Sahin

Arquitecto wrote:I don't see why people are so excited about a deal in which has no option to buy. Sahin is better then all our midfielders (bar on-form Gerrard) yet considering Madrid will not let us purchase him next season, it would be near redundant to play him often considering Rodgers cannot:

1. Play a team around him
2. Include him as a vital cog in the system

If anything someone whether it would be Shelvey, Hendo, Allen or Gerrard will be sacrificed which in the end is a short sighted move.
Only positive is he will help us move for the Top 4 yet knowing we won't be able to buy him makes this deal leave a bitter taste in the mouth.

RedOranje wrote:That's not true at all though, is it? If playing him regularly gets us into or close to the Champions League spots it allows us to attract better players to fill the role he will open when he returns to Madrid. NOT playing him regularly and hurting our performances through that, just because he won't be here next year, is ironically MORE short-sighted than playing him. He's a Liverpool player for the season and a very useful resource... to not make full use of that resource due to so theoretical issue is asinine.

And just because we don't have a clause where we can force a deal through doesn't necessarily mean Madrid won't be willing to deal next summer. After the loan, and given Rodgers' relationship with Mourinho, we'd likely have first refusal rights if/when Sahin did become available for a permanent move.

Our skill levels have gone up

Sahin’s come. Assaidi’s here. Joe Allen’s already bedding in. Suddenly we have a lot of skill in the team. We have players who are ambitious on the ball and who can beat men.

As is well known Brendan Rodgers wants to create a Liverpool team which dominates possession and that means a team which can pass the ball fluently. But passing in football is the simple-looking thing that is hard to do. It becomes easier with clever movement off the ball and comfort on it. It becomes easier still if you have players who are able to beat a man with the ball at their feet and who can escape the attentions of their marker while retaining possession. These are players whose first thought on getting the ball is ‘how can I hurt the opposition?’ rather than ‘how can I get this thing to someone who knows better than me?’ They are players who look for constructive ways to solve problems rather than simply passing those problems on to a teammate in a worse position.

Liverpool have been short of players of this type for a long time. Too often the main instinct of most of our lads, when under pressure, has been to play safe and off-load. It’s why so much of our passing has quickly run into cul-de-sacs and why typically, after four or five attempts at trying to work the ball out from the back, the thing would be rolled all the way back to Pepe Reina to boot upfield.

Rodgers has obviously started by changing the tactics and the mind-set of the squad he inherited. Everyone can plainly see the revolutionary - for us - positions that the defenders and defensive central midfielders take up when Pepe has the ball for example. But in the last fortnight he’s also brought in three footballers with a high degree of technical skill and a preference for taking out an opponent by the direct means of dribbling past him or provoking him into an area of the pitch he doesn’t want to be in. It’s also why he’s given a first start, as well as loads of moral encouragement, to the amazing Raheem Sterling whose football is all about destroying the man nearest to him.

The Rodgers ideal is that all 11 players can, if the situation calls for it, take out an opponent with a feint or a dribble. This includes the goalkeeper. This kind of football can be risky but the rewards for getting it right are high. It also becomes less risky the more skill and courage you have in the team. Despite the West Brom fiasco it’s been an exciting month for most of us because we can see how the skill quotient at Liverpool has increased – even dramatically increased. Only a fool would say expect to see a misfiring team suddenly hitting bulls-eye in every match. Most of us will be patient I think.

Nevertheless, expect to hear of lot of football pundits decry the Rodgers strategy this season. Some will even want the experiment to fail – not because they hate Liverpool, let alone hate Rodgers (who seems universally liked), but because the Rodgers approach violates their own sense of the way football should be played and has been played for donkey’s years on these islands (which, oddly, is often the way they played it). In a way that perhaps only psycho-analysts could explain a successful tiki-taka team (for want of a better word) in England will come as a massive slap in the face to so many football people.

As a postscript it need hardly be said that the most important player in all this is Daniel Agger. He’s the one who is going to be seeing more ball at his feet than any other player in the team. A new contract for Agger would be nice.

ynwa wrote:@ Arq:
We don’t need an option to buy though, do we?

It’s quite clear that he wants to stay at RM and fight for a spot so he wouldn’t have came if this was the case. He’s not really our best midfielder now is he? Lucas is. Gerrard whilst good at CM is A LOT better in the front 3 so Sahin coming would get our best finisher into the final third on a regular basis. Lucas has also had a long-term injury in the past and we had no quality to replace him and to an extent, we do now albeit more Allen than Sahin.

Adding to that, we have potentially 70 games this season. Whilst Shelvey and Henderson are highly rated young players, they don’t have the quality just yet to help dominate games so would be great options against the lesser sides or coming off the bench. They both will get games this year, so Sahin won’t steal time off them.

Sahin’s arrival also potentially spells the end to Adam and Spearing – which is massive. Mediocrity breeds mediocrity. We saw it when we signed Carroll and brought in Adam and Downing to compliment him so getting rid of them will open up space for Suso, one I rate very highly. Saying that, that’s no disrespect to Spearing and Adam, they are good players in their own way but they’re not players that should be part of a squad that wants top four – they just don’t fit that into that category.

Rodgers won’t make Sahin the main man, if anything he’s here to help compliment Suarez and help Luis out. Suarez has the burden of having to create and finish his own chances, so by the time he shoots he is exhausted and rushes into the shot. Sahin knows how to create so would put them on a plate to Suarez.

He also would be a massive help to fight for the top four, which gets us to sign quality again. Happy with this loan.