Holmesy

Am i right in thinking we can now be sponsored by companies associated with our owners? That was a short term thing when we first got taken over, right? So where are all these lucrative sponsorship deals? Sell the naming rights for £200m FFS and get Eddie some players!

I know nothing about this Ederson fella but our other Brazilians have turned out ok, so i'm in

Reluctantly, i'd add Willock to that list as well. We just can't rely on him because he can't stay fit. If we could sell him and sign a similarly dynamic player with better end product, i'd put sentiment aside and go for it.

Really interesting chat about Jordan Henderson on Ben Foster’s podcast. ? Look at this post on Facebook https://www.facebook.com/share/v/1eWjDb53HPHBNTyb/?mibextid=WC7FNe I’ve never really been a massive fan of Herderson’s but I love hearing about stuff like this. Makes you realise why Southgate never leaves him out (even though he should).

He’s one of the fastest players in the PL and a bit of unit. If he can fully recover from his injury, £35m could turn out to be a bargain. Long term Wilson replacement possibly. We’ve been strongly linked with him before haven’t we?

End product is typically the most expensive to buy, which puts Gordon above Joelinton by my reckoning

Spurs have paid pretty low wages historically so he'd probably fit into our structure. Apparently Spurs don't want a loan, so it would be a straight transfer. Seems like a much lower risk option to Phillips, without a huge drop-off in quality.

Surprised Hojberg hasn’t been mentioned as a possibility. Spurs looking to get rid, 18 months left on his contract, pure #6 but still contributes going forward. What would he cost? £10m?

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Liveramento should arguably replace Trippier now tbh

You could argue that even Mikel Merino didn't really fulfil his promise after he left us. He's gone on to play for Spain but he was being touted for greatness when we had him

He might actually be a bit less frustrating playing as a DM. Maybe Eddie can turn him into the new Claude Makelele

And yet Pep, the best manager in world football has continually tweaked, adapted, evolved and has won 5 PLs out of 6 and a treble last season. Pep's approach largely stays the same - front foot, possession-based, lots of technical players but look at peak tika-taka Barca - they don't look the same as current Man City. And when was the last time City had a bad season? They are an anomaly of course, but central to their success is constant evolution around a theme. Don't get me wrong, I would love us to have Klopp-levels of success but i'd rather we were a bit wiser during this transitional phase so it's not feast or famine.

Klopp has a deep squad full of top talent. Conditions are rarely non-optimal for Liverpool. It also worked for Barcelona and it works for City etc. - both deep squads full of top talent. Conditions are far less likely to be optimal for us, for at least a couple of years at least, so being pragmatic rather than stubborn makes more sense. When we have a squad full of world beaters, i'm all for 100% of plan A. Burnley came up playing a certain style and they'll go down because of their slowness to adapt to the quality and rigours of the PL. The only way they'll stay up is if they adapt and find a different way to get results. We're not Burnley but we're also not Liverpool, we're somewhere between the two right now.

Starting from the halfway line would give him a better chance of catching someone than treading water from the opposition box. As i said, we don't have a round peg for that round hole, but maybe Longstaff could be our oval peg for now? He can't finish for shit, so I doubt we'll miss him much in attacking situations.

Longstaff has thrived under two managers who gave him a very specific role, coached him in detail and told him where he needs to be in certain situations. And he disappeared under Cabbage head, a known 'go and play' tactical moron. If Eddie told Longstaff to sit, fill the hole and stay back on our set pieces, he would. In an ideal world we'd have a dedicated #6 but that's not looking likely so we might have to work with what we have.

Largely, i think our approach and identity is great and i love that we finally have a style of play that is recognisable and brilliant to watch (when we're at full strength). However, it's pretty obvious that when conditions aren't optimal, our identity/style of play can be pretty ineffective. That's the drawback with only approaching games in one way - if plan A doesn't work, we only have more of plan A, but maybe with a couple of players substituted. I definitely don't want us to tear up the script but I don't think it's unreasonable to suggest that working on a secondary approach to games, for when conditions aren't optimal, would be a sensible thing for next season and beyond. If that doesn't happen, we find ourselves in a similar position again and we go on another losing run as a result, pressure should rightly mount on the management team. But learn from this, adapt and evolve, and we could turn a huge negative into something that strengthens us going forward. Some folk on here have been saying we haven't been worked out. I think you underestimate the size of the role analysts play in PL football clubs. We are being picked apart in the same way game after game - that isn't coincidence. Every team pours over data to understand the finest details of where competitive advantage can be gained, including where goals/chances result from and where opposition teams are vulnerable. Spotting the grand canyon size hole in our midfield and recognising that we over commit in attack and have no pace to counter the counter will take them about 5 minutes, if that. A new DM would help, but so would adjusting our game plan slightly to leave us less vulnerable. That isn't a 'rip up the script' change, it's a slight adjustment. And it's absolutely not asking too much for Eddie to make that change.

At this stage, Jessie Lingard on a free is looking pretty tempting. Words i thought i'd never say

I don't think he'd have his heart set on staying in the PL. He hasn't made the effort to learn the lingo, which suggests his life isn't here long term. Saudi would be my guess or a mid table Spanish team

Would Almiron want to stay and warm the bench? Murphy is happy to, but I could see Miggy wanting to leave for first team football

I can't imagine those conversations were very long, if they happened at all

This argument could be made for quite a few of our players, which just highlights the need for upgrades. Add another effective attribute to those players and they'd be quality Eg. If Almiron had a right foot and better decision making, if Joelinton could connect with the ball when shooting, if Longstaff could finish, if Willock had more composure in the box, If Murphy had better decision making, if Burn had pace. Coaching can only do so much to improve players, but ultimately we need better players to start with

Bamford just scored one of the goals of the season for Leeds. He’s normally absolutely awful but fair play to him, that is unreal

He’s having a pretty shit game all round tbf. Looks clumsy as fuck!