Liverpool FC Premier League Champions 24/25 - Talk /Gossip/Rumours

My guess is one of the teams will be close to the starting 11 on Sunday week. After that, no idea.

Just seen the goals that pitch looked absolutely horrible I've played on better pitches on a Sunday.

He's had a tough run of it for such a young man

It all depends on how Slot wants to handle the transition, the minimum disruption to the established team will keep things ticking over while the new players are integrated. A single change in each department is more than manageable. Bringing Kerkez, Wirtz and Ekitike into the starting line-up offers upgrades through the team while maintaining the stability.

               Ekitike
    Gakpo                   Salah

         Wirtz        Szoboszlai
             Gravenberch

Kerkez   van Dijk    Konate   Bradley

               Alisson

Kerkez brings additional athleticism on the left flank. Mac Allister is only back training this week, he's going to be a few weeks behind the rest of the group in his conditioning so he won't yet be pushing for a starting place in midfield. That puts off the headache of deciding how to accommodate Szoboszlai, we keep his energy levels in midfield and add Wirtz's guile in the final third. Ekitike will also bring us a new energy and work rate that we didn't have up front last season.

Frimpong can be used to add an injection of pace late in games and Mac Allister can build his fitness with 20-30 minute spells for the opening weeks of the season.

You think Ekitike has more energy and workrate than Diaz? I find that very hard to believe, but look forward to seeing it.

You said: ‘Ekitike will also bring us a new energy and work rate that we didn't have up front last season.’

Diaz was our 9 for the most part last season, so that seems to pretty clearly imply exactly what i said. But feel free to clarify your comment without resorting to stupid nonsense about bias, when my post contained no bias whatsoever! This is a place where we discuss, no need to bring pettiness to the table

Another Ekitike Signing Day Video - worth a watch.

The data shows that your assertion was incorrect, whether you want to acknowledge the fact or not. I originally said that Ekitike will bring a new energy and work rate and you jumped on it, in your opinion I was obviously talking about Luis Diaz. Two other players also had the role and Diaz delivered a similar output to them.

Jota suffered an injury to his rib and lung in a collision with a Chelsea defender in October 2024, he was substituted in the 30th minute of the game and was out until mid December. The lung injury required a minor surgery but he decided to put it off until the end of the season. He played in 24/25 games after his return but he did not look himself. We know now that he had a partially collapsed lung and that's why he couldn't run and looked like he was threading water when it was required of him to do so.

Slot got frustrated and lost interest in working with Nunez after the Newcastle game in December. He called him out in the post match press conference for his lack of work rate for the team. Nunez only started two league games after that, Leicester and Southampton. If Frankfurt had been receptive to selling Ekitike in January, Nunez would be an Al-Nassr player. In the closing weeks of the season, Slot had to respond to questions about speculation that Nunez wasn't starting games due to clauses in the transfer agreement with Benfica which was nonsense. Nunez is done in terms of making the first choice eleven.

Diaz filled in the #9 position for Jota, it was obvious that he was not suited to the position but Slot tried to make it work citing that playing a small more mobile player up against big defenders could give Liverpool an advantage. It didn't work out in most games. 4 of the 5 goals he scored while in the role came in the hammerings of Tottenham and West Ham. He looked like a headless chicken running around against Nottingham Forest, Jota replaced him and within seconds scored the equalising goal. Diaz can't be faulted for the energy he showed but Slot requires more than that from the centre forward player.

Ekitike brings something new that we didn't have last season, he's an unknown quantity for the defenders in the league. He has elements of what each of the #9 players last season offered, but he also offers more. He will give us the defensive work rate that Slot expected from Nunez. Unlike Diaz he doesn't repeatedly run down blind alleys, he has shown that he has the intelligence and the ability to switch the ball to a free player in another area of the pitch when he gets overloaded.