Our Squad

Why do we always lack depth??? I remember last season too we faced this problem. True, with Lallana, Balotelli, Ibe etc.; we have some sort of cover in the attack, but the defense & midfield is bare as always.

Contract duration/expiry of our squad (transfermarkt)

Simon Mignolet: 2018
Mamadou Sakho: 2017
Dejan Lovren: 2019
Alberto Moreno: 2019
Martin Skrtel: 2016
Jon Flanagan: 2015
Jose Enrique: 2016
Philippe Coutinho: 2020
Jordan Henderson: 2016
Adam Lallana: 2019
Lucas Leiva: 2017
Emre Can: 2018
Joe Allen: 2017
Raheem Sterling: 2017
Daniel Sturridge: 2019
Lazar Markovic: 2019
Mario Balotelli: 2018
Fabio Borini: 2017
Rickie Lambert: 2016
Jordan Ibe: 2017

I have excluded some players for obvious reason.

Names in bold are considered to be core players.

I would consider Markovic and Lucas part of the core.

There were news in January that the club has entered talks with Skrtel for a new contract. We need to get Henderson, Sterling and Ibe sign new ones asap. It's already been badly handled when these players are entering their last one or two years.

I would think resigning the young guns would be the biggest priority this summer. I don't see more than a handful of signings happening, so new contracts for those in need is crucial.

^ Agreed.

I'd absolutely LOVE it if we extended Kolo for another season (if he agrees to lower wages). He's a great guy around the squad and still more than capable to fill in and his experience will be handy especially now that Stevie is leaving.

I just love Kolo Toure. I'd let my daughter marry him

Toure has been good this season and he is a nice guy. But I would rather prefer having either of Ilori or Wisdom inducted into the squad.

Confused about this whole mess of CBs since Agger left the club. We have Wisdom, Ilori, Toure and Coates whose future needed to be cleared in the summer. Coates for sure will be gone. Ilori and Wisdom will be interesting to see. Toure, I would decide according to Ilori and Wisdoms performance from loan moves.

Kolo won't be renewed and I hope he isn't. I don't care what sort of a nice guy he is, he's just not good enough.

Ilori can do the job Kolo can do and then some. The only negative aspect to this would be Kolo's leadership in the dressing room but it's about time the elder guys left (Stevie and Kolo) and younger once stepped up in leadership and took more weight on their shoulders.

I don't know what Wisdom's role will be but I am a huuuuuge fan of Ilori and I think he will be with us next season and he'll fit right into the 3 at the back.

Coates is definitely gone, I am sure.

Don't call me James wrote:Kolo won't be renewed and I hope he isn't. I don't care what sort of a nice guy he is, he's just not good enough.

Ilori can do the job Kolo can do and then some. The only negative aspect to this would be Kolo's leadership in the dressing room but it's about time the elder guys left (Stevie and Kolo) and younger once stepped up in leadership and took more weight on their shoulders.

feel the same, we have enough senior players when Gerrard and Kole will leave. Skrtel, Lucas will be still there. And players like Lallana, Sakho who were captains before they came to us. Henderson is being well shaped to lead us for the next season. So we need to make that change happen.

Skrtel and Lucas are good leaders I agree. Lallana and Sakho have already been captains like you said. Can is a born leader of men. Hendo is doing a fantastic job. It's also now time for Sturridge and Coutinho to take bigger leadership roles as well.

Being older doesn't necessarily equal to being a good leader. For example, Can is a 100% more of a leader than Glen Johnson could ever wish to be.

Kolo should be offered a new deal.

He does a lot off the pitch, and we're going to lose a whole lot of that with Stevie already going.

Note: He shouldn't be playing, but him signing a pay cut won't be the worst thing. He's also on the same level as Lovren so he's not all bad to be used as a 4th cb.

Meh, I disagree as I already said. Ilori needs to be groomed into the squad and eventually into the team.

I don't think these players are as weak minded as most people make them out to be here. Kiolo and Stevie leaving means other guys will step up. Which it's really about time they do step up and take more on their shoulders.

