Alright Houdini who will we sign to address the positional weakness that saw us lose our Premiership title?
I dont know who we will sign but I'd love to hear about who you'd like us to sign and why you think he would be a good fit. We can wait until the window is closed (if we have indeed not signed anybody) before we start that other discussion about FSG and us not signing anybody in the positions we deem as needing reinforcement.
Out of all the rumoured names my favourite is Tielemans because he is versatile, young, PL proven and has a lot of qualities on the ball in terms of his creativity but also the danger he represents at the edge of the box. However, I wonder how would he fit in terms of starting minutes in our team if we assume the midfield 3 is Hendo, Fab and Thiago. Will he be willing to lose a sizeable chunk of the guaranteed minutes he gets at Leicester for a year or two? It is the problem with buying an established midfielder like him. We also have to think about the growth of some of our young players we are trying to bring into the fold. If Klopp really believes in Jones and was planning on giving him a chunk of those Gini minutes then buying another CM will take away from those minutes. I'm curious to know what Klopp plan is. There is a genuine case to be made about maybe not needing another CM if the boss really thinks it is time for Curtis to step up and play more minutes. Do you think Jones can take on those Gini minutes and give us a decent product?
The one name rumoured that I would prefer staying away from is Sanches. Not because I think he is a bad player or wouldn't fit us. In fact he posses a lot of the ''Klopp midfielder'' qualities in that he is a good box to box, is a work horse, and on top of that he's a baller. My problem is the injury record. Keita showed no signs of being injury prone before coming to the PL (4 games missed with Leipzig during his stay there) but Sanches on the other hand does show signs of being injury prone so lets not willingly jump head first into a problem.
As for the attacker/forward role I think it is the position we do really need reinforcement in. First we have to decide if we are looking for somebody who can simply score goals or somebody who can score goals but also have that creative touch as well as defensive involvement (so an attacker with flair, an engine to run for days and a creative mind). I watched a little analysis video making a case for three players including a Japanese player by the name of Daichi Kamada (Eintracht Frankfurt). The style is similar to Bobby's in that he is a CAM who seems to have been turned into a creative centre forward. Good on the ball, flair and will create space for his teammates with his movement as well as his passing. He also seems to be good at assisting his team in the defensive department by coming back and making good tackles and interception. He has managed only 5 goals this season in the Bundesliga but he did manage 15 assists in that same period. However, I never watched the guy and so I can't give my personal opinion. One of the things I noticed with Japanese players is that they are super skillful, agile, smart on the ball but are also small in stature and so they struggle a bit in the PL. I feel like this is the case with Taki. He has the skillset but I feel like what betrays him in those tight spaces is the ability to hold off the opponent for that extra second or shoulder somebody off. Not saying all Japanese players are not suitable for the PL or something, just a little detail I noticed.
Here is the video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kpCK3k9WO1o
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