WITH the new season only six days away, and having already kicked off our competitive campaign in Europe, do we have the squad capable of competing on all fronts domestically and overseas?
Many people will say that our splendid run in the two domestic cups last season was partly down to the fact that there was no distraction of European competition.
New signings Fabio Borini and Joe Allen are names that some may not be too familiar with and certainly not the ‘big name’ signings that some fans would expect to see or get overly excited about. Other names such as Clint Dempsey and Adam Johnson will also fail to light up the eyes of most Kopites and will be seen merely as squad players should they sign. With the exception of Borini, these players have a wealth of Premiership and domestic cup experience between them.
At present, the manager has a good selection of midfielders with Lucas fit again, Joe Cole back from his successful loan spell at Lille, the arrival of Joe Allen, and the usual faces of Gerrard, Spearing, Adam, Henderson, and Shelvey. Rodgers has already highlighted the importance of having good squad depth and in our recent pre-season tour of North America was quick to use Tottenham as a comparison.
Any team that has participated in the Europa League has been quick enough to highlight the struggle with games taking place on a Thursday evening and the impact this has on the training schedule and preparation for the weekend’s domestic fixture. With this in mind by having good depth in your squad, only has to be a positive in my opinion.
With the current squad, Rodgers has the luxury of naming two completely different midfield line ups and regardless of who is selected will bring a decent amount of experience into the team.
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Should we overcome Hearts in our Europa League play-off game, we will be playing two games most weeks up until December. With this in mind, and also the philosophy of how Rodgers wants his players to play a high intensity and high pressure game, the need for a good squad, rather than a great starting eleven is a must.
Obviously with having a large squad raises some problems. Players will become disgruntled and unhappy if they are not playing regularly, due to rotation it will become a lot harder to build team harmony. This was something that was highlighted during the Rafa Benitez era, but the success of squad rotation was there for all to see.
It’s almost certain that our dealings in the current transfer window are far from complete, and whilst it will be hard to accept the sales of Daniel Agger and Andy Carroll, providing we line up adequate replacements, there is no reason why we could not compete both home and abroad this season with the current crop of players that the manager has at his disposal.
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Is our squad stromg enough to compete on all fronts? Absolutely not, at the moment we have a 1st choice back 4 with quality backup in Kelly, Carra, if used sparingly and preferably not with Skrtel, brings quality and Coates has shown some promising signs. However we seem to be relying on either Jack Robinson or John Flannigan at left back, both have had good games and bad games. In centre midfield we are totally covered numbers wise but I have huge doubts about Spearing’s ability to cover for Lucas. We lack numbers out wide, Borini is a cert, Downing faces massive questions while Sterling needs to be introduced gradually. Look beyond those 3 and the only other viable wide option I see is the paceless Joe Cole, a player I firmly believe we’d be better of getting rid of. Which leaves us with the central striker option, most clubs want 4 we have 2 plus Borini and 1 of those is up for sale. In this light I understand the interest in Dempsey but hope that falls through. If we’re to compete on all 4 fronts it means we’ll be playing around 65-70 games. Given this, we need another 3 or 4 quality additions in my opinion
B Rodgers needs to clear out the 6 dead wood players still at the club and also reliev Carragher of his playing duties as he is three years past his best and whenever he plays now he is a huge liability. He has been great amazing loyal class servant for a decade plus now, but in all honesty he should be moved towards the coaching side of club.
But the dead wood players at club should be shown door asap asap:
1: Doni GK
2:B Jones GK
3: J Flanagan RB/LB
4: J Spearing DM/CM
5: C Adams CM/DM
6: J Cole AM/RW/LW
Those 6 players need to be shown the door now, this summer we have lost Maxi and Bellamy our two most creative players behind suarez last season and scorers last season. We have got Aquilani and Aurelio off the wage bill, these 7 players should also be shown the door.
Then that would have been 11 players out, then the owners need to back B Rodgers heavily with £75-£110M to bring in these 8 players.
1: Al Habsi Of Wigan for £3-£6M To compete with PEPE GK
2: S Kjaer Of Wolfsburg Or S Dawson Of Tottenham for £8-£11M to compete with Agger, Coates and Skrtel CB
3: A Cissokho Of Lyon fOR £3-£9M to compete with Enrique LB
4:
4: M Fernandez Of Besiktas for £4-£8M to compete with Henderson and Shelvey.
5: T Walcott Of Arsenal for £12-£15M RW
6: I Munian Of A Bilbao for £17-£20M AM
7: S Sinclair Of Swansea for £4-£8M to compete with Downing LW
8: C Dempsey Of Fulham should be brought in swap deal with C Adams and £2M . AM/FD
These players would get our club back into champions league and with all these 8 playetrs it may sound comical, but we could challenge fr title if these players were brought to club.
The competition for places would be great and the standard of player will be high and quality so club would be back to moving in right direction.
I would say were probably 3 players light, 4 if you include replacing Doni and Jones.
One more winger from the endless list of players we’ve been linked with.
Cover for Lucas (instead of relying on Spearing), I hope we can get Sahin as he’s quality (not an out and out defensive midfielder, but more than capable and can play at left back if Robbo, Wilson etc aren’t up to scratch).
One versatile wide forward, forward, attacking midfielder. Dempsey, Walcott and Tello seem the most linked at the moment.
———————-Reina (DE VRIES?)
G. Johnson (Kelly) – Skrtel (Carra©) – Agger (Coates) – Enrique (Robinson)
———–Allen (Hendo) ————- Lucas (SAHIN? loan)
———————Gerrard© (Shelvey)
A. JOHNSON? (Downing) —————- Suarez (TELLO? loan)
———————–Borini (Carroll)
Others pushing for places: Sterling, Cole, Suso, Morgan, Flannogan, Adam?, Spearing?, Wilson, McLaughlin etc
4 me we still need 2 offload 1 player(J.cole cuz he lacks pace) nd bring in 3 more which include – Dos santoso or Tello(both av played 4 barca nd so wuld understand d system), adam johnson and sahin 2 cover 4 lucas bcuz spearing is no way up 2 half of lucas