Agree completely.
Sometimes, as we have re-discovered relatively recently, - a team may even improve once a talismanic player has departed.
Got a tip for us?
Let us know
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
The 2021-2022 Football Thread
- Thread starter Scepticalscribe
- Start date
- Sort by reaction score
Sometimes, as we have re-discovered relatively recently, - a team may even improve once a talismanic player has departed.
Yes and no.
I think (as Jonathan Wilson points out, in today's edition of the Guardian, an article well worth reading) that one can reasonably ask about the importance of Mr Klopp's influence. Salah is good, very good, but, he became great under Klopp.
Jurgen Klopp has the knack of improving and developing and nurturing and refining players; good players become better, very good ones find something in themselves (and are able to develop it in the environment nurtured by Klopp) while excellent ones become superb under his management. And the team structure adopted by Klopp has allowed Salah to shine, because it plays to his strengths.
But, Wilson asks, would this work elsewhere, with a different team, different team structure, a different manager?
Wilson argues that there should be a clinical assessment within Liverpool as to whether the cost of keeping Salah is worth it, and that a necessary skill is to know - to recognise - the moment when it is most expedient (not just in terms of money, but in terms of the team) when one should be prepared to off-load a player, even one who has been a revered talisman.
I personally don’t think Liverpool are overly bothered if Salah leaves or not. I don’t agree with meeting his demands of £400k a week as he’d be the highest paid by more than double. He’s a great player and Klopps system suits him and allows him to show this talent. He also won’t ever play for a club with the same atmosphere and support Liverpool provides. The fact he’s settling for more money at a club with serious financial difficulties just shows the greed of football agents these days. I hope he’s not another Torres who never discovers his talent once he leaves the club that made him great.
If I ever see another Senegal - Egypt match it'll be too soon. Another dramatic - yet incredibly dreary - football match between these two nations that ended in a shootout.
Queiroz's Egypt are dull, dull, dull. They make Mourinho sides look like 'heavy-metal football' by comparison. This time Mo Salah got to take a penalty in the shoot out. He missed. In fact, the first four penalties were missed and the fifth went in off the bar! Dismal shooting from both sides.
Salah has been pretty average for Egypt for a while now, in a super defensive setup where all the pressure to create and score is on his shoulders. This is relevant regarding talk of Liverpool letting him go; he has been thriving at a well-run club under a world-class manager, in a system he is thoroughly used to and that suits him. None of these things are guaranteed if he decides to leave for a bigger wage packet.
So in the end But Mané is again the hero with the decisive spot kick and Senegal qualify for the World Cup in a game marred by dozens fans painting the Egypt players with green lasers for the entire match. I HATE the lasers and most particularly because there doesn't seem to be anything anyone can do about them.
Oh and Portugal qualified, ruining the North Macedonia narrative.
Queiroz's Egypt are dull, dull, dull. They make Mourinho sides look like 'heavy-metal football' by comparison. This time Mo Salah got to take a penalty in the shoot out. He missed. In fact, the first four penalties were missed and the fifth went in off the bar! Dismal shooting from both sides.
Salah has been pretty average for Egypt for a while now, in a super defensive setup where all the pressure to create and score is on his shoulders. This is relevant regarding talk of Liverpool letting him go; he has been thriving at a well-run club under a world-class manager, in a system he is thoroughly used to and that suits him. None of these things are guaranteed if he decides to leave for a bigger wage packet.
So in the end But Mané is again the hero with the decisive spot kick and Senegal qualify for the World Cup in a game marred by dozens fans painting the Egypt players with green lasers for the entire match. I HATE the lasers and most particularly because there doesn't seem to be anything anyone can do about them.
Oh and Portugal qualified, ruining the North Macedonia narrative.
Last edited:
I believe it was already announced that Mancini is staying on. Sacking him would have been counterproductive IMO, he arguably got his squad to overachieve in winning Euro 2020. Now they need to retool a bit and integrate some younger defenders and somehow find some better strikers.
Sigh!!! It’s not looking good, pay the man what his worth, his right up there as one of the best players in the world at the moment.
Proven goal scorer year after year, can play out wide, assist machine this season, pace to leave defenders for dead.
Why take a risk signing someone else for 40-60 million, when you can pay him his 15-20 million that his after.
We won’t be challenging for the title next year if they sell him.
Agree if he goes you won’t replace like for like. Same with us and Rice. If he goes for £100 million, it’s more of a gamble on whoever you bring in. Even spending half of that is no guarantee. Hope he stays.
Agree, knowing us and our stubborn ways, especially with this stupid wage structure we have in place, his as good as gone. ?
Going down that route just makes Liverpool another Real Madrid/PSG/Chelsea/Man City.
Fernando Torres, Luiz Suarez, and Mo Salah were all bought for substantial, but not world-record fees and proved to be fantastic value for money, allowing Liverpool to compete for trophies with richer clubs running on a galcticos model.
Liverpool have succeeded by punching above their weight. FSG, for all their faults, are not owners who go for big, unsustainable financial outlays in order to win. Instead, they brought in a manger they believed was ready to take the next step up and gave him the time and resources to succeed. Klopp is a systems manager who build sides that are greater than the sum of their parts - the opposite of the galacticos model. He has worked with Michael Edwards and the transfer and scouting team to find players who were good value, potentially world class but not yet recognized as such - just like him, ready for the next step up. For a couple key positions they spent big (and have been repaid handsomely) but most of the team have become world class under Klopp's management rather than being bought as readymade world-beaters.
Salah was a Chelsea reject (no shame there, the list of Chelsea rejects who later became world-class is a long one), who reignited his career at Roma. At the time Liverpool bought him most observers considered him a solid performer but hardly top-tier. Klopp and FSG did their homework and saw more potential there, and voila.
