Liverpool Exodus - Who stays who leaves

Okay now that our season is over I can surely say that this season will involve a massive overhaul of players and staff members at LFC and as far as the players are concerned there are a couple of deadwoods and a couple of misfits and other average performers in the squad amongst a very limited bunch of genuinely talented players in the squad.

Our squad looks like this as of now... (Except for Ojo and Ibe I haven't included other youth players)

Mignolet
Bogdan
Ward

Lovren                           .Clyne
Toure                             .Moreno
Skrtel                            .Flanagan
Sakho                            .Joe Gomez

Henderson                       .Coutinho
Leiva                              .Milner
Allen                               .Firmino
Can                                .Lallana

Sturridge                         .Ibe
Origi                               .Ojo
Benteke
Ings

This season we have seen consistence and talent in

Can
Sturridge (when fit)
Coutinho
Firmino

rest all have either been poor or injured or inconsistent in their performance but when all things are considered we can still give chance to the following players..

Milner (Not very effective but still gave 14 assists)
Leiva (experienced player who can provide good cover)
Origi (Though nothing extra-ordinary talent wise but scored goals when given the chance)
Lallana (Good player, can provide cover when necessary)
Ibe (great potential)
Ojo (Great potential)
Henderson ( Work-rate)

That's 11 players who can stay but others are simply not upto the mark or cannot fit the plan.

So out of the 25 players mentioned above only 11 can really stay rest all must go. But an overhaul of such proportions will not be possible in one transfer window, we will need at least 3 transfer windows to set it right. Hence in the first window we must let go off Toure, Benteke, Allen and Mignolet and bring in some quality into the team and then we can off-load others in the future.

This is what I think should happen.. what are your suggestions?

Changing too much too soon rarely works out, even if it is able to be completed in a single summer. With that being said, too much is relative. The risk with replacing too many players is spending the same amount on a high number of average signings, rather than a high amount on a smaller number of quality signings.

Juventus was doing this for a good couple seasons prior to Conte. Not to use Juventus as a direct example but I'll speak to what I know, this passed summer, (after winning Serie A, the Coppa Italia and making it to the CL final), Juventus completed quite an overhaul but kept the "spine" of the team together.

So, with the players you mentioned, Liverpool has a "spine" and you have to build from there. My suggestions is looking at what fits rather than what is appealing.

A new GK, CM playmaker and a RW imo.

Kovacic on loan for CM?
Gotze as RAM/RW,
Areola/Leno/Sommer/2016 hyped up GK.

You are right. We cannot do that in one transfer window hence I said three.

I still remember Juve making crap signings in 2008-11 but they retained their spine (as you said) and hence I said that we must retain some of our players who are genuinely talented and some others who can provide good depth to the squad.

But looking at teams like Juve and Atleti it is very clear that without a good defense it's hard to be in ucl.

Luca wrote:Changing too much too soon rarely works out, even if it is able to be completed in a single summer. With that being said, too much is relative. The risk with replacing too many players is spending the same amount on a high number of average signings, rather than a high amount on a smaller number of quality signings.

Juventus was doing this for a good couple seasons prior to Conte. Not to use Juventus as a direct example but I'll speak to what I know, this passed summer, (after winning Serie A, the Coppa Italia and making it to the CL final), Juventus completed quite an overhaul but kept the "spine" of the team together.

So, with the players you mentioned, Liverpool has a "spine" and you have to build from there. My suggestions is looking at what fits rather than what is appealing.

You are right. We cannot do that in one transfer window hence I said three.

I still remember Juve making crap signings in 2008-11 but they retained their spine (as you said) and hence I said that we must retain some of our players who are genuinely talented and some others who can provide good depth to the squad.

But looking at teams like Juve and Atleti it is very clear that without a good defense it's hard to be in ucl.

Dark Knight wrote:

Luca wrote:Changing too much too soon rarely works out, even if it is able to be completed in a single summer. With that being said, too much is relative. The risk with replacing too many players is spending the same amount on a high number of average signings, rather than a high amount on a smaller number of quality signings.

Juventus was doing this for a good couple seasons prior to Conte. Not to use Juventus as a direct example but I'll speak to what I know, this passed summer, (after winning Serie A, the Coppa Italia and making it to the CL final), Juventus completed quite an overhaul but kept the "spine" of the team together.

So, with the players you mentioned, Liverpool has a "spine" and you have to build from there. My suggestions is looking at what fits rather than what is appealing.

You are right. We cannot do that in one transfer window hence I said three.

I still remember Juve making crap signings in 2008-11 but they retained their spine (as you said) and hence I said that we must retain some of our players who are genuinely talented and some others who can provide good depth to the squad.

But looking at teams like Juve and Atleti it is very clear that without a good defense it's hard to be in ucl.

I agree, I would start from the back-to-front. Even though Klopp is known for an aggressive attacking style, at Dortmund the defense he had was very talented.

