The stadium would have blown up if he bagged that winner.

Ramsdale (who should be England's No.1) just had world-class save after world-class save at the end there for Arsenal. If they end up holding on for the title, I think they'll look back at those saves.

YNWA.2013 said:

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Ramsdale (who should be England's No.1) just had world-class save after world-class save at the end there for Arsenal. If they end up holding on for the title, I think they'll look back at those saves.

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He's been outstanding for us

I didn't like the way TAA kept drifting into the middle. If he is going to play a wing-back, that could work; however, the scheme was much more awkward. When defending he was supposed to drop into the rb role and form a back 4. When in attack, he was basically playing as a central defensive midfielder. This meant that anytime Arsenal were in transition there was nobody on the right OR the gap between Robertson and Virgil was massive. Fabhino was supposed to fill that gap, but in transition this is very difficult to do on his older legs. The scheme ultimately "worked" because Konate was a beast. Probably one of the best individual performances by a Liverpool defender this year. Still that formation was responsible for both goals because there was too much space between vvd and Andy.

I still think we have a higher ceiling if TAA plays a natural RB and we get younger midfielders that can physically play box to box.

Regarding the VVD and Konate comments, it really makes me wish Gomez was a more consistent performer. Konate/Gomez should be the pairing of the future but Gomez has taken a step back.

VVD just really hasn't been the same since his ACL injury.

Been praying for Gomez to show some level of consistency. He was VvD's first choice partner a while back. But Konate has a firm grasp of that now, I reckon. Klopp just does not seem to trust him at the moment

Yeah Gomez was great for a while but he's had his own injury issues and hasn't been the same too.

He's only 25 so he's still got some time to right the ship. What I don't want is us to be forced to buy another $30-50M player wince we have him here already. I believe he signed a contract extension last year.

That midfield needs some retooling asap!

Reports saying that we are taking ourselves out of the running for Jude Bellingham and choosing to spend our money to fund the retooling of the midfield that Klopp wants. Now freaking Man City are probably gonna sign him….

Reports I saw were also saying that the fee demand is now 130MM which is bananas.

Y'all are smart. Let stupid money be stupid.

ETA: Supposedly he's listed City, PSG, and Chelsea as clubs he will not join.

If true, all of the above means he's going to RM. They're the only ones who can afford him if those others are off the table.

Oof. Yeah, we can't afford that at the moment. Especially with no CL money next year.

I never really thought he was in play because of what his reported cost would be. I think it's a pipe dream even if we were going to be in CL again next year.

I really do question the plan of holding onto guys till their contracts run out. Roberto Firmino, Naby Keita, Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain, James Milner and Adrian are all expiring this summer and we get nothing back. Why haven't we sold any of them? I get that they're all aging and the returns would be smaller but what if we got $30M total for 2-3? It pays for another player. Hell that probably my lands a guy like Westin McKennie or maybe even Mason Mount.

Ian Wright kept saying in the fall, if Arsenal pull it off that a certain young superstar would be very interested in joining them and everyone was pretty convinced he was talking about Bellingham. As long as he doesn't go to City or Chelsea.

Granted I don't see us forking over 130m either.

More power to you if you can pull that off. At that price point there's really only 5-6 clubs in Europe who can afford him.

I have to say I'm a little peeved at LFC club leadership though. You knew his tag was going to be high and we've supposedly been prepping for this purchase for a while, but now it's out of the question? Maybe it all hinged on finishing top four? Idk. Just seems like poor strategy on our part. No off-loading of talent is another big red flag, like others have said.

I don't think we're out of it. LFC is a magician when it comes to keeping the journos in the dark or feeding them misleading information. Even Paul Joyce has been wrong or had no idea when certain moves were happening. I think it's us or RM. The reported fee is crazy high, but I doubt it's actually that high in reality. There is a long way to go and billions of rumors flying around. I just don't believe we just gave up.

As far as letting contracts run down, it's not that simple to sell certain players. No one is paying $10-20M for a aging role player who has one year left on a deal. Also and most importantly, the player wants to run it down as well. They become a free agent and have more control and a greater number of teams to negotiate with.

I'm not real big on signing Bellingham. No doubt he is a fantastic player, but the team needs more than one quality player. The biggest problem we had this year is that we blew all of our money on Darwin and didn't have enough to fix other problems. LFC doesn't have City or Chelsea money, they have to be smarter with their transfer approach.

A midfield consisting of Hendo, Fabinho and Bellingham isn't much better than what we have. Still not enough speed and power to cover the gaps when we push forward. We probably need 3 quality new midfielders this summer.

