RaoulD

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I think the difficulty is with the new handball interpretation. The act of sticking your foot to try and block a shot also tends to cause your arms to extend outwards in order to maintain balance and control. If the ball then hits your arm or hand, a penalty is likely to be awarded under the new interpretation (as it was against Milner v Napoli). Sticking your hands behind your back prevents the likelihood of a penalty but also means that you are no longer able to make your body larger by extending your limbs outwards. On this occasion, I agree that Virgil's choice probably made no difference given the power and accuracy of the shot in question.

I get the frustration with FSG and this summer's transfer business particularly relating to our midfield but it seems to me to be a little bit perverse that the criticism has changed from having a go at FSG for not signing anyone to having a go for actually signing someone on loan on the last day of the transfer window. OK he might turn out to be useless but on the other hand: 1. He is a Brazil international who has played for Barcelona and Juventus 2. We almost certainly have been scouting him for some time 3. He is not costing us a great deal of money apart from his wages 4. He looked quite handy the last time I saw him at Anfield (albeit briefly). 5. It would not be the first time that we have signed a Brazilian from a top Italian club who was struggling to get game time and the last one turned out alright.

The priority was finding a replacement for Mane who had clearly made it known that he wanted to leave (and consequently would not sign an extension to his contract) in January. Klopp has admitted he was wrong about midfield although I think at the time he probably thought that he had more than enough options if you also include players such as Bobby and Jota. A combination of injuries, the suspension of Nunez and a drop in form of key players (which might be attributable to the lack of a proper pre-season this year) has highlighted our midfield issues which still largely revolve around getting the right balance between defence and attack. The midfield of Henderson, Gini and Fab was often too defensive but the brilliance of Salah, Bobby and Mane supported by Trent and Robbo covered it up, particularly when Bobby dropped deep into the false 9 role to link midfield with attack. Thiago was supposed to address this issue and provide better balance in midfield but injuries have meant that we rarely have been able to play our strongest combination. Milner and Henderson have also started this season showing signs of a worrying drop off in pace and energy that has had a knock on effect on the high defensive line and forward press. This was particularly evident in the United game where we were often caught out in midfield due to a lack of pace. This had the knock on effect of the midfield sitting back to compensate and our defensive line being pushed back creating more space for United's midfield to operate and allowing them to double up on Salah, Bobby and Diaz whenever we tried to break. I think Klopp has now realised that even if everyone is fit, there is still a lack of midfield energy and pace to play the way he would like us to play against the top sides and to provide the balance that is necessary to link the team as a whole. We now need a proper box-to-box ball winner to complement the defensive midfielder (normally Fab) and the creative attacking midfielder (ideally Thiago).

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I don't think he will be moved into midfield but he has the versatility to play there if necessary or if Klopp wants to enhance the attacking midfield options. I can see us playing slightly differently with Nunez playing as a more traditional centre forward than the false 9 that Bobby effectively made his trademark. The real issue is whether it is still worth keeping Bobby now that we have Nunez. My view is that he still has a lot to offer both as a false 9 and as an attacking midfielder.

You may be right but I think Bobby seems more settled on Merseyside and might be up for another couple of years with us rather than leave now or on a free next year. He is 31 in October and I don't see anyone offering him more than 3 years on a salary above what we might be prepared to offer. He could also still sign an extension and then leave next summer albeit for a fee if someone was still prepared to offer him a decent wedge for more regular game time.

Can't help but think that this whole saga was linked to the situation with Sadio and the signing of Nunez. We had two world class players entering the final year of their contracts and both were of a similar age. Agreeing to the demands of one would almost inevitably have set the benchmark for the other and whilst obviously Salah would be the player most would choose if forced to, the risk of unsettling one by agreeing terms with the other meant that you either negotiated with both or neither until such time as the impact on the team could be minimised. Once Nunez was signed and Mane departed, the obstacles to meeting Salah's wage demands also disappeared. The next phase will probably be sorting out the situation with Bobby. I think we will be looking to keep him as he could play as the link man behind a front three of Diaz, Nunez and Salah particularly if Thiago is either out or playing deeper because of injury. Midfield is still looking a little light and having Bobby as an option there will probably cover us for the next couple of seasons.