Liverpool have also been fairly savvy at selling players who still have big reputations but may be past their peak, such as Fernando Torres and (one might argue) Phil Coutinho. Those are players who were ready for a giant new contract. Instead Liverpool made a profit on them before they hit a major decline.
So if the club is built around carefully husbanding resources, making sustainable financial decisions, and maximizing value in the transfer market, why would we start doubling players' wages during the final quarter of their careers? Why don't we pay 100 million for Jack Grealish? Why did we buy Virgil van Dijk and not Harry Maguire?
The system we have in place brought us a European championship, a league title, a domestic cup and it's looking like it may bring more. Salah was a key player but this is no one-man team. Keeping Salah at 400k a week breaks the whole system in terms of philosophy and financials. Then Mané will want 450k a week ('I bested him in two finals, so I am worth more')...and so it will go.
No, I disagree. This team is way bigger than Salah, as good as he is. If we can't win titles without him, then our entire approach is deeply flawed and keeping him still won't guarantee success.
Of course he could stay another year and walk away for nothing. Same as Rice btw.
Exactly, and very well said.
This is my view, also.
And again, very well said and argued.
I agree with you.
To my mind, if one is to make the argument about someone irreplaceable at Liverpool, Klopp is the person who should be paid that sort of stratospheric silly money, and not Salah.
For, Klopp is the person who have made Liverpool the team that they are.
More relevantly, @Lord Blackadder makes the excellent argument that Klopp is a manager who succeeds in developing, nurturing and improving players, that he has a well planned and organised system which Salah understands, and which suits him, and under which Salah has blossomed and thrived. A system where the team - the collective of te team - is a lot greater than the sum of its individual parts.
There is nothing to suggest that this would happen, or be replicated, elsewhere.
The World Cup draw is out.
Group A: Qatar, Netherlands, Senegal, Ecuador
Group B: England, USA, Iran, Scotland/Wales/Ukraine
Group C: Argentina, Mexico, Poland, Saudi Arabia
Group D: France, Denmark, Tunisia, UAE/Australia/Peru
Group E: Spain, Germany, Japan, Costa Rica/NZ
Group F: Belgium, Croatia, Morocco, Canada
Group G: Brazil, Switzerland, Serbia, Cameroon
Group H: Portugal, Uruguay, South Korea, Ghana
As an Ecuador supporter, that's a fantastic draw in Group A.
Both England and USA have some memorable previous meetings in the World Cup within Group B.
Argentina and Brazil's groups look straightforward enough.
Not seeing any real groups of death here, maybe Group H as there's three fairly even matched teams below Portugal. Group E doesn't have the quality below Spain and Germany.
Overall the groups are very well balanced, but I don't know how much drama or how many surprise qualifiers will come out.
Group A: Qatar, Netherlands, Senegal, Ecuador
Group B: England, USA, Iran, Scotland/Wales/Ukraine
Group C: Argentina, Mexico, Poland, Saudi Arabia
Group D: France, Denmark, Tunisia, UAE/Australia/Peru
Group E: Spain, Germany, Japan, Costa Rica/NZ
Group F: Belgium, Croatia, Morocco, Canada
Group G: Brazil, Switzerland, Serbia, Cameroon
Group H: Portugal, Uruguay, South Korea, Ghana
As an Ecuador supporter, that's a fantastic draw in Group A.
Both England and USA have some memorable previous meetings in the World Cup within Group B.
Argentina and Brazil's groups look straightforward enough.
Not seeing any real groups of death here, maybe Group H as there's three fairly even matched teams below Portugal. Group E doesn't have the quality below Spain and Germany.
Overall the groups are very well balanced, but I don't know how much drama or how many surprise qualifiers will come out.
The situation with Scotland/Wales and the Ukraine may well not be resolved for a while. I’m not sure what happens if the war is ongoing.
But England v USA will be interesting! Especially on here!
Some English media outlets and pundits are being pretty casual about their group, but it is a potentially awkward one. England are clearly the best team but all the pressure will be on them to win the group. And England have a tendency to crack under pressure (less so perhaps under Southgate though). USA are not going to have an easy time getting out of the group stage, but neither will Iran or whomever emerges from the European playoff. It could be a very tight group stage of everyone arrives in good form.
USA have been inconsistent of late, but CONCACAF qualifying and the World Cup proper are very different animals. Berhalter, who likes to rotate a lot during qualifying, will presumably have a more settled starting XI in mind for the finals. Hopefully all our stars are healthy for the big show.
Liverpool grind out a 2-0 against a hard-working Watford. Man City are making short work of Burnley, as one would expect, so the weekend will almost certainly finish as it started. Man City are still in the driving seat for the title but Liverpool can at least force them to be perfect during the run-in.
Biggest issue with the World Cup is that it’s in the middle of the PL season. So any injuries etc will have a big impact.
Also what are we supposed to watch in the summer?
MLS!
I would say the biggest issue with the Word Cup is that it is being held in a despotic petro-state that semi-kidnaps its labor force and allows them to die in unsafe, unfree working conditions. And who have the gall to get shirty when we bring up the fact.
But yes, the timing is dumb as well. That's FIFA for you.
There is no brown envelope big enough to contain my list of grievances against FIFA.
Unless he lowers his expectations of £400k a week, I don’t want LFC spending that sort of money. I’d love him to stay, but I’d rather he walked than us paying more than double what any other players wage bill is. He has excelled under Klopp with the fast attacking style and I think he’ll struggle adapting to the types of play seen at Barca or some of the Italian sides.