Lucas Leiva (Liverpool > S.S. Lazio)

Beat me to it, sh*t.   

What are we going to do for a centre back now?

we're got skrtel and lovren back....kolo and sakho are fit too. small concussion for sakho but should be ok.. plus we've still got caulker lurking about somewhere

Didn't cover himself in glory with that goal conceded at the end, as the DM he was no where to be seen and at a minimum should taken out the scorer rather than let him run past, it wouldn't have been his first yellow for a cynical foul........!

https://twitter.com/LFCData/status/733647229697687554

https://twitter.com/LFCData/status/733647229697687554

Less games than the other 4? And I bet Kante is top?

Tbh, don't need to see the stats to know how much better Lucas is as a DM than the other midfielders we have.

So if Allen is looking like going (Tex and Rossiter too) makes it more likely Lucas will be around for another season?
If Allen goes, I'd hold onto Lucas. Very experienced at this stage. Surprised he's 'only' 29, thought he was older ...

So if Allen is looking like going (Tex and Rossiter too) makes it more likely Lucas will be around for another season?
If Allen goes, I'd hold onto Lucas. Very experienced at this stage. Surprised he's 'only' 29, thought he was older ...

I hope he is staying, too. Experienced and can cover up CB position if its necessarily. If no new CM player arrive we could have Can, Hendo, Milner, Lucas and Grujic as options for the position. But, if Klopp want another CM/DM player than Lucas will go I suppose.

Experienced and can cover up CB position if its necessarily.

True, that too.  Lucas has grown on me over the years, one of the 'old stagers' at this stage.

I hope he is staying, too. Experienced and can cover up CB position if its necessarily. If no new CM player arrive we could have Can, Hendo, Milner, Lucas and Grujic as options for the position. But, if Klopp want another CM/DM player than Lucas will go I suppose.

That group isn't anywhere near good enough to get us into the top 4. We'll see an addition or two for sure.

That group isn't anywhere near good enough to get us into the top 4. We'll see an addition or two for sure.

I hope we will see addition or two, but you never know. At the other hand, I just cannot see massive departure from CM positions this summer. Emre will obviously stay. Hendo and Milner will also stay I think. Grujic signed in january, i watched him many times in recent years and think he can be monster player for us if we give him enough opportunities/minutes next season. If we sign one new CM, for example Zielinski, than Lucas will probably go. If we sign two we will have six players  to compete for two places in midfield which is way too much.

I hope we will see addition or two, but you never know. At the other hand, I just cannot see massive departure from CM positions this summer. Emre will obviously stay. Hendo and Milner will also stay I think. Grujic signed in january, i watched him many times in recent years and think he can be monster player for us if we give him enough opportunities/minutes next season. If we sign one new CM, for example Zielinski, than Lucas will probably go. If we sign two we will have six players  to compete for two places in midfield which is way too much.

Since we've been linked with Dahoud, Zielinski etc then you can guarantee somebody will come in. I don't see anymore departures but how I see it is Henderson is still recovering from his foot injury, Milner really isn't a CM for a 2 man midfield, Grujic may not even be ready for regular first team football and Lucas is a DM (only one at the club). We need to add to it.

Lucas
Can
Henderson
Milner (CM/RM)
Grujic
*New signing*. I don't see that being too much of a problem at all.

Put it this way, if we don't bring somebody in then I don't see us getting top 4 as the midfield just isn't good enough. It gets dominated far too often because the CM's lack the discipline to stay in position throughout the match. As individuals they're mostly box to box players, we have nobody other than Lucas who can sit and protect the back four and we also have nobody that can sit and dictate the tempo of a game.

I am all for replacing Lucas as I am for replacing any player as long as the replacement is significantly better. I think he is still worth holding on to in a season where he may only play 15-20 games.

Since we've been linked with Dahoud, Zielinski etc then you can guarantee somebody will come in. I don't see anymore departures but how I see it is Henderson is still recovering from his foot injury, Milner really isn't a CM for a 2 man midfield, Grujic may not even be ready for regular first team football and Lucas is a DM (only one at the club). We need to add to it.