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Given those who qualify as amongst the greatest players ever to wear the shirt, if Nunez proves to be as good as them, we have certainly not stood still. If you look at the squad that ended the last season, it was about as strong as you could realistically expect without resorting to Man City/Chelsea money is no object tactics. The only real weakness in the team was potentially cover for Trent which we have sought to address with the recruitment of Ramsey and hopefully he proves to be another success. The real challenge is sustaining what we have built and this means replacing players who have been instrumental in our success to date. You might argue that we have got rid of a particular player (such as Mane) too early but equally you might have been arguing that we held on to him for too long if he stayed and we missed out on the next big thing (which I hope now proves to be Nunez). I have to confess that I was a little underwhelmed when we first signed Mane (and Salah for that matter) not because I fell they were not good enough but simply because I did not expect them to be so good when they played for us. I was lucky enough to see us evolve from Keegan and Toshack to Dalglish and Johnstone to Dalglish and Rush then Barnes, Beardsley and Aldridge and each time a change occurred it raised the same prospect that we were weaker than what had gone on before, The truth was probably that we were just different.

I actually could understand Torres given that we had sacked a well loved and respected Spanish Manager who had brought him to the club and who had won us the biggest prize in club football and replaced him with Uncle Roy whose height of ambition was salvaging a draw with Everton. I was disappointed that he did not stick around when we got rid of Hodgson and also brought in Suarez but that proved to be more his loss than ours. I think we still mean something to Torres judging by his demeanour when he came back with Atletico last season but realistically, players no longer stick around as much now especially if there is no local connection to the club.

Saw it before with Keegan and we did not do too badly with his replacement.

Of course and who is to say that this might not still happen but I am still not sure that the solution is also to address the caution we showed against teams like City and Chelsea last season which allowed them to press us back in midfield. For most teams, it was a calculated risk based on a high defensive line with Trent and Robbo supporting the flanks in attack that kept the opposition midfield busy in supporting their defence and negating their attacking ability. However teams such as Chelsea and City would counter press and then break in numbers particularly on the flanks which left our centre backs outnumbered. Having another midfielder as cover against this and/or as a ball winner in midfield would probably blunt our attack and high press. The contrast between the game away at City and the first half of the FA Cup semi-final seemed to me to be down to the fact that there was no real disconnect between midfield and the attack in the latter whereas we tended to sit back too much in the former which invited them to come on to us and given the players they have in midfield, it is inevitable that they dominate. I think it is more about retaining possession and cutting out the risky passes to heavily or closely marked forwards that is the key here.

We are not going to say that we don't need a midfielder even if that is true since we are always in the market if the right person is available. What we will not want is for it to become public knowledge that we are actively looking for a midfielder before we are already well advanced in talks with the player or club. This is to try and prevent the transfer price being inflated either because the selling club feels we are desperate to sign that particular player or because another club enters a bidding war with us for that player. We will brief the press accordingly but our transfer dealings over the past 6 years show that we identify our targets early, we then spend time watching them and only move when we have to or the time is otherwise right. We have enough options in midfield to get by this year or at least until the January window if we have to. The first choice is likely to be Thiago, Fab and Jordan if all are fit with Keita, Milner, Jones, Elliott and the other youngsters in the squad as options. I am not sure whether there is a midfielder available who would be a first choice over what we already have so we are really looking at cover and whilst some may want to have the options that City have that is simply not realistic. City's money has allowed them to pay wages to squad players who are likely to spend most of their time on the bench that we simply cannot match.

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Sad to see him go but every player goes eventually and now was probably the best time for a parting of the ways and I think both he and the club accept it. I'd like to think that he would not have wanted to leave the club until a replacement had been found and that having signed Nunez, he can leave on the best of terms. I think his playing time with us would have been much more limited had he decided to stay. Diaz is going to be first choice on the left next season and I don't see anyone displacing Salah on the right if he is fit. This just leaves the centre and Nunez is the clear favourite to start there. Mane might have got a few starts at the beginning of the season to allow Nunez to get used to the Premier League but given that Nunez will now have a full pre-season, it was more likely to be the other way round. He never gave less that 100% as a player and whilst there were periods where he was off the boil, he will always be part of one of the most fearsome forward lines I have seen in world football let alone at LFC. It was a privilege to see him in a Red shirt at his peak.

