As it stands we have probably weakened the squad compared to last year. Sturridge has gone and if you put all injuries to one side, heās a proven goal scorer. The player essentially replacing him to add cover is an 18 year old who is yet to make his debut and spent a year out with a bad knee injury. A complete unknown quantity as it stands.
Also with Moreno gone, we now only have 1 actual LB. Moreno is far from a reliable option but he was that, an option. Now we havenāt even replaced him so relying on the versatility of another player to cover for Robbo, always a gamble, especially if the player filling in hasnāt played that role for a while.
Klopp has described the return of Ox, Lallana and Brewster as new signings but once again, itās putting faith in injury prone players or players on the back of a serious injury....was this not the reason we backed out of the Fekir deal?...
Lallana and Ox have also picked up injuries in pre-season so already itās not the best of starts for the ānew signingsā.
City last year didnāt go mad, they signed one player for about 60mill to add depth and another quality option. This year theyāve not gone mad and have added Rodri for a similar fee, again a player of first 11 quality.
Iām not saying we need to spend 60mill on a player, because weāve proven time and again the fee is irrelevant, so it doesnāt make a difference if we sign a player for 3mill as long as he is the right option and will improve us.
All well and good saying we only lost 1 league game and finished a point behind City, but ultimately it makes no difference if we lost more and finished further behind because the outcome is the same; City are the champions. In fact, it drives me mad seeing people say we only lost 1 game, Iād have rather of lost 4 like City and ended up winning the league. Itās not how many you lose, itās how many you win which is the vital part.
Do I think weāve improved? No.
Do I think we will hit 97 points again? No.
Do I think we will have good domestic cup runs? No.
As it stands we are once again putting a huge reliance on not picking up injuries to the front 3. Origi scores some vital goals but come on, in the time heās been with us, and out on loan, heās proven heās not a reliable and top class option. Heās not a player we can turn to and be confident he will get the vital goals like he did last season.
Obviously there are benefits though, weāve not lost any key players and itās more time of the same core of players being together and improving as a unit. But Spurs showed last season, it can work well like that to a point, but them not signing anyone allowed us to overtake them and now move ahead of them.
When you are at the top you donāt sit still and rest on your laurels. Being in the position we are now means we can get nearly any player we could possibly want within reason, in a years time the opportunity may not be there.
My biggest concern is that on our previous title hunts, we didnāt take the opportunity to take the next step and it cost us massively, the following seasons we struggled. And I know people say itās only pre season and results and performances arenāt important, but the pre seasons that followed our previous 2nd place finishes, if I remember rightly, we struggled - in fact didnāt Kloppās Mainz turn us over? And this year, we arenāt looking good in pre season.
Whether people deem 1 point as a massive gap or a small gap is irrelevant because itās still a gap we need to close, and regardless of opponents faced, their domestic cup success suggests the gap maybe bigger than we think.
Someone said the other day, strike whilst the iron is hot, and I completely agree.
This is our chance to go up another level, I hope the summer business will be justified, regardless of whether thatās signing a player or not. We were so close last season, it would be a shame for us to fall away like after we finished 2nd before.
« Last Edit: Jul 26, 2019 02:32:05 pm by 7-King Kenny-7 »
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