Erikse

We have actually been seeing glimpses of the Willock from 2-3 years ago lately.

That was Willock from 22/23

Shot stopping: Steven Taylor

I'm sure we'll play some beautiful and entertaining football with that lineup.

Well, if he can match what Callum Wilson did for us 2-3 years ago minus the injuries, then he would probably be a regular starter. We're talking 20+ at that point.

Which was the original point, yes (TCDs post).

Still can't shake off the fact that he scored 18 non penalty goals in a season last season, for a mid table team.. 12 goals in less minutes the season before, also for a mid table team. I doubt that he was playing exactly like what we are seeing now. He's obviously in bad form at the moment.

Personally I never meant to use it as an excuse, it was more of a dig at the Liverpool fans who used that excuse for months.

Antony has also scored some goals with his right. He's one of the most left footed players I have seen. What's your point?

They used lack of preseason as an excuse for Isak for 3 months, so he still has a month left of being excused. Make that 4 months, as he also missed half of the season.

It's so annoying. They're not even good, like at all.

Liverpool has won just 1 game in their last 7 (in the league)..

Yeah, but despite earlier success, I feel that we've allways been slow in the windows. Usually not much happening at the beginning of the windows. I really hope that will finally change, and also that we go for players with good value that we can realistically get, which is what we need.

Actually if you sell Wolte at the same price as his total leftover ammortizarion, and buy another striker for that same price and wage (maybe even a bit more), I guess that would mean that we break even on the budget? I guess that's pretty good.

We have more depth than ever, but not sure our starting 11 is actually that much better than the team from 2022-2024. Some of the key players from that timeframe: Trippier, Isak, Wilson, Schär, Bruno, Gordon, Botman, Joelinton, Willock, Pope, and Burn. Isak has been sold, and so has Wilson, who declined due to injuries and age. Gordon has declined massively in general. Botman, Willock and Joelinton has declined due to injuries, and can't be relied on for the same reason. Could say the same about Pope. Trippier has declined massively due to age, which Schär and Burn are also starting to show signs of. Schär moreso than Burn. On paper our midfield is better for sure, and Bruno is even better now. We should be getting more out of our midfield. Unfortunately this just goes back to our recruitment last summer, when we were supposed to replace some of these. How much blame Howe has in all of the factors mentioned is hard to say. Except for players getting older, ofcourse.

I do think that he will be giving us quite a few goals in the future if we can put together a set of players and system that clicks offensively. Right now we're all over the place. He was a great finisher at Brentford.

As mentioned, yes. It's not much, but I guess it's something.

Exactly my thoughts, he'd make a solid backup, and I think that with time he can become a Wilson with less injuries. We'll just have to forget about how much we paid for him.

We also need 3 fullbacks if we sell Tino. I think we will sell Wolte or Wissa if we're going to buy a striker. I don't think any team in the league has 3 expensive (pure) strikers in their squad.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but don't we have to pay the rest of the amortization aswell when we sell? So effectively it won't free up funds in the immidiate term, it will only get rid of his wages and yearly amortization, which I guess helps a tiny bit. I'm asking because I haven't updates myself on how this works, and what changes that has been made to the rules.

Sure, but we also need like 7-8 new players, so we need to prioritize still. Think we'd have to sell Wolte or Wissa if we're going to get an quality striker in. Doesn't make sense to have 3 expensive strikers when you're playing just 1 every week.

That's what I'm hoping for. Then again we would need to find a buyer for decent money, and also find a replacement in an already highly busy window. The work on finding replacements for everyone needs to be done 10 times better than last summer. We've often left it late.

Might be a young and cheap striker in that case.

As mentioned in another thread, are we going to buy another striker without selling Wolte or Wissa? I can only see that happening if we change formation to play Wolte together with another striker.

Agree, the last few season the mid table sides have been our nemesis. Bascially the best teams amongst those who doesn't have the added games from European football. Before 23/24 we actually did pretty well against those. We've been consistently winning against bottom teams, and decent against top sides.