping our domestic rivals to mess up so we can don't feel not as bad about ourselves.

They’ve had many flops as well, let’s not forget the days of Stewart Downing, Ings, Adam, Andy Carroll etc.

They’ve made good signings in the 30-50M range but that doesn’t change the fact that there’s definitely a general correlation between transfer fee and player quality/impact.

I wasn’t even really talking about Liverpool, the focus was on our signings.

 

[TriniGunner]

I reckon they would part with wjinaldim for £30m cash. Otherwise it'll have to be Özil + 40m

Klopp would never buy a player like Özil unless the latter buys himself an ACME jet pack so he can move quicker about the pitch.

 

[Trilly]

Cheeky straight swap offer, Wijnaldum for Özil?

Christ.

Özil has fallen off but Gini is not going to solve our problems. Özil has talents that could explode in the right system, I just don’t think we’ll see that here.

 

[Trilly]

We're definitely splashing the cash on Zaha now.

Zaha wants to go to a CL team. Although I think Europa would be a better jump for him, I can’t blame him for wanting CL.

 

[TriniGunner]

We should have some money to spend this summer from the Adidas deal and considering we're letting go of almost half of our squad.

Isn't Jenkinson still on our books?

 

[Toby]

Klopp struggled until he got VVD and Alisson etc.

Klopp and Pep both had the advantage to be able to buy the players they wanted to suit their style of play.

They’d be banging their head against the wall watching Mustafi, Iwobi, Kola etc. and doing no better than Emery or Wenger.

Kloppo got a Dortmund team starting Kuba and Kevin Großkreutz into a CL final in 2013.

That "Klopp is only successfull because he bought Becker and van Dijk" is a far too simple look at it. By far doesn't explain all of it 'cause it takes out all other factors. Yes, money and thus the ability to bring in very good players helps, but even then it starts with who you actually bring in: Who of the 70m rated CBs fits exactly what you need? And that right there is already where it's a question beyond money and more a question of quality of the manager, scouting and further backroom staff. United and PSG are very good examples of what happens when money is regarded as the only deciding factor.

 

[Toby]

Well...

Top class troll that guy. Spine and opinion as soft as jelly.

 

[Jasard]

Klopp struggled until he got VVD and Alisson etc.

Klopp and Pep both had the advantage to be able to buy the players they wanted to suit their style of play.

They’d be banging their head against the wall watching Mustafi, Iwobi, Kola etc. and doing no better than Emery or Wenger.

You are right but I think they are much better motivators and are better at 'punishing' poor performances.

But yeah, fix the players then worry about getting the edge I guess. I think the flaccid performances are late fall on Emery at least a bit though. Need to motivate the players better.