If we somehow did a U-turn and pulled off the incredible magic trick of signing Bellingham that would be our biggest transfer coup since, what?, VvD? and before that, idk, Mascherano?

But like others have said, we just don't have the deep pockets to fund him AND other players. He is a young generational player and could be Liverpool's midfield general for the next decade (a la Gerrard, Lampard, Scholes, etc). Heck, he has captain material written all over him. Players like that don't come around very often. We have "ended our interest" before only to go on and sign the player later. Keita, VvD, Alisson, Thiago come to mind.

But a midfield rotation of Fabinho/Bajcetic at the 6, with Hendo/Elliott/Thiago alongside Jude wouldn't be the worst thing. I think Klopp wants a bigger shake-up than this though. So I think we are looking elsewhere.

eiggA2002 said:

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As far as letting contracts run down, it's not that simple to sell certain players. No one is paying $10-20M for a aging role player who has one year left on a deal. Also and most importantly, the player wants to run it down as well. They become a free agent and have more control and a greater number of teams to negotiate with.

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I agree that it isn't simple but why didn't we sell Ox and Naby 2 years ago? I think overall we almost got our money out of Ox. Naby was a failed signing…and we knew that 2 years ago.

The front office has done a terrible job of managing this roster the last couple years because they've been so resistant to selling people. Why is Nat Phillips still around? I'm a fan of his and think he's an EPL player but not good enough for us…so why haven't we sold him?? We could've sole him the last 2 summers for around 10M.

That's where the frustration comes in. These guys have been buried on the bench for years. Sell players quicker and refresh the roster every year. I feel like we're the only squad that hasn't done it.

List of other midfielders we have been linked to:
- Mason Mount (He'd be my No. 1 target. I think a change of scenery is going to do wonders for him)
- Conor Gallagher (Just like Mount, I think a change will help him discover the form he had at Palace)
- Moises Caicedo (meh.)
- Matheu Nunes (We had a chance to sign him last summer and don't think he's done much to impress. Although he did score a wonder goal vs Chelsea)
- Nico Barella (don't watch Serie A so...)
- James Maddison (okay...)
- Alexis Mac Allister (Everyone and their mom is going to go after him bc he had a good World Cup. Probably going to cost more than he is actually worth)

Other midfielders I would go look into:
- Ruben Neves (I'd take him over Fabinho at this point. Wolves would probably demand a lot for him)
- James Ward-Prowse (I think how good he is gets lost bc he plays for Southampton; probably get a cut-price deal for him if they get relegated)

Fergie was the master of this. Consistently refreshed his squad and it's how he kept United in the title race year in and year out for 20 years

I completely agree that we need more than one player and spreading the funds may be better. But we've also been told many times that we don't have the funds just to go out and spend a lot. I could see us getting JB and another mid. I also could see one or two mids with none ending in "ellingham". LFC is very good at playing poor and splashing the cash when they find the right guy. While we do not have the spending ability of the others mentioned, we will pony up if needed, especially for generational talent. Not saying we will, but we can. And these journos have been massively wrong before....i.e. Allison, VVD, etc. I'm just not believing anything being floated out there in April as gospel.

I want Caicedo. He is a machine. He is the only EPL midfielder to be top 5 in passes completed, passing percentage, tackles and interceptions. He is exactly what we need and only 21 years old.

Arsenal gonna screw around and hand City another title.

jeffk said:

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Arsenal gonna screw around and hand City another title.

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Let's hope Villa and Brighton start screwing around so we can take our rightful place in the Europa Conference League.

Back to hatred. ITS GAME DAY BOYS!!!

It was always going to take someone above us crapping the bed for us to move into a top 5 slot. Crazy how losing an 18 year old middie may have been the nail in our coffin.

Diaz on the bench! Welcome back cabron!!!

🔴 TEAM NEWS 🔴

The Reds to take on Leeds tonight 👊#LEELIV

— Liverpool FC (@LFC) April 17, 2023

How that first goal was not overturned is beyond me. Glad VAR in the Prem is sh*t. Except when it goes against us.

But that second goal was sweet. Salah clearly wanted the ball further ahead of him. But Jota was like"No, Mo. I know where you want it. Riiiight here. So you can hit it first time." *Chef's kiss*

And now Jota making up for Konate's dreadful mistake. Let's gooo!! What a pass from Jones though. Thought he was going to just push it forward for Gakpo. Talk about the perfect position and weight to a pass

Leeds were so bad in that game. Clearly it's all Jesse Marsch's fault.

Nice finish by Diogo!