Transfer Rumours Transfer Rumours thread

Yeah it's quite tough and hes been nothing but a model professional and seems a nice lad as well.

I dont believe southampton have the interest unless its cheap as they have given walcott a new deal but I dont know.

You are absolutely right. He is a Trier and he fits in well so it's not much of a burden

I'm saying it's time to evolve and get more effective. How many times have I heard lads say we are crossing with no point or that we cant hit a barn door with a banjo.

Things change and players change but we need to finish chances.
Firmino has done his bit but he now needs to come back stronger than he has this season.

Havong a player who is a natural goal scorer not not actually a bad thing.

If we want to rely on salah and mane firing in 10 efforts and getting one a game fine but imo it's time to change

 

Genuinely no idea.

I think he was signed with an eye on club promotion in Asia

 

Good point. I hadn't thought of that.

 

Genuinely
If he didn’t cost so much I would be happy with Kane

 

Wijnaldum supposedly in negotiations with Bayern.

 

Mate, the best goal scorers in the world and in history all have high shot volumes. Mane and Salah had a conversion rate at the same level as peak Suarez, Messi, Ronaldo, Kane etc.

Bringing in a natural CF doesn't solve your problem because you're expecting a CF to have a conversion of 50% which is completely unrealistic.

 

I think you are confusing Andy Carroll with luis suarez mate.

A striker doesn't mean a donkey

further you are willfully ignoring bobby firmino every time. Where did i say **** mane or sala or jota out? Again we need a goal scorer. we need to evolve.

 

I'm not ignoring it - I actually agree with you that we need another goal threat instead of bobby (although we did get that with Jota, and he's not a natural CF).

The question is - do we get a CF or another Mane/Salah/Jota type. I see the merits for both but ultimately, I dont see any difference in the levels of output hence why I'm indifferent.

I've long campaigned for us to switch to the 4231 because I think it suits a lot of our players better and it would mean we either bring in a proper CF or move Mo centrally. I think Klopp may have tried it more this season had it not been for injuries however I'm losing hope and I feel he will stick to the tried and trusted 433.

 

The problem I have with bringing in a central striker number 9 type is that they’re very fixed. They play centrally and that’s it. Given how we expect our front 3 to drift, for the middle man to drop deep and link play as well as leaving gaps up top for Salah mane to run into, don’t see how a classic number 9 would fit in that way. Yes they may score more goals than Bobby, but do mane and Salah then score 50% less as wel in which case do you actually lose output despite them maybe scoring more than Bobby?

Look at Kane and Spurs for example, no doubting Kane is quality this season he’s been incredible all round play. But because he only plays centrally for years they’ve not been able to find anyone be back up because they need a central striker but then they sit on the bench 95% of the time.

good thing about the way we play is Salah mane Bobby Jota can all go central or wide (maybe less so on Bobby’s case) but it means that you can rotate players around a lot easier. An injury to one doesn’t completely ruin things as the others are flexible to cover.

 

Question is how many forwards are there than can come deep, link up play with the midfield and create space for the wide forwards as well as scoring 15 goals a season? And specifically how many are going to be available to buy for something that’s not crazy money

 

4231 needs quite a different type of player in several roles.

If I am looking at the best 4231 sides I am looking at bayern with Lewandowski up front.

If I am looking at sides with rank forwards I am looking current at the disaster that is cheslea who should be competing with city. If fact if they had tuchel form game 1 i think they might have been. But Werner is a nightmre for them.

Salah is simply not a on his own central player. he like a run on players form his slot and get in behind but he is not great at holding the ball and bringing people into play. suarez was far far better at it. I dont think mo would like a 4231 where he's stuck to the right wing either.

Mane's main issue is a lack of hunger, desire or energy. whatever it is at heart its about being on it and chasing and wanting to do the work so whether he's pinned left win in a 4231 or in a 433 narrow it should not matter.

There are players like calvert lewein and cavani in the prem, immobile, lukaku and benzema in europe. I am not even talking players like that, We need to find someone who has the ice in the viens to pass the ball into the net.

