If we sell him for £4-5m then it’s hardly a panic buy is it? Making a 100% return on investment in 6 months would be the work of a genius imo.
Who were those 2 defenders? If they were available AND wanted to come, then I’d agree with you, even if we had to pay a small premium for them. Problem is, nobody knows who those players are/were...we’ll probably never know. When do we announce our financials? That will likely tell us all we need to know
jimmy thinks the lad from marseille was a real link and not totally made up by his agent. not sure if it also includes guys who were not available or going elsewhere always like up-himself-o or shot-through-alaba. probably botman as well who was football managered into being the GOAT the ussie is the "could have" is a meaningless statement. I could say we could have cloned vvd just in case this ever happens for example the only thing we know is we did not. I think most say the minute matip went down again in late december we had to buy. we did not. our situation only got worse from there. the only crumb of comfort is we can win games and scrape 4th. hopefully.
I see Kabak as worth the risk. He can be at least as good as Klavan as fourth choice for now, and see how he develops. He's improved with each game, and he is only 20.
Now FFP has effectively gone, so is the FSG model. The club's value has increased tenfold on what they paid for them a decade ago. They need to decide if they want to stay in the game and compete with City, United and Chelsea, or manage us down to an Arsenal model. Their inflexibility this season (in the summer window too, with the bizarre decision not to replace Lovren) doesn't auger well for the future.
The worry i have about Kabak is that he seems defensively to struggle aerially and that is an area where we do need the CB's to be pretty good as apart from Fabinho the rest of the team are pretty much there for nuisance value alone .
he does seem to be a bit of a sweeper upper at this point. I hesitate as he is basically partnered with phillips who is going and heading it and kabak can simply mop up that second ball stuff. I agree, we are not a big side, we lack threat without vvd and it'd be nice to have two genuine targets in the air on attacking set piece too.
Kabak and Caleta Carr. The local journalists were all reporting it as well as the French media. It was literally reported everywhere lol.
Really? He is very good in the air - his aerial success % is up there with the likes of Matip and VVD.
but that stat is nearly all from before coming to us and i only go on what i see . Edit : should point out it is just an impression i have rather than having done a proper analysis .
But is that because Phillips has been tasked to go win all the headers and Kabak is asked to sweep up behind?
Apart from one he got under, I haven't seen Phillips miss a header yet. Indeed, the few straight balls that Real tried to hoof up to him on Wednesday saw Benzema just give up in the end, as he knew Nat was getting there. But let's not fool ourselves, long term he's fourth choice at best, and not even that if we keep Kabak.
There have been occasions, in the recent past, at times last season (when we had stadium attendance) and the season before, where we were booed off the pitch because we've done everything but score, or we've just not looked bothered - and that was with your Van Dijks playing. I'm sorry, but the lack of crowd has just been an overbaked excuse too easy to utilise. The fact is this, and this was my husband's observation (not a football fan, but who wants Liverpool to do well so I'm happy): we've fallen off a cliff. The euphoria of last season has hit us that hard, we're like a rock or pop group or artist whose first album was the best-selling ever (like Michael Jackson's Thriller) and since then the pressure has been too much for us to live up to it and so we've failed. I agree with his analysis. The injuries have been a ****ing nuisance, no denying that, but what have we done to adapt to it? Played players out of position and put personnel into the CB position they weren't comfortable with. We had an opportunity in January to sort that and Klopp was told to buy a young lad at the eleventh hour, who, bless him, had no ****ing chance. Meanwhile, the front three. What the absolute ****! Why should Mane's quality depend on a crowd? Why should Firmino's? Why should Salah's, and furthermore why is Salah the most lambasted considering he's about the only one putting it in the net? It's either the pressure and the expectation, or they're past their best. The former, maybe; the latter, possibly. Keita can't stay fit, no, nor the Ox, but my concern is with the passengers like Origi. Finally, it looks like the penny's dropped wth Klopp over him, Shaq I feel has more to offer but I dunno Klopp doesn't rate him and Mini is doing well at Southampton now. It bothers me that he fits there and not with us when he's got the makings of a bloody useful player. In summary, it's been a ****ing lousy season all round after the two seasons we've had and we never did get our Prem League victory parade
I'd agree with you that he doesn't give off a good impressive when it comes to winning balls in the air. However, I also agree that Phillips as been told to go and win the header with Kabak sweeping.
Get Umpalumpa off that list now. If that guy turns up in The Prem he'll be stuffed with a ragman's trumpet.