GK, CB, LB all should be priority with the current squad in my opinion.

The spine of this squad is mentally very weak. Last season it was Henderson who was an integral part and this year he's been bang average. We've reached a point where we need upgrades at half of the positions again.

Klopp could have turned everything upside down in January but he made jusr one signing Caulker, who was a forced loan when we had to play the infamous llori-Caulker pairing.

Giving all of these players a chance to prove themselves worthy basically shows us this:

Green: Staying
Red: Should be leaving.
Blue: New signing required.

GK: Mignolet: Not good enough, Needs to be benched asap. New GK required. Bogdan is gone. Ward will be no 3.

RB: Clyne: Starter next season, Maybe some depth as we have only Randall who is not good enough and Flanagan who is not wise enough.

RCB: Lovren: Is a starter next season. Toure and Lucas probably his backup as Skrtel and llori look set to leave.

LCB: Matip: Will start probably. Sakho is banned for a while. So maybe we might see one CB signing.

LB: Moreno: Not good enough, Needs to be benched and be used a Left winger during later stages of games.

CDM: Can or Lucas. Both will stay, Good depth here.

CM: Milner, Henderson and Allen. Allen looks set to leave, Milner has been amazing but i dont feel he's going to keep this up any sooner. Henderson needs to get his form back. Need a new CM, Grujic will make more than 10 app all season including subs.

RM and LM: Coutinho: Starter. Ibe, Ojo all waiting on the wings who are really good squad depth to have.: Lallana: Good enough to stay, Not good enough to start every game. Goetze pls.
CAM: Firmino: CHICKEN STARTER.

ST: Sturridge: Starter. Origi and Ings will get their chance next season. Benteke and Sinclair are done.

Remaining players who took part this season:

Gomez: Injured most of the season
Stewart: Done enough to stay.
Brannagan: Great potential, Future starter ffs
Chirivella: Should leave
Smith: Might stay as third choice.
Texeira: Certainly leaving

Markovic, Balotelli and Luis Alberto coming back from loan spells. Markovic could be given a chance by Klopp.

Obviously much can change, But looking at the squad required we need a Starting GK, Backup RB, Young CB, Starter LB, Offensive minded CM, Right Winger/Striker who play on the wings.

Gk: Karius,
CB: Matip, Will need another one.
LB: Horn?
CM: Ziolinski, Grujic
RW/ST: ??

A spine of a team imho is young players who are yet to reach their peak are performing consistently, Only Coutinho, Can and Sturridge really come to my mind. That's not a very good core/spine at all.

Makes one wonder as to how badly Rodgers used his transfer kitty.

Since the time of Rafa we have been using our funds very badly. Since the past ten years to this day we have invested over 500 million pounds of net cash on players and have won very little.

Rafa spent at least 230 pounds during his tenure then came Kenny who spent another 120 and Rogers spent atleast 150 mil on players. We have had two ownership changes at LFC since 2005 and they gave us a lot of money to spend but atleast 75% of it has been wasted.

Over the past 10 years our best signings have been Alonso, Torres, Arbeloa, Suarez, Sturridge, Coutinho, Sterling, Mascherano, Reina. No centre halfs have been signed who did good for a consistent period of time. That shows how weak our scouting has been.

And yet the majority moan about how hard it has been for us to win trophies because we don't have a sugar daddy to fund us, which is entirely false. We were given atleast 5 chances to build a very good squad but we failed each time and we couldn't hold on to those players who did good at the club.

This problem hasn't been occurring since 2005 it has been occurring since 1990, the last time we won the league. We have been wasting funds since then either due to bad investment or due to bad management.

Since then 4 teams have come and built an empire of their own in this league, Man United, Arsenal, Chelsea and City and we have been watching stars in the night sky hoping for a miracle and singing our songs of hope but nothing has come to fruition.

Now even Spurs are building a good squad of their own. Look at the way they signed Alderweirald (spelling?) and Dier who have been rock solid at the back and in mid-field and they have one of the best keepers in Lloris.

Bottomline.. of the six top teams in EPL we are at sixth position and the funny thing is that the league winners are Leicester this time.

WTF!

Nishankly wrote:
LB: Horn?

Horn, if that is Timo Horn, is not a left back, but Köln's excellent goalkeeper to whom you were/are linked along with Karius.
For left back, possibly you mean Köln's Hector?

tbh I don't think we should buy loads of players this summer. infact should buy just 3. gotze if we can some how get him. a keeper and a left back. I think we should build a bit at a time. we are scoring plenty of goals now so that's not a real problem. the problem we have is the same 2-3 players are making the same mistakes every week. also the team still lacks a bit of confidence when they concede from said mistakes.

Hapless_Hans wrote:

Nishankly wrote:
LB: Horn?

