Iām not saying there is no competition, Iām saying the competition has been reduced. And by competition I mean for places in the team not between players who are - if fit - pretty much guaranteed to start.
Yes, in terms of diet nutrition and fitness the game has moved on enormously so things like drinking games are well and truly in the past - but in many other respects the game hasnāt changed at all.
If youāre Firmino / Salah / Mane and the club sign a top striker who you know will be competing for your place in the team, your professional pride will spur you on to do even better and to make sure that - if the new guy does make the starting eleven - it will be at the expense of one of the other two, not you. That was there in the 1970s, 1980s, and is still very much part of the game now - the top players want to be tested and challenged and increasing competition, in my view, does that.
Btw Iām genuinely not trying to sound patronising and I apologise if thatās how any of my earlier posts came across
So by a player leaving who was hardly ever fit, and a young, hungry player coming into the squad after having a great pre-season, competition has been reduced?
It doesn't make sense to me.
Nor does the idea that players who always give 100% can be cajoled into giving more than is possible by the arrival of another player.
If a player has to be forced into doing his best by the idea that another player could take his place, then he shouldn't be at the club in the first place.
This is why Klopp bought the players he has, and why they love to play for him and always give 100%
How can a player give more than 100% ?
I'm saying that in the modern game, the idea that a player can give more than he is giving (at our club) by the arrival of some one else, is a lazy pundit trope, because our players constantly compete with each other in training, and give 100% every time they play.
Now if you want to point to form, which is another grey area because the best thing is for an attacker to play himself into form, then I'd disagree that our players give less than 100%
If you want to point to rest and rotation, then we can look at midfield, but understand that those players do most of the work, and our attackers do comparitively less.
We can't afford to have a player sat on the bench earning 200k, and realistically, it's only a player of that level who could improve our front 3, or even keep close the same level.
Most fatigue related injuries come in the last part of a game, and we're usually winning at that stage, and we've repeatedly seen Klopp bring off an attacker with 20 mins to go, send someone else on, change the shape, and keep battering away.
Again, I've said repeatedly that I think we need a couple more players, but they are not going to be top tier players whatever any of us think, and Klopp has been very clear about the reasons why, so this idea of "competition" immediately goes out of the window once you listen to, and understand what Klopp is saying.
