goodrobotusses

He also has a pretty poor injury record for someone who'd cost what he'd cost.

I wonder if Lucho Diaz Sr. would accept beautiful southern Italy as an alternative to Spain… That said, I like Diaz Jr. too much to want to see his will to live smashed against the altar of Conte-ball.

Think we were interested in him the year before, after Wagner recommended Chilwell to Klopp during his loan at Huddersfield.

As much as anything, I fear it has become so increasingly rigid over time, with new assessment factors being added as we've refined the process over the years, that barely any players make the cut on our shortlists. And that in an environment in which most other clubs have upped their recruitment game in recent years, so there is greater competition for those we do identify.

Good to see our radar can spot one of the best players in the world haha

I like what I read about Slot giving players individualised training programs to improve them. Gimenez not getting games until he'd been through a period of adaptation, Kökcu having to improve his explosiveness etc. Hopefully Darwin will learn to sidefoot the ball around the keeper.

My impression after reading The Book That Shall Henceforth No Longer Be Named is that they think we need to have an incredible strong hit rate to compete, given our relative lack of resources in comparison with City, United etc. If we spend big, it should only be players who can potentially improve the first XI and so on.

Robertson was third choice too. The two lead LB candidates were Benjamin Mendy, but he had bad character references, and Emerson Palmieri at Roma, but his knee exploded when we were about to do the deal. On Robertson, the recruitment team thought he might be a bad defender, on account of Hull's terrible defence that season (hi, Harry Maguire). But Klopp said he just needed a couple of "extreme characteristics" and he could cover the rest tactically using other players. As it turned out, Robbo was both a great attacking LB and a solid defender.

My concern about Jones as this kind of No6 is he's often too slow to see passes. He protects the ball well, but he can be too slow to release it. If the great Gravenberch experiment is ultimately a bust, the best candidate for the role in the squad is Mac Allister, but then you lose his ability to connect with players further forward.

Twitter's favourite transfer influencer claims this one is done. £2m compensation. Ayman-Nyoni double-pivot gonna take the 2029-30 campaign by storm etc.

Could be something in this. Although any savings will cease to look very clever if we fail to qualify for the CL one or two seasons on the bounce.

Ah bloody hell, died again.

He does. Just an all around great guy. He says in the video he still wants to coach, but if he ever decides to settle into a semi-retirement, I'd love him to have a relationship with the club again as an ambassador or similar.

Really enjoyed that. Non-LFC fan mate sent it to me in a group chat saying how well Rafa comes across, and he does. It's a shame his career has fizzled out so badly. Also, Carra is really annoying during the discussion, constantly cutting across people while they're talking and changing the subject.

Juventus are desperate to get his salary off the books, which is why the sale price keeps coming down. Problem is he's on pretty big money and has a pretty bad injury history, so no one wants to take the risk. Apart from, of course, Barcelona, who're looking at him as an alternative to Nico Williams and Luis Diaz on the left (played there at Fiorentina).

If we sell Gomez and do bring in a CB I have no idea who it could be at this point. We've been linked to so many of the f***ers and each on paper seems to have some kind of drawback. Guehi and Inacio have been pretty steadily linked but not 100% sold on either. We tend to want massive lads and neither of those is. Ditto Hincapie. Maybe we do something mad and get Colwill out of Chelsea on account of their mad finances, although I think he's pretty settled there – which is weird given how unsettled that madhouse seems.

Interested to see if they bring in a forward. Haaland is usually good for a couple of muscle injuries during the season. Would they just false nine it and muddle through? Their squad is very light but covered by having very good multifunctional players.

Would have been good to get Mamardashvili PL-battle ready at Bournemouth, but if allowing him to stay at Valencia for another year gets the deal done, it's fine.

I think he wants to go, even if only to play at CB every week.

If we sell Gomez we should be looking for someone to compete with Konate to partner VvD. Quansah is talented and should be competing for a spot, but he has to earn it, not gain it by default. Fit and on form, Konate is the better defender, even if Quansah seems more confident with the ball. If we can sign a replacement, I don't have much of an issue selling Gomez, despite him being a fantastic club servant. We can carry one injury-prone CB (Konate), but Gomez being fit most of last season was a relative rarity. We were lucky Quansah broke through last season, in addition to Gomez staying fit – going into the season, three of our four senior CBs all had a history of injury-proneness. It would be good if we can get that down to one out of four.

Mkhitaryan too. That reminds me. The nerds wanted Sturridge when we got Borini. In fairness, though, the idea of signing Sturridge was pretty divisive right up until he started scoring loads of goals for us. I know I thought he was a bell, but then I'm just prejudiced against people who dance.

I'm not sure he's even rated anymore. But he came to us at 24 having just scored 30 goals in 54 games over two seasons at Milan. The warning signs were there: Why were Milan selling him for a reduced price after those two seasons? We took a risk because we needed to get someone in, having lost Suarez and missed out Sanchez. It was a mistake, but there was a context around how that mistake was made.

I think it's easy to forget how talented he was because of how badly he squandered that talent. There were arguments when he signed because it was obvious how much ability he had, but at the same time he'd bombed out everywhere he'd been because he was immature and uncoachable. We took a risk, one that failed. But he was a much more talented player than Christian bloody Benteke, even if Benteke has been more consistently effective throughout his career. Edit: never imagined I would be here defending Mario Balotelli

I think that deal was in the context of missing out on Sanchez after selling Suarez. The club needed someone, and while he didn't profile quite right and was a massive risk, they needed to get someone in and he was potentially undervalued and still only 24 (I think). I'd say talent-wise, he was a world away from Benteke, could do more than just head it, but no coach has ever consistently brought his talent out and he's spent most of his career lumbering around up front, looking not unlike Benteke.

What the book emphasises is that the recruitment process at Liverpool was being refined as it went, with the club learning from mistakes (e.g. Lazar Markovic, whom scouts loved but hadn't been subject to in-depth video analysis, leading to that becoming a mandatory part of recruitment). That it's not just data, or scouting, or cost, or coach's preference that goes into signings, but those factors and more. It was Klopp who asked the recruitment team to look at Matip, who'd always come up as error-prone in scouting reports, but a second look made everyone realise he was a good, young player on a free. Basically, there are a bunch of requirements that have to be fulfilled for us to even pursue a player. Sometimes they have ignored it if one factor isn't fulfilled, such as Mane having bad character references about his professionalism, but the book gives you a sense of why the club has become so cumbersome and cautious in its dealings. Basically, we've wasted a lot of money in the past, and we don't have money to burn like other clubs, so we have to be as sure as possible before we move. The book also really highlights how much everyone involved in recruitment argued, and that Edwards in particular is argumentative. Edwards is more of a video analyst, and when he first met Graham and his cohort of nerds, he bluntly told them their data was s*** and useless. But that led to big improvements in analysis and use of data over time. You get a sense of why a couple of the people involved in these processes eventually burned out and left, because they were arguing and debating all the time, even if it led to better decisions in the end. Reports out of Southampton were that he was a trouble-maker and turned up late for training etc, yet at Liverpool he was nothing but professional. Then he goes to Bayern and within a few months he's lamping Leroy Sane in training. Sometimes the stars just align. I think more than anything with Mane, he wanted to play for Klopp. He turned down more money and CL football at Man Utd just to play under Klopp. Graham thought stats, age and cost made Balotelli worth going for. He was utterly wrong. He was also obsessed with Naby Keita since his time at Salzburg, but I guess few would have predicted how Keita would turn out when we signed him.