Lucas
Can
Henderson
Milner (CM/RM)
Grujic
*New signing*. I don't see that being too much of a problem at all.

Put it this way, if we don't bring somebody in then I don't see us getting top 4 as the midfield just isn't good enough. It gets dominated far too often because the CM's lack the discipline to stay in position throughout the match. As individuals they're mostly box to box players, we have nobody other than Lucas who can sit and protect the back four and we also have nobody that can sit and dictate the tempo of a game.

So, you think our current midfield are not good enough to challenge top four, but if we sign Zielinski or Dahoud or someone similar we will be suddenly much more competitive? While I do agree that we need one defensive oriented and strong midfielder to protect space, I cannot see we could possibly start a new season (without Europe) with six players competing for two positions.

In that case there will be no minutes for young players to develop (Grujic) while Milner and Lucas would get much less opportunities to play. Also, I think Hendo will be much better after first preseason with Klopp. Milner can play further off the pitch but I'm not convinced enough that he could threaten Lallana, Cou, Firminho for position. Also, I hope Klopp can find the way to make Markovic useful but he'll need to give him some minutes to play. Rumors say that we will sign another player for one of the three slot behind the striker. It's too many players IMO.

So, you think our current midfield are not good enough to challenge top four, but if we sign Zielinski or Dahoud or someone similar we will be suddenly much more competitive? While I do agree that wee need one defensive oriented and strong midfielder to protect space, I cannot see we could possibly start a new season (without Europe) with six players competing for two positions.

In that case there will be no minutes for young players to develop (Grujic) while Milner and Lucas would get much less opportunities to play. Also, I think Hendo will be much better after first preseason with Klopp. Milner can play further of the pitch but I'm not convinced enough that he could threaten Lallana, Cou, Firminho for position. Also, I hope Klopp can find the way to make Markovic useful but he'll need to give him some minutes to play. Rumors say that we will sign another player for one of the three slot behind the striker. It's too many players IMO.

Lucas in the latter half of the season barely started in midfield, ditto Allen and will be sold.
Milner is not a CM.


We have Can who will be our DM going forward, Henderson with question marks if he can fully recover from his heel injury and Grujic who will take time adapting to the league, Branagan can be added to the lineup but like Grujic is too inexperienced to be a starter.

I would expect at least one if not two new midfielders.

So, you think our current midfield are not good enough to challenge top four, but if we sign Zielinski or Dahoud or someone similar we will be suddenly much more competitive? While I do agree that we need one defensive oriented and strong midfielder to protect space, I cannot see we could possibly start a new season (without Europe) with six players competing for two positions.

In that case there will be no minutes for young players to develop (Grujic) while Milner and Lucas would get much less opportunities to play. Also, I think Hendo will be much better after first preseason with Klopp. Milner can play further off the pitch but I'm not convinced enough that he could threaten Lallana, Cou, Firminho for position. Also, I hope Klopp can find the way to make Markovic useful but he'll need to give him some minutes to play. Rumors say that we will sign another player for one of the three slot behind the striker. It's too many players IMO.

I'm not just talking about the quality of whatever the new centre mid may be but also his style of play so maybe Dahoud could be the difference in midfield, who knows, but if we continue to go with 2 box to box midfielders in centre mid then we'll get picked apart.It's the same argument for in the attacking midfield positions. Coutinho, Firmino and Lallana are a bit too similar and it sometimes doesn't help us on the pitch.

Our squad is crying out for balance. Bring in a sitting midfielder (not somebody who likes to bomb forward), bring Markovic back into the fold to see what he can offer, bring in somebody like Mane and it then starts to look a little better.

mcarz speaks sense imo. Our main midfielders are too similar. We have  Hendo, Milner, Can & Allen, and whilst they are good enough individually to compete vs the big teams, our midfield has no balance, it's partly the reason why we get dominated so much in midfield.

If you go back to our games last 2 seasons, the majority of battles won in midfield was when we had Lucas playing, a player who stifled and controlled the middle, and lets be honest here, can we see our box-box midfielders playing in that specialist role as good as Lucas? Not for me. There is no chance in hell we can win the midfield battle without a specialist DM/DLPM on a consistent basis, we need a huge upgrade to Lucas to propel us to the next level.

