Winter Window

Every statistic, eye test and basically every fan points to needing a better keeper than Mignolet. Guess we should probably give him a 5 year extension.

If this is what constitutes good news, I've been living my life wrong.

These are strange days. If it were not, I would have suggested Unique did a sarcasm.

http://www.liverpoolfc.com/news/media-watch/203601-klopp-out-to-secure-inaki-williams-deal

The German boss is a fan of the Athletic Bilbao attacker and is desperate to sign him.

The Spanish forward, 21, has a £15.2million release clause in his contract, which Klopp wants to trigger, according to Tuttomercatoweb.

Should be interesting to see how this plays out. It's clear we need some help at striker (he can play there i guess?) since Klopp doesn't want to play Benteke and everyone else is injured (and really Firmino's best position is behind the striker though he is serviceable there). Apparently many teams are after him though.

I'd say Williams is more of a winger, from what I have seen, which isn't much tbf.

We're trying to get Alex Teixeira from Shakhtar, even the BBC reports it, so it's certain interest from us.

Could be a good player, but I don't like it how our answer to fixing our abysmal attack seems to be just buying one expensive forward after another, when instead the manager should first be fixing our attacking tactics. Splashing another 30m on an attacking midfielder when that's the position we've got covered the best isn't that smart, imo.

He is an attacking midfielder right?

That or a winger. I've only seen him in CL - like most people I suppose - and if I recall right he was playing on the wing. Theoretically we could use a good winger, but on the other hand it still feels like an overkill if we end up having him, Coutinho, Firmino, Lallana and Ibe while also having Sturridge, Benteke, Ings and Origi seemingly fighting for one striker spot.

Art, turnover is to be expected though with managerial changes. Like you I've only seen him in the CL. His goalscoring record looks nice though and we definitely need more goals. Maybe they're going to move him to striker (apparently he plays SS for Shakhtar?)?

Who knows. All I know is that if we buy him I hope his adjustment looks more like Douglas Costa than Luiz Adriano.

At the end of the day his primary attributes seem to be goal scoring and pace...both of which we could use (assuming he can transfer them successfully to the PL).

Here's a decent vid of him in an actual game as opposed to just a highlight of all the awesome stuff he does:

The first senior attacking player to drop out of the team is probably Lallana, and even he's got a contract until 2019. Signing Teixeira probably shuts the door permanently for Markovic, a guy we signed just 1.5 seasons ago for £20m. We just signed a Brazilian SS half a season ago for almost £30m. At the same time we're short on full-backs and could use a creative CM. I'm just not happy about the way we waste cash on dozens of forwards without getting the best out of any of them. We're banging our head to the wall with this sort of strategy. Unless Klopp fixes our attacking as a team, Teixeira is just going to join the list of our expensive flops in recent years.

When we got Costa from Shakhtar I read from everyone following Shakhtar that Costa was great but Teixeira was outperforming him.

So he would be certainly a great addition.

Still I wouldn't trust any rumours just now.

Perhaps Art, definitely our attacking play and movement needs to be better against teams that shut up shop, but honestly how many clinical players do we really have? At least with Teixeira you know he's got the composure and the finishing to put chances in the net. How many others on the team really have that? Benteke but Klopp doesn't seem to like him much (and he's fluffed a lot of chances so far...maybe lacking confidence right now). Other than that nobody is really a natural goal scorer (Sturridge but he's made of glass obviously). None of our other strikers have massive goal scoring records either.

Another thing with Teixeira is that, somehow despite being an attacker his passing % is above 90...and that's in a CL group against RM and PSG. That's really impressive. He doesn't force the play but still is involved in a ton of goals because of his positioning, speed, composure and finishing. Seems like he reads the game well.

At the end of the day throwing money at a problem doesn't necessarily work, but if you look at the 'forwards' we've bought of the last 5 - 6 windows or so none of them are really prolific goal scorers and this team needs goals.

If we buy him, I want us to win at least two trophies in this season. Mickey Mouse cup and Europa League.

As opposed to now, where you don't want to win those trophies?

I think he means he expects trophies if we buy Teixeira as opposed to just wanting them.



Things that really stand out in that video seem to be his movement, positioning and composure. Especially his composure. Anyone with a bit of talent can score a nice wondergoal or volley inconsistently, but you can see that he's a goal-scorer because of the positions he takes up and his finishing. Also his decision making really seems at a high level he rarely wastes the ball (at least in the videos).

Again, don't watch Shakhtar so I can't say much but he looks like a legitimate goal scorer with a bunch of pace and good passing ability. I say if they're already interested enough to offer 25m just pay the 35 it'll take to seal the deal now and don't dally so someone else swoops in like has happened to us so much in the recent past.

Seems like another panic buy, if it actually happens.

wont even win a pos of a trophy in this season with this team and these injuries.

