Liverpool FC Premier League Champions 25/26 - Talk /Gossip/Rumours

Yeah midfield feels very calm with Jones. He does all the simple things right, calms things down. He is developing into a fine player.

Yeah he is tbf.

He still has a fair number of goal contributions for us. Im just less sure than others that removing Gakpo will mean he starts properly contributing for the purpose he was bought.

You're Nunez point doesn't make much sense, he was ultimately sold at a massive loss to the only realistic buyer in Saudi. I think that argument is over.

The point I'm making is you constantly overly negative and critical of Nunez and now you are doing the same with Kerkez.

You're meant to support the club and players. He's barely here a wet week, is 21 years old and coming into a team which is underperforming. Players take time to settle, don't write someone off so soon.

Also once again requesting that if Rio Ngumoha is not going to play then can we please send him back to the U21s? He's played 349 minutes of senior football this season, it amounts to less than one hour of football per month, this is not good for his development.

Because he's been on the bench almost every game he's only gotten to play 45 minutes of U21 football.

By this stage of last season he had played 72 minutes for the first team and 1,140 minutes for the youth squads.

What I noticed from Arsenal is that they haven't been using the kids that much in the PL this season.

Lewis Skelly has only got 312 minutes. Last season he got 1371 minutes so unless he plays all the remaining games he won't get that.

Nwaneri got 889 minutes last season in the PL across 26 games and this season got 165 minutes across 6 seasons before going on loan in Jan.

They put Dowman on against Leeds when they were a few goals up and they brought him on against us at Anfield but he hasn't played since. A total of 27 minutes in 2 games.

They went out and bought Kepa (GK), Mosquera (CB), Hincapie (CB), Zubemendi (DM), Norgaard (DM), Eze (AM), Madueke (RW) and Gyokeres (S). That's eight starting players for most PL teams.

They've added to Raya, White (CB), Saliba (CB), Gabriel (CB), Calafiori (CB), Timber (CB), Lewis Skelly (LB), Rice (MF), Odegaard (MF), Merino (MF), Trossard (LW), Martenelli (LW), Saka (RW), Havertz (CF) and Jesus (CF).

They have a squad of 22 first team senior players with a few kids to make 25. They are fully covered for an injury in any position or drop off in form.

The have 7 CB's with Saliba and Grabriel being the main stay in the two central positions and the other CBs being used as RB and LB.

This gives them dominance in their own box and in the oppositions box for set pieces.

Arsenal added more players to their squad from last season than we did but everyone talks about ours. It's because of the imbalance compared to Arsenal's spread of defence, midfield and attack.

Arteta is also prepared to use the full 22 senior players at his disposal where as Slot wants a small 14 core players and will only use players outside of that if he has no other choice.

Pep had that approach in the past with core players but with the amount of additions they have made in the last few transfer windows he's going the same way as Arteta. City's bench was so much stronger than ours yesterday.

If Slot cannot work with a larger squad then I can't see us competing with the physical demands of the current PL style of football.

Re the incident at the end of the game yesterday. The ref/var went by the rule book. If so, why then wasn’t Haaland booked for hauling Don to the ground. As he was on a yellow this would’ve meant he should have got a red card too.

Endo was suitable in 23/24. I can't believe he can go from nearly 40 appearances (and Captaining Japan) to not being suitable to take the load off our midfield occasionally.

That's just one example.

I was thinking the same but apparently the line is that the ref didn't play the advantage, therefore Haaland's foul didn't count (and the goal didn't count). The debate now seems to have moved on to the question of, if the ball was going to go in anyway, and Haaland didn't touch it, it can't be denial of a clear goal-scoring chance, and Szobo should only get a yellow.

Funny enough had Szobo not done that we'd be below Brentford right now.

Thin squad whichnis only likely to tire from here on further making CL footie more unlikely

I don't think we would. Nine losses in twelve within the first half of his first season would be horrific, and he wouldn't have the credit in the bank from winning the league. We'd be thinking he was way out of his depth.

Does soccer need a penalty goal provision, similar to rugby’s penalty try, when a player illegally prevents a probable score? At the moment there seems to be an incentive to obstruct a goal under some circumstances. I’ve been irked about this since Kempes became a second goalkeeper for Argentina in the 1978 WC match against Poland. Yes, it would be complicated to implement but there is a principle at stake here which I will put rather melodramatically this way: crime should not pay. If you break the rules to stop a goal, it should be awarded.

IIRC Forest will play Fenerbache home and away the midweeks before and after our game against them. Not sure whether they are before or away before our game. We have the midweek off.

Edit: Forest are away in Turkey the Thursday before our Sunday game.