I'm not just talking about the quality of whatever the new centre mid may be but also his style of play so maybe Dahoud could be the difference in midfield, who knows, but if we continue to go with 2 box to box midfielders in centre mid then we'll get picked apart.It's the same argument for in the attacking midfield positions. Coutinho, Firmino and Lallana are a bit too similar and it sometimes doesn't help us on the pitch.

Our squad is crying out for balance. Bring in a sitting midfielder (not somebody who likes to bomb forward), bring Markovic back into the fold to see what he can offer, bring in somebody like Mane and it then starts to look a little better.

I agree that we need more balance all over the pitch, but why would we keep all of ours similar CM-s if someone different comes? Can, Milner, Hendo and Grujic are the same type midfielders. If we buy new sitting CM-s, as you said, one of those have to go IMO. There's no sense having four btb midfielders competing for one position. If we buy two CM's than two btb should go. I'd keep Lucas regardless, because he is DM and he can cover CB position. 

I'm not sure do you think we will keep all our btb CM's and add one or two different CM type this summer?

Doesn't Klopp want to mold Can into a DM? He obviously likes him and he has always played with either Henderson or Milner next to him, who both are more box to box type midfielders than Can is in my opinion. I'm aware of the fact that Can isn't a very good DM yet and that he likes bombing forward, but he has all the attributes to be one in the future and I'm sure he can grow in that role.

If you see it like that, we have:

- Can and Lucas for the DM position
- Henderson and Grujic as the box-to-box types

I don't rate Milner as a midfielder, certainly not in a midfield two. He has played his best games for us on the right wing or on the right of a midfield three. He can fill in if we have injuries, but nothing more than that.

That way (assuming Allen is leaving) we have 4 players for 2 positions, one who is coming back from a heel injury and the other one is a young Serbian who will need time to adapt to the league. So I fully agree with Mcarz and HScRed1 and I think we will be seeing one or even two more midfielders arrive this summer. Preferably one for both roles.

Don't think this is true but who knows:

According to Turkish outlet FotoMac, the Reds have accepted an £800,000 offer from Galatasaray to take Lucas on loan for the 2016/17 campaign.

However, any move for Lucas will hinge on an agreement between the clubs over his wages, with the Jan Olde Riekerink’s side so far unwilling to pay the 29-year-old’s £60,000-a-week contract.

They are said to have offered to pay 80 percent of Lucas’ wage, which would be £48,000 per week, leaving the Reds to pay £12,000 per week.

Lucas has one year left on his current contract with Liverpool, ensuring that if he did spend the season with Galatasaray, it would likely spell the end of his career on Merseyside.

So in other words, Galatasaray are being cheapskates and we're giving into them?

I don't see the point in allowing him to go on loan and then paying a transfer fee to bring in an ageing back up - 5th choice - centre back when Lucas could provide cover in that position. It's not as though the new guy is really going to get any action during the season anyway.

So in other words, Galatasaray are being cheapskates and we're giving into them?

I don't see the point in allowing him to go on loan and then paying a transfer fee to bring in an ageing back up - 5th choice - centre back when Lucas could provide cover in that position. It's not as though the new guy is really going to get any action during the season anyway.

Also, Lucas contract ends next year, so if we don't want him in the squad, this summer is last chance to get a few millions for him.

Stupid decision to loan Lucas.

Keep or sell.

Unless he wants to leave for guaranteed football (which he may very well  want), it's a bad decision to get rid of regardless of loan or sell.

Absolutely crazy if true. I'm not one of Lucas' greatest admirers, but he's the ideal squad player. Can't see how it's better to pay for the privilege of loaning him out rather than having the added surety of Lucas around to fill any gaps from injuries.

I understand he may wish to go rather than warm the bench for most of the season, but he can leave on a free next season either way and surely it's worth a couple of million to have him around.

I would think if we are considering this deal it must mean Allen will be offered a new deal?