A lot will be made of our transfer activity in the next three weeks, but it is important that all our money is spent this January on quality as opposed to quantity.
Whilst I liked a lot of our business over the summer, signing the likes of Luis Alberto, Iago Aspas and Tiago Illori was an attempt at padding out the squad. Aspas has spent long spells out of the starting eleven through injury or poor form, Alberto has made cameo appearances and Illori has yet to feature.
You can question the success of these signings hugely. It might be unfair to form opinions on Alberto and Illori in particular as they are young and have barely played. Aspas has attracted a lot of criticism that it is difficult to disregard. With their combined values approaching £20m, you have to question whether that money would have been better spent on one quality player given the impact of the players in question.
I’m not criticising the lads we’ve signed – I just question the reasoning behind signing them when we did. It all smacks to me of trying to be a little too clever in the market. I understand we can’t compete with the most financially powerful teams in Europe and need to grow some of our own talent, but you have to question whether summer 2013 was the window in which to do it.
January 2014 definitely isn’t, and I hope that the club show some ambition in January because we are not a million miles away from top spot. Last year we strengthened our first team by signing Coutinho and Sturridge. Both have been excellent for us and have been a big success.
Can you imagine how much of a shot in the arm it would be for us if we made two signings now that made a similar impact? We’ve had a good season as it is. If we could end this season as we did last, we could go very close to the title. It would certainly leave us in good stead for a Champions League spot, which is what we need most of all.
We are unlikely to make signings that will have the dynamic impact of Coutinho and Sturridge, as they are attacking players and we’re not really being linked with attackers with the exception of Mohammed Salah from Basle.
But if we were to sign another central midfielder who is effective at breaking up play and can stop midfield getting overrun, and perhaps a left back to add some much needed quality, it would improve us further.
I don’t think our squad has the quality we require at the moment and there were some tired legs on the pitch by the end of the game against Hull City on New Year’s Day. But that’s not something we can afford to address now. We need to do that in the summer.
For now, we need to bring in first team quality and make the most of the excellent position we find ourselves in.
Iam gutted with Br insistence on Moses finishing his loan spell and why haven’t we been concretely linked with anybody.Am afraid we may not sign anyone talkmore of quality signing.
our squad may be thin but i think our starting eleven is good .my worry is need anchorman the type of alonso mascherano.matiudi is the type we need.at the heart of defence the team is good have good cover up.however may fear is left back but flanagan can come in to cover .johnson was good right back but at the moment is form is a championship player he makes so many mistakes.i think llori and flanagan should challenge him .my line up is as follows
mignolet
enrique sakho skrtel flanagan
lucas gerrard
coutinho
sturridge suarez
bench is as follows
jones
agger
kelly
henderson
sterling
aspas
Allen
so you think we should play with 10men,
and drop henderson and Sterling thank god ur not manager
Good article..we nid a leftbak e.g coentrao on loan…a defensiv midfielder e.g schneiderlin or fernando..a left footed winga e.g salah volland ben arfa….and a right footed one as well
@ marsh u gat to be kidding, we need 4 world class players not player like moses or aspas
I think Lfc need Fernando of Porto more than anyother signing cos our midfield is crying for pace and strength.Lucas is crap.As for leftback lfc should try Pieters not another chelsea reject.If lfc beat stoke without agreeing a transfer to lift the spirit of the player,cos confidence is down after 2 straight away defeat then I will eat my hat.
Lucas is a brazil international and future legend.
My starting 11 would be
mignolet
jose Enrique, sakho, skrtl, johnson
Henderson, Gerrard, coutinho
sterling, Suarez, sturridge
need to improve their defence quick, LB&RB, would say Central defence is ok just now, really enjoying the quick passing and counter attacks the team are playing just now hopefully the good work keeps up ????
if we cant get a gud attacking mid_feda den lets spend on gud creativ winger. D squad lack creativity in final third.
Need 2 stop the crap talk and put money were r mouth is. Aspas, moses not near good enough and never will b. Neither is johnson at the min. Need a creative player, good holding 1, RB and LB. Transfers not sorted soon we’ll struggle for top 4 unfortunately:-(.
……………………………… mignolet………………………………
Montoya…………………….Skertel…………………………agger
………………………………..Lucas…………………………………
…………………Hendo……………………Gerrard………………..
Tello…………………………………………………………Cautinho
………………………Suarez………………Sturridge…………….
if gerrard / hendo absent .. Coutinho will move to cantre and sterling or pacy winger assaidi will come in or alberto.
If lucas suspend i like to put skertel or shako there because they are gifted and tackler.
if suarez or sturride off.. must try kalou and teixeira or ibe
U honestly think assaidi and alberto r good enough for us? Need signings
Outta all the comments made this evening tino is only 1 that can c the truth about r squad.
Daniel Thomas: “But if we were to sign another central midfielder who is effective at breaking up play and can stop midfield getting overrun, …”
Caused by who ???
ANSWER: Steven Gerrard.
Yana the Manc troll strikes again . Your a joke kid .
A
We desperately need signings . Our squad is weak . Alberto ans aspas wouldn’t even get into the crystal palace team . They are cr a p.
100% rite. Only problem we got is we keep crying over a few million when signing players. Ya dont get in2 champions league by buying crap
Tino did u say pieters of stoke??good buy but stoke wudnt sel him to us…..bsides dose of u sayin we nid a ryt bak shud rethink…we nid anoda leftbak…den kelly and flanno wil compete wit jonson at RB..den probably johnson wil buckle up..we cant buy both montoya and anoda leftbak…overcrowded defense
Problem is we can only afford the 10m player which makes it very tough. Y not just fork out wat it takes and hopefully makes champions league. Miss out on CL this yr and it could put us back 2 square 1 again.
I WUD ADVICE BR SHUD BUY SALLAH DAT AMOUNT 15m he worth it orelse WE LL LOSE A QUALITY PLAYER LYK HIM
The thing is FSG have not let B Rodgers bring in one world class 25M plus player to club.
Rodgers needs the owners to give him 60-70M to bring in 4 class, quality players to strengthen our squad and to bring in more quality competition for places.
No more Alberto, Assaidi, Aspas, Borini, Moses, Cissokho type players: Dead wood average
These are the positions needed strengthening in January: DM, CM, RW/ RWF and LW / LWF
Whereas Man United spent 27M on Fellaini and Man City Spent 30M on Fernandinho
1:B Rodgers needs to spend 15-20M on Y Cabaye(27) Of Newcastle or I Rakitic(25) Of Seville, One of these box to box class creative goalscoring midfielders should be brought in before the end of the month. CM
2: B Rodgers needs to spend 5-12M on a mobile physical tough tackling defensive enforcer, so either Y M’Vila(23) Of Rubin Kazan Or Fernando(26) Of Porto, one them should be brought in before the end of the month. DM
3: B Rodgers needs to spend 7-15M on M Salah(21) Of Basel to compete and cover Sterling RW / RWF
4: B Rodgers needs to bring in B Arfa(26) Of Newcastle for 10-14M to compete and cover Ibe, so we can send pony V Moses(22) back to chelsea.
In Y M’Vila(23), Y Cabaye(27), M Salah(21) and B Arfa(26). The club would have brought in 4 class quality players of champions league quality who will take the club forward
Those 4 players would cost the club the similar amount Man City spent on two players in the summer Fernandinho 30M and Jovetic 26M, but those 4 players would bring more class, quality than Fernandinho and Jovetic.
Fsg stinks..rodgers booms and some of u kops oozes..listen to wat som of u ar sayin…i wonder if u ar kops or corpse….