James Pearce: Come the summer, Liverpool will be looking to enhance their attacking department. Rather than buying the finished article, Liverpool are expected to continue targeting players aged 25 or under who they believe have huge potential.
So there's the wet blanket for the summer already covering us up. "Huge potential" or another way to say "affordable" or maybe even "cheap".
I guess you have to discern what huge potential means to all those involved. The fact that it says "rather than buying the finished article" means we won't even be targeting Jota like players. I mean he was pretty established as a good player when we bought him no?
And if it was targeting 22 and under that have huge potential that would be one thing, but at 25, you should already be a finished article or close to it.
I guess technically Bellingham fits this criteria but he isn't really one for the "attacking" department is he?
Nope, Jota was not the finished article when we bought him and he is still not the finished article. I personally debated with people a year before we bought him(in the summer transfer's thread), for a whole summer that he is the player (at Wolves) we should be targetting and the large majority dismissed him and said the one we needed to have was Jimenez (and the logic was ''lets get the finished article''). Fast forward a season and a half later and I think we probably would've missed a good opportunity to streghten the squad for the medium to long term future by going for Jimenez instead of Jota despite the former being ''the finished article''.
My point is I have no problem with us buying players with potential if the transaction is the product of good scouting like Salah, Fabinho, Jota, Robertson, etc. Sure some of those don't go as planned (Taki comes to mind) but I think that we've proven time and time again that we're not scouting and pulling the trigger on the same type of players we used to under previous administrations. We are actually pulling this off more often than not (and by ''more often than not'' I mean that its working 90% of the time). Also, once the player is integrated and actually performing at that high level nobody cares about what he used to be when you bought him, be it finished article, 25, 22, or newborn. I also think that when we say ''25 with lots of potential'' it probably means what we saw with Mo, Jota or Fabinho for example. Pretty good players but can hit another level or two and transform into top 10 in the world in their position by integrating a system and style of play that suit them + being coached by world class manager. These player then give you 4 or 5 years of prime depending on the position they play.
The reality is that yes the squad needs to be updated but when we say that it doesn't mean that we need new starters. We need depth in a couple of departments with the most important condition being that this depth can completely take over in 2 or 3 years time. Assuming we extend Mo, I don't see the ''starting'' front three changing much next year. It will still be Sadio, Jota and Mo. In that case you dont need to go spend 70 or 80 million on somebody who will command a huge annual wage and demand immediate starting 11 minutes when you can pull another Jota type deal.
I would share your concerns if we actually were trying to pull these deals and failed more often than not but the truth is we are one of the most successful clubs at this in the world currently.
Ps: I also would add that a lot of us (including me) easily forget about youngsters being brought through the academy and the belief the staff and the coach has in them. Jones completely disapeared from under most people's radar but the kid is still 20 and Klopp stated more than once that he believes he will become part of the starting 11. I can bet you 5 pounds that if Eliott comes back to a slow couple of months after he is fit, by the time summer comes, people will dismiss him as if he doesn't exist and the conversation will shift from we need 1 or 2 midfielders to we need 3 or 4 midfielders.
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