Curt wrote:Perhaps Art, definitely our attacking play and movement needs to be better against teams that shut up shop, but honestly how many clinical players do we really have?

There's a difference between clinical finishing and pulling rabbits out of the hat. What I mean is that the majority of our goal scoring opportunities require an exceptionally good finish - because the chances we create tend to be difficult - whereas clinical finishing is about converting a high percentage of actually good chances.

None of our players have been missing a lot of good chances, imo, they've been mostly missing difficult chances. Getting in players who are clinical finishers don't necessarily make us score more, if we require them to score wonder goals.

I don't really agree. Benteke alone has failed to score 3 1v1s and a chance with the keeper not in the net (and that's just in the last few games). We've constantly got people in the box hitting the ball right at the keeper, or missing the net entirely. Even some of the top class saves that have been done against us (De Gea and Cech come to mind specifically) would have been buried with more clinical finishing.

Even last season with Brendan in charge how many class chances did Sterling, Borini and our other attackers flub?

Having a guy that can move and is composed in the box would be huge I think in terms of converting chances and also the creation of chances (I feel like some players opt to take long shots or make a less penetrative pass at times because of our lack of finish). I really feel like having a natural goalscorer that will get involved would be huge for us, and we just can't rely on Sturridge and Benteke is being underused (and seems to lack confidence right now).

Just IMO.

Art Morte wrote:

Curt wrote:Perhaps Art, definitely our attacking play and movement needs to be better against teams that shut up shop, but honestly how many clinical players do we really have?

There's a difference between clinical finishing and pulling rabbits out of the hat. What I mean is that the majority of our goal scoring opportunities require an exceptionally good finish - because the chances we create tend to be difficult - whereas clinical finishing is about converting a high percentage of actually good chances.

None of our players have been missing a lot of good chances, imo, they've been mostly missing difficult chances. Getting in players who are clinical finishers don't necessarily make us score more, if we require them to score wonder goals.

sounds legit

tbh in some of these scenes Benteke looks like he actually does not WANT to score. I'd bench him after such a stunt too.

Well, this is his winning goal from the same game:



It's nothing special, but a decent finish. The point is that Benteke's chance conversion rate has been fine. The best in the team.

The argument that we need a clinical finisher doesn't hold up in my book, because we're not creating the sort of chances that a clinical finisher would benefit from. We need to fix our chance-creation first and then look at how well or bad we're finishing.

Art Morte wrote:
The argument that we need a clinical finisher doesn't hold up in my book, because we're not creating the sort of chances that a clinical finisher would benefit from. We need to fix our chance-creation first and then look at how well or bad we're finishing.

Yes this is true.

This is actually exactly what Klopp said too in this recent press conference, from 6m, when asked about individual finishing


If you look at the Utd game, it's not clear cut 'chances' wasted, but clear cut chances to make chances wasted.
Winning balls when the team in a good position to capitalize, then make bad decisions.

Yes Please. Sign him.

http://gianlucadimarzio.com/en/eng/liverpool-hoping-to-secure-deal-for-alex-teixeira-the-situation/

38m pounds.wow.

If Klopp is planning on playing him purely as a CF, he does have the body type of Aguero /Tevez. So it could definitely work. He's definitely a goal scorer watching his videos and looking at his scoring stats for the past 2 seasons especially. And it takes away our need to ever rely on Sturridge's fitness again.


The XXX has to be an outright winger/wide player in the mould of Douglas Costa, the role he plays for Bayern. 3 AM's behind the CF (who likes to drop deep as well) congests the middle too much. Something we should address in the summer. Sane has been linked and I guess it makes sense as he is primarily a RW for Schalke. Otherwise if we wanna stick to a Brazilian flavor Lucas Moura is a RW and might just be looking for a way out of PSG.

And if nothing comes to fruition, I really hope Markovic gets a full season as a starter in that position along side the 3 Brazilians. I really think he can have a break through season and fulfill his potential which, in fact, could be higher than anyone we can possibly sign. He seems like a perfect fit in Klopp's counterpressing football. He's a very intelligent pass and move player even if he is lacking in finishing and production at the moment.


Now if the plan is to play Teixeira as an AM or a wide forward and have him inject goals into our midfield then again it leaves us in the need of a CF. And I don't know how on earth we're gonna play all 3 of Phil, Bob, Alex as none of them really suit the wide role that well. Even Phil's best position is as a CAM not LW/LAM.


Means we have to address 2 positions still and means both Bob and Dan (a lot of talent) coming off the bench if they are available. Lacazette is an interesting one in this scenario. Inaki Williams being linked as well. I'm personally hoping, our planning is not to play all 3 of Alex, Phil, and Bob behind a CF. Though better than having Milner, Ibe, or Lallana playing in those positions it's still too unbalanced.