TRon

He hasn't really started that many games in any season prior to his latest run though so that's a bit misleading. If he's about to turn 23 that would mean he is just starting to mature as a striker, could well be ready to cement place in a PL side and make a big impact next season.

I was really surprised when I saw one of our posters calling him a terrible footballer basically, in one of the other games threads. I've always thought he's a real threat, and generally delivers goals at a pretty regular rate. I suppose he might not be absolutely top notch in all round quality, but we aren't a CL club just yet, right now he'd still be one hell of an upgrade on Wood.

I'd be surprised if Italian clubs could afford the package tbh. Maybe there's more money rolling around over there than we think.

Just a bit like. He's not going to leave City to come here. His PL career has probably reached it's high point, I would think he'll move abroad if he leaves City, I can't see him taking a step down in this country.

He's the right type of striker IMO. Got some pace, and certainly knows where the goal is. I suppose the only question mark would be can he do it over a full season, but he's out of contract soon so certainly not a gamble.

I think Nketiah might be worth pursuing. Not exactly top pedigree but he looks like he's got potential.

If teams are doubling up on him, he's won the first battle by pulling players out of position. That means there should be more space for other players....provided he releases the ball and gets it to one of them.

The comparison is not accurate IMO, Robert got criticised for not tracking back, but he never ran down blind alleys and allowed the opposition to dispossess him repeatedly over 90 mins. That's my major gripe with Maxi, not his failure to track back.

St James awaits.

Maybe it would help if we stopped highlighting every isolated flag or tea towel spotted at the ground then.

You must have been watching a different game yesterday then.

Ha ha of course I meant it literally Joey. You did well to pull me up on that one.

We came up against their reserve team. We played them as if they were the best team in Europe though, I do agree with that.

Precisely. He's a terrible team player.

Not really arsed about this. I don't like losing, but at the same time I don't like helping Liverpool.

if he's getting two or three men marking him, surely that means there's space all over the rest of the pitch at that point since he's taken so many players out of position. Just imagine if he released the ball in time at that point, we'd be in a great position to hurt the opposition instead of losing the ball when he tries to beat the third man and score a wonder goal which would delight Bruce/Pardew in previous years.

Surprised Joeyt didn't have an opinion on this tbh. But not really.

Howe conceding he was a bit disappointed with the performance, thought we could have showed more, which I totally agree with. Love this guy.

Eurgh...Klopp.

Our best player I thought. If all our players could hold the ball as well under pressure we'd control games much better.

He's a fabulous one man band, no doubt about that, but you don't win many games with only one player doing it all.

This basically. In the end we were game enough, just lacked a bit of quality when it mattered. Can't moan too much at a 1-0 loss.

It was poor finishing tbh, they could easily have won 4-0.

I actually thought Shelvey did alright. Obviously he's never going to dominate the midfield, but he looks after the ball really well and usually finds a team mate.

Felt like it would have been exposed by a team with better strikers. There were definite opportunities for us there, we just weren't good enough up top.