If we really harshly critique our players all 4 of mane, firmino, salah and jota are players who blast the ball. If you has to put your house on them scoring you would end up homeless. given them enough and one goes and salah is most likely but if we compare that to the types i'm talking about when they get that chance and it matters its on target.

As I said v brunely look at the game. its pretty open, too open for us but we managed to get 4 or 5 good chances. Firmino virtually fresh aired it. mane couldn't have missed the target by further and salah blazed over.

when we look tothe bench jota is out but you've origi and shqirir etc and they are simply never up to it so we can always find bobby a role if his fitbess comes back up but we hae to have something else now.

 

MITO - if you had the chance of one (disregard price and wages), who would you go for:

Mbappe or Halaand?

 

Harry kane

If bobby could still do what you described reliably then we'd not be scraping 4th and would not be talking about changing.

the fact is he has been poor, even in general play and looks very leggy and off the pace so while we'd all love them to stay at the high level for ever they don't.

We have to evolve.

Gerrard moved from no 10 virtually to a virtual no 6 with rodgers and got a swansong for his career. That's evolution. Maybe bobby as a false 9 needs to change too.

Maybe we don't want someone to come deep and link play any more. maybe we want a midifelder to do the job like gerrard used to. or coutinho.

who knows.

But what we do know is what didn't work this year. Whats going to change to make that work this next season?

 

Definitely agree that Bobby isn't up to it anymore and he definitely needs upgrading, and I'm sure we would have seen less of him had Jota been fit for the whole season.

We need all 3 of the attack to be goal threats and we lost - last season, Bobby lost it but we had both Mane an Salah delivering. This season, we lost Mane and Bobby.

So either we bring in a CF or inside forward but we need them to be creative and a goal threat.

 

thats a different question with moeny no object.

As it stands TODAY.

Mbappe. the reason is simple he can play 9 and score and has all the attributes. I am not so sure about his attitude though that's his only draw back.

Haaland Is a pure goal scorer. He is absolutely filthy in the box but he's not that quick like some say imo, not that involved in general play and almost reminds me of a young robbie fowler in terms of scoring. He has some improvement to do to be the complete package but he is simply that good I'd also love to get him. i just don't know about his attitude as his antic in hawking himself round europe with his agent stinks.

this is what I mean by conflating a CF with a pure old school 9 of the english sense. neither really are. both are strong and big, mbappae is quicker and can play wide if desired. That might sound like i am saying the direct opposite of what i am arguing for but its not.

you get the goals from either player. My personal like is mbappe is faster and i think in general thats important. If you stick a 41 goal striker in the middle and told him to run behind he will still score 40 goals. If you todl him to start lsightly left you are away as well.

This is really the same as saurez. Is he a no 9 or a false 9 or an LW. in truth the guy is a GOAL SCORER. he will get it on the traget.

 

So it’s Bobby’s fault we’re scraping for 4th and nothing to do with losing our whole defence? Got it....

FYI firmino scored 9 goals and got 8 assists in 38 games last year when we won the title

in 35 games this season he’s got 8 goals and 6 assists...

Oh and mane has 9 goals this season...

 

Or we do what city does

I am still thinking on the trent dilemma. in the past 10 games he has stepped up to the responsibility and refused to accept a bad season. but he's not just playing as a RB. he is going all over the place. Sometimes it is counter productive but our blasted CMs are standing back and letting him do the job. It could be time that we see thiago and fabinho with trent in midfield. we don't have the RB to let it happen though.

 

not what i said.

"what didn't work this year"

that can be extended to mane was poor, or the defnece got injured as separate things to fix but I am talking firmino

 

Bobby's has regressed over the past 2 years. He's definitely past it now and should not be a regular starter for us. I've never been too fussed about his goals but it's his link up play and creativity which have also massively suffered. He's offering nothing.

 

Its exactly why you said

‘If bobby could still do what you described reliably then we'd not be scraping 4th and would not be talking about changing’