Horn, if that is Timo Horn, is not a left back, but Köln's excellent goalkeeper to whom you were/are linked along with Karius.
For left back, possibly you mean Köln's Hector?

Yes and yes. My bad.

If I were Klopp and Gotze was available I would offload Coutinho for 60m to Barca asap.

IMO next season's line-up would look something like this:


The back-up would be something like this:


The like of Ward, Toure, Smith, Steward, Ojo will provide further depth.

Anyone beyond this will be off-loaded.

If we sign another CM/DLP, one of Lucas and Allen will be sold.

We should do everything to get Ben Arfa. He's on a free and *bleep* amazing. Exactly the goalscoring creative wide player we need.

Spoiler:

Klopp did great with what he had in the cup competitions but the squad itself is still very very average. Filled up with passengers, inconsistency and apart from Sakho who is/will be banned and Kolo who may or may not be leaving, there are no "leaders" in this squad. I mean, apart from Firminho (umad El D?) and Sturridge there is no real "quality" in the squad who has the balls to be an X factor / step up when needed. (Coutinho is great but he is soooo inconsistent it's frustrating to watch at times. His 24 next season, we need to expect more from him.

Honestly we need quality in certain positions right now. We have A LOT of depth. And our biggest struggles/what we need are:

-New keeper
-New left back  
-New centre back???
-New playmaker / midfielder that has the balls to do something with the ball??? (This ones still 50/50 imo)
-New winger / inside forward


--------------------


GK: We've been heavily rumoured for Karius who I think will be a great signing especially considering the low fee. Mignolet should be kept for rotation / keeping them both on their toes / let Karius develop (and not to over-pressurise a young keeper into a new league/country).  

LB: No idea but we desperately need a starting left back. Joe Gomez and Flanagan can be used as a back up / rotation / whenever needed.

CB: Now a tough one now with Sakho's ban / trial thingy is still on going. No idea when he's back but is a massive loss considering his presence / is our best defender. Lovren, who has improved under Klopp is still not starting material imo. Matip coming in looks positive, and I assume would of started next to Sakho with Lovren as the immediate back up but that's all gone to shit now. We might have to renew Kolo's contract only for squad harmony / leadership / as a "third "CB" until Sakho is back and we can relegate Lovren back into that role. I don't know.  

Midfield: We literally still have no consistent creativity / goal threats from midfield. Looking at our options...
Milner, who I still feel should be sold* despite being arguably our best player this season is a passenger / just makes us tick. Both Henderson and Can make us "tick" already, no idea why we splashed 150k on him. *Don't get me wrong he is a good player but his wages are astronomical . I'd sell only so we can free up some wages for a bigger signings.
Henderson, who's a good midfielder but not really a great one again just makes us tick / doesn't have that extra quality / spark we need. He's also lucky to be captain imo.
Leiva, probably my favourite player but injuries have ruined him fml. Can still do a role as a holding midfielder but again not really a playmaker.
Allen, who's in decent form but still essentially a poor mans Milner/Henderson which is funny because Milner is not that great in central midfield/he was probably as good product as Jordan before stagnating.
Can, who's probably our best midfielder right now despite his age  but is still very inconsistent. He has that drive we need from midfield, and has all the tools needed to become world class / be someone like that but I have faith in him and why I think signing another midfielder is "50/50". Emre Can CAN (OH MY GOD DID YOU SEE WHAT I DID THERE?) be that man. Could also become a leader / the players / fans love him.

Also no idea where Zielinski (think that's how you spell it), and the other Grujic lad come into play as I haven't seen him either of them play but we'll see what happens.

New inside foward: GOTZE!!!!!!!!!!!!! Ahh, well we can hope, no? Sturridge, Firmino, Gotze and Coutinho would be amazing.

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Sell:

I have 3 players in an envelope.

Skrtel. Great servant to the club, but not exactly a Klopp type of defender. Will suit any team in the Serie A imo, he still has it, but unfortunately "reactive" defenders won't work out for Kloppo's side.

Benteke. Decent player but doesn't suit the club at all, hopefully we can recoup as much as we can for him.  

Moreno. Literally has the same defensive IQ as Paul f***** Konchesky. Been terrible for us since the very beginning. His lucky to have pace to come back at times to reposition himself / make amends but a complete liability. And for all his talk going forward, he's no real better than Clyne. Flanagan, Gomez and a new left back should cover him. Arguments that he is still young and can turn around blah blah, I've had enough.  

And then....

Allen/Lallana/Milner/Ilori/Luis Alberto. Literally do not care if any of these players stay or not.

Hopefully Markovic can be given a chance too which I'm sure he will considering we have a competent manager now.

------------------Leno
---Clyne---Lovren---Laporte---RicRod
-------------Can------Kovacic
---Ben Arfa-------Gotze--------Coutinho
-------------------Sturridge

Treble confirmed.