Most of the points we dropped were against teams that sat back and counter-attacked i.e. Spurs, Leicester, Chelsea and to a large extend Brentford and West Ham. We lost the CL Final to a team that sat back and counter-attacked. In all these games the problem was not that we got caught on the counter attack - this is an inherent risk in our style of play - but that we did not convert the chances we made. Teams that tried to attack us tended to get slaughtered.

I think he is better in the air than Mane or Salah and if Virgil found him difficult then I suspect he is going to be a real handful for most Premier League centre backs. We don't tend to hold up play in the centre but instead try to lay the ball off to the flanks for either Salah or Mane to run on to. This was not one of Mane's strengths either when he played in the centre. I see Nunez trying to break the defensive line to get onto crosses from the wings rather than as a target man with Salah or Diaz following up if he doesn't connect. He has the pace to do this but whether he can stay onside might be the $64,000 question

No top speed is important since you need to reach that speed by acceleration and given that 36.5 kph is more than 10 metres per second and he is unlikely to have sustained that speed over a long distance (otherwise he should be looking at competing in Paris in 2024) it suggests he is quite explosive over the first 10 metres which would in turn explain how he manages to escape his marker.

If Mane is going along with Origi and possibly Taki as well, we need another striker more than we need someone in midfield. I think we will still get someone else in midfield this summer as it was the one area where we looked short of options at times last season particularly when Jordan and Thiago were out with injuries. We can manage without next season but recent acquisitions suggest that there is a long term strategy in terms of recruitment that allows the team to evolve gradually so I would expect there to be some strengthening of the squad in midfield as well as the acquisition of another striker.

I think you are missing the point I was making. It might have been wrong of me to refer to boroughs of London rather than particular areas but the point was that St Denis is an area where there is a notoriously high level of crime and it is not somewhere where tourists usually visit. There are similar parts of London and probably every major city. If you need examples in London look at the Stonebridge Park area in Brent, parts of Haringey especially around Tottenham, Tower Hamlets and Newham. The common denominators are usually that they are areas where locally there is a high level of unemployment and poverty. Where the French failed was that it must have been obvious that bringing a large group of more affluent peopke into an area with which they were both unfamiliar and unprotected was an invitation for exactly the sort of trouble that many experienced on Saturday. It called for adequate police protection and that was what was not provided. My first impressions of Paris were no different to many who were there at the weekend, it can be a particularly cold and unwelcoming city if you are not fluent in French or don't know your way around the city. I imagine a non-English speaking person might feel the same way about London. I have lived in many parts of London and spent a lot of time in Paris so can make a personal assessment of both cities and they are more alike that many may realise.

If Mane goes will we sign someone else, I think so. Will he be a replacement for Mane, I doubt it. Look what happened when Phil left and how the team evolved from when Jurgen first arrived. We will adapt the style of play to suit the players we have. Will we focus on a more dominant midfield and a traditional number 9. probably not as it is not Jurgen's style. Will we keep the same shape, probably not as it was dependent on the particular qualities of the players we had. What I have noticed over the past 7 years is that this is a team that evolves and subtly changes into something that the league has not seen before. The title winning team had a pretty defensive midfield but the addition of Thiago changed that dynamic. Injuries to our central defence distorted the picture in 2020-21 but this season we saw a much more multi-faceted team particularly in midfield. Diaz reminds me of Luis Suarez - we know he can score goals (he did so for Porto in the same way that Luis did for Ajax) but he needs to develop and hone his talent to the pace and intensity of the Premier League to become the sort of player Luis became. We make a lot of chances via crosses from the flanks but convert fewer because our strikers are not actually traditional centre forwards. Who is to say that a traditional target man might not plunder 40+ goals next season if he had the service that Trent and Robbo provide? Think David Johnson or John Aldridge for example. If you exclude 2020-21 (for which there were mitigating circumstances) this is a team that has lost 6 games in 3 seasons in the league and 2 of those defeats came when we had wrapped up the title. By contrast over the same 3 seasons, City lost 16 games. Even including 2020-21, it is 15 against 22 so realistically our problem remains scoring goals and to some extent that is down to the profligacy of Salah and Mane in particular. I grew up watching Ian Rush and the one thing that he was good at was converting a chance if it came his way. He did not have as many shots on goal as Mane and Salah make for themselves but he converted more chances than either of them. Get a player in who can do that and out defensive strength should prevail since City's problem is not up front but at the back where even now they remain vulnerable to a team that actually attacks them.