No new deal for Kolo, please. We've got enough young CBs who deserve a chance and it doesn't seem to me like our young players are in need of Kolo's leadership or advice or deals on used cars. I certainly don't see Kolo giving tips to Skrtel or Sakho and I certainly don't think he's got anything to give to different type of players like Markovic. I'm sure we'll let him go and that's the way it should be.

The thing our young players need most is game times. Keeping Toure (who will offer nothing more than, say, Wisdom) will only damage the development of the young players.

^ thing that Kolo will offer more than Wisdom is that Kolo is actually a pretty decent squad option.

Wisdom on the other hand is a shocking player who'll end up in Championship lower half like Spearing.

If our management is also so sure about what you are saying about Wisdom, I will have no problem to keep Kolo and Ilori both at the club for the next season. So that we will have Ilori, Toure, Skrtel, Lovren, Sakho and possibly Can also in case we need him.

Im a bit worried about players not signing contracts with us so easily. I know its a view from the top but Sterling, Henderson, Toure, Gleninho, Gerrard all have stalled.

Nishy wrote:Im a bit worried about players not signing contracts with us so easily. I know its a view from the top but Sterling, Henderson, Toure, Gleninho, Gerrard all have stalled.

Same. Not so much about the old players, but it's worrying that negotiations with players like Henderson and Sterling are taking so long and seeming so difficult. These guys are not super stars (yet), we should have no problem holding onto players like these.

Many people, myself included, thought we should have done more to hold on to Gerrard for one more year, too. I also hope we know what we're doing when (apparently) letting Johnson go. He's better than Flanagan or Manquillo.

We could end up shooting ourselves in the foot if we're not careful with the contract negotiations.

Toure, Gleninho and Gerrard are all over 30 tbf.

But yeah, whoever is in charge of negotiations (for contracts/transfers) needs to get sacked.

I think most of these players will be leaving this summer, for some reason or other:

1. Jones
2. Johnson
3. Manquillo
4. Toure
5. Coates
6. Wisdom
7. Enrique
8. Alberto
9. Teixeira
10. Gerrard
11. Lambert
12. Borini
13. Balotelli

I don't think any team loses so many senior players in one window. I think, in addition to our failure to sign appropriate players, people responsible waited too long to off-load some of these players.

Get Raheem back in the center, No idea how the talks will affect him but he still is our most lethal attacker upfront

iftikhar wrote:I think most of these players will be leaving this summer, for some reason or other:

1. Jones
2. Johnson
3. Manquillo
4. Toure
5. Coates
6. Wisdom
7. Enrique
8. Alberto
9. Teixeira
10. Gerrard
11. Lambert
12. Borini
13. Balotelli

I don't think any team loses so many senior players in one window. I think, in addition to our failure to sign appropriate players, people responsible waited too long to off-load some of these players.

I missed this before but it's not so bad. Aside from losing experience we're going to be replacing almost all of these with players that are better than them. I also don't think that Teixeira, Alberto and one of Wisdom/Coates will be leaving. We also have guys like Ibe, Origi, Ilori coming back, and Williams, Rossiter and Sinclair will probably be looking for minutes also. We'll be signing at least a midfielder, hopefully a striker (unless we're going to convert Sterling there permanently and have Origi and Sturridge as backups) and probably a defender or two (especially a rightback). I think next year is going to be the most important year for Rodgers since he joined us and it will lay down the foundation for his future if he is going to be successful here or stay long term.

As for right now? I would go with this:


*Manquillo

I think the 3-4-3 has a place, but maybe not so much as a base structure so much as something that we can switch shape to when an adjustment is needed (and it would be easy to move to in this formation).

I would prefer this


Secondly, it's not about if we are going to replace them (the list) with better players or which players would be returning. It's about an unusually high number of players about to leave; which is poor planning IMO.

Our top scorers this season:

1. Raheem 11
2. Gerrard 11
3. Coutinho 8
4. Henderson 7

Them stats would look so good with 2 quality strikers, FML.