I'm honestly not that upset that Liverpool seem to be sitting back and letting things happen in front of them. We spent so much money last offseason and I think truly kinda F'ed it all up, that resetting our strategy some feels like the right move. We still need four guys but not upset at how it's playing out.

Gomez hurt and off 7 minutes in. Unreal ….

Lol…I am confident we'll be buying another CB.

hoosierAG said:

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Gomez hurt and off 7 minutes in. Unreal ….

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Didn't look like anything serious. Hopefully it's just precautionary.

From the right side of the box, Salah, er, Morrison scores.

We've got some good young players imo. Maybe not elite outside of Rio, but guys who can contribute. Slot just never used them…ever.

A few thoughts:

1) Nyoni was the man of the match in the second half. Again if he can be the guy most of us believe he can be, then I don't think we need to buy another midfielder this summer. Introducing Nyoni and Elliott as guys to get legitimate minutes this season should give us enough cover. That roughly gives you:

Gravenberch - Szbozslai 1
Jones - Mac Allister 2
Nyoni 3

Wirtz 1
Elliott 2

I think that is enough to get your through all comps this year barring catastrophic injury.

2) Reports are that Barcola has officially told PSG that he will not sign an extension and that he would like a move. However, PSG operate in MF'ing La La Land and think his value is 170M. They're ridiculous and he's probably worth at absolute maximum value of 85-100M. I think Liverpool can get a deal done here as long as Diomande provides some smokescreen and Barcola continues to apply pressure.

3) They're going to have to buy another CB and I'm worried about RB. Gomez cannot be trusted whatsoever. I'm fine with treating Jacquet as a starting CB if that's what they view him as. No issues there. But if you are counting on Gomez to be one of four CBs, I just don't know. On top of that I don't think we're going to get Leoni back until maybe late September/October. At RB I just don't see it with Frimpong in a back four. He's not dog crap, but I think it's a square peg in a round hole. And like Leoni I don't think we're going to get Bradley back until October. I thought Calvin Ramsey was good but I'm not sure you're going to trust him to play big EPL minutes. Thus I think another CB and RB might be necessary.

First half was really rough. Sunderland did a good job of pressing our backline (which was made of teenagers) and our midfield did little to help them out. Second half, we subbed on Szobo (and others) and Sunderland brought in their youth squad. The field also looked a bit rough. Guys were slipping all over the place and on the close up shots it looked pretty poor.

Feel bad for Joe Gomez. Thats probably it for him in a Liverpool shirt. I'm sure he can rehab and recover, but he simply can't be counted on in a high level game anymore. There wasn't even an obvious incident that led to that injury, he just put his hand up and called it a day (possibly a career).

Tough to take any real conclusions from that game, but I will say that I liked the energy in our press. Hopefully thats something that improves under Iraola.

Agree overall. Not much you can take from games like that when 75% of your team is under 23s and 21s. The transfer market is heating up though so I expect a lot over the next three weeks.

Sounds like Madrid are in agreement to sign Diomande. No news on price yet, but I'd assume 120M+

Wow. Madrid really swooped in there in the last week. Not sure that's gonna help any with prying Barcola out of PSG.

I don't think it's going to matter a ton one way or the other. He wants out and won't sign an extension. He's at peak value from a contract perspective.

I think Liverpool were out on Diomande pretty quick after the first initial push. Don't know that they liked how things were handled from the agent and player side if I had to guess.

Ornstein is reporting that it's a 100M fixed fee with 20 million in ad ons. I would assume those ad ons are almost guaranteed.

Hopefully so and they accept without too much more haggling. I just figured they might be more reticent now that they don't have Diomande coming in as a replacement. Of course, they're not strained like other teams on depth as much because of the strength of their league.

Liverpool need to be able to wrap this one up soon so that they can also move onto others.

Had a whole post and lost it lol. Nothing new, but the bottom line, back 4 is in dire straits. The RB/LBs look rough and our only CB is an aging VVD. The rest of the backs are inadequate (Tsimikas), or made of glass, or so young/new coming off major injuries or are months away. Very, very scary.

As far as the game, it's all been discussed. I watched most and like others have said, you can't take anything much from this (slippery field, 1s half vs 2nd half matchups, etc). Nyoni did look good, and even though it was against Sunderland's U21 team, he accurately and aggressively pushed the ball downfield and was everywhere. But he is only 17 and so thin, he will get abused in the PL. But he needs to be playing in the FA and EFL Cups.

Need Barcola done yesterday and 3 signings in the back. Heck, you are at the point of needing to get just some warm bodies at this point.

Meanwhile Richard Hughes is leading the negotiations to bring Luis Diaz to Al Hilal. It's an affront to the fans that he hasn't been walked out of the building.

I think the midfield and attack will sort itself out when and if they buy Barcola; they added Munoz who I really do like and think will get significant minutes this year; and they might buy another young guy.

But like you said the defense is terrifying. Again I have no issues with VVD and Jacquet being your starting duo going into this year. I rate Jacquet that highly, but after that it's pretty much a joke. I do think they will add another, so I am not panicked, but it's just crazy to see how depleted we have gotten in that spot in such a short amount of time.

Nyoni is 19 not 17 and he seems to have add some muscle mass....but he is still thin as a rail.

He actually has really long arms for a soccer player. In the US, we are constantly having discussions on which non-soccer athlete would have made a great soccer player. He might be an example of the reverse. Looks tailor made to play PG.

Thanks...yes, 19...no idea why I thought 17. But still young and so thin.

I think if we aren't going to go out and buy another midfielder then we're going to have to trust him to play. Szbo, Gravenberch, Mac Allister and Jones isn't enough to get through all comps. If Nyoni cannot be trusted to play along side someone else against the promoted teams or bottom third squads, then we need to be out adding midfielder to the list as well.

While I agree, I don't think we can give our front office more holes to fix given that they seem to be in rigor mortis. Of all the gambles we could make, Nyoni is probably one of the better ones. I doubt we are getting more than 2 more impactful acquisitions in this transfer window and one of them really needs to be a versatile defender. The other probably needs to be a replacement for Mo. In a perfect world we'd get a DM too, but we have had functioning front offices that have failed at that task for like 5 straight years. There is no chance this clown show of a FO will succeed at that task.

My gut says Barcola and a CB. I think this is going to be a multi-year rebuild. It won't all happen this summer.

Reported that the Diomande Deal is 135 million euros.

Seems like things are trending towards Barcola happening. Fully expecting this to drag out over several weeks though.

What I've seen so far is the initial bid could be 110M + 40M in add ons, of which I would assume 20M are somewhat obtainable, and the other 20M are unobtainium like a BDor.

Game is on ESPN tonight at 6:30

Field looks like ****e. Hope no one gets hurt.

Might as well be playing in a cornfield

It's ridiculous that this match is being played in yankee stadium. At least have they play on a decent pitch.

What is this? A pitch for ants?

How can we be expected to pre-season our players if they can't fit on the pitch?

Take Szo out please

This narrow field and its condition ruined this

Rio on the right is the only thing I've taken from this. That and Mama is still a good shot stopper, just needs to trust his feet more.

Szobo has looked good throughout the match as well

For sure. I know he's world class though!

Szo off and not hurt is all I'm taking from this