If you’re only going to secure your position in the table, mathematically, on the final day of the season, you can’t always be in control.
I give Klopp a lot of credit, but I also think they have been historically lucky/good on the transfer front with sales and buys in the last 3 years or so… regression to the mean will hit there is my guess, but I am not sure all the credit for that confluence of transfer events goes to Klopp.
But the math is skewed by the 3 points for a win issue… I can be 8 points up with 3 games to go and not be mathematically “in control” but clearly I am in control.
Anyway, not sure how anyone is downplaying this Pool side - they are damn good and on the ascendancy last couple of years, making CL final and asserting themselves early this season as potential threat to CIty, which probably no one thought possible after City 100.
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This’ll be dismissed as me being pedantic no doubt, but if what you want to do is acknowledge that they were expensive signings but not quality ones you’d be best off not bringing them up and then talking about us always going for the “cheap option”
I see. So you are saying that, despite the fact that City absolutely ran away with the league last year and led the table by a good 10-20 points for most of the time, they weren’t really in control because they mathematically secured the title on 15th of April, the 34th round, only 4 weeks before the end of the season.
They were expensive in terms of our spending but that’s my point.
Our spending equates to the bare minimum for a top European club and Liverpool have shown us how it’s done.
When have we ever shown ambition in the transfer market?
Even Ozil was, as Wenger said, to good to turn down.
We have needed a world class CB, DM and GK for ages, and we’re still waiting, and although Mustafi and Xhaka were relatively expensive, for us, they were the bare minimum for a club that boasts, “we can afford any player.”
Xhaka was absolutely in the top ten most expensive midfielders of all time when we made that transfer, I actually think top five but not confident enough to boldly state it. Yes, inflation accounts for that in a big way, but the point is that they weren’t expensive by our standards, they were expensive by any standards. But unfortunately really rather shit.
I don’t disagree that for years we did things on the cheap, and it seems we sometimes still do, but they aren’t examples of that. They were pretty expensive signings by any metric.
It’s a pointless thing for me to be arguing in the grand scheme, but I live for this shit.
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It’s ironic you bring up Manchester City because, incidentally, their long-suffering fans (generally speaking) didn’t gloat or count their chickens until the job was actually done.
I genuinely find it ridiculous to say you’re in control when the worst that could happen could possibly happen (if that makes sense). See Newcastle in 1996 or Manchester United in 2012. Hindsight is a wonderful thing but if (if being the biggest word in football) Liverpool had dropped points against Brighton in the final game, being in control would have been an outlandish assumption. It’s like us saying we were always in control against Cardiff, we willed them to equalise twice just so we could work for the win.
Not downplaying but a little perspective from the media, etc would be nice. Yes, they look good, yes they’ve won their first five league games but, crucially, they haven’t won anything. The same media outlets were waxing lyrical about Spurs after they completed an impressive job at Old Trafford yet, a fortnight later, we’re on level points with them.
Heck, I’d argue that if Liverpool had the same five opening league games that we did, they wouldn’t be sitting pretty, top of the table
You really struggle with understanding what being in control means. I wish I didn’t have to reach the point where I have to be condescending but some of you leave no choices - here is a simplified version so you can get it - Liverpool could always get 4th spot without counting on other teams to drop points first so that they can get back in the race since the middle of December. Ever since then, it was always up to their results while everyone behind them had to hope they’d lose a certain amount of points.
By the way if Liverpool had drawn vs Brighton they’d still get top 4 even if Chelsea didn’t bottle their last 2 games. And the way the season went, had they lost vs Brighton, it still wouldn’t have mattered. When Chelsea beat Liverpool 1-0 they were on 67 points and needed 6 from 6 possible (they had one game postponed). Liverpool were on 72 points, 5 ahead of Chelsea and needed 1 point from 3 possible. But yeah, they barely scraped top 4.
Keep reaching for the furthest corners of the universe though.
The point I’m making (and you’ve chosen to ignore the Newcastle and Manchester United examples) is that you cannot be in control on football until the job is done.
It’s just a convenient turn of phrase that you can use in hindsight.
It’s a fact that Liverpool secured 4th place on the last day last season, it’s a fact that they secured 4th place on the last day the season before. Whether they fare better this season remains to be seen.
Seems like a fair point for me to conclude it. I’m sure everyone else is bored of it, too
That’s literally exactly what you’re doing.
Sure you can be in control, for as long as it is up to you - you are. What you are trying to say is that you can lose control, which is true and has happened to teams. Liverpool however didn’t lose the control, never, which only further attests to their quality.
OK, I am, lol. Call it unbiased, objective realism, though 
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But that’s nonsense. If City were 20 points clear with 7 games to that wouldn’t count as them “being in control” because technically the job isn’t done?
OK, I kinda get where you’re coming from. In that situation, it does seem ridiculous to say City aren’t in control (ergh, I’m beginning to hate that phrase). However, the worst can happen. It looked for all the world like Manchester United were “in control” when (correct me if I’m wrong) they were 8 points ahead in 2012 with 15 left to play for. They were even 4-2 ahead with 10 minutes to go against Everton leaving them only needing 5 points to win the league. The rest, as they say, is history.
The salient point I’m making is in Liverpool’s case. As we’ve both agreed somewhere above, their league form was strangely patchy towards the back end of last season (but as you’ve said, the CL run almost masked this bad run in the league). Based on performances in the league, and having watched their games towards the end, they didn’t look anywhere near in control
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They’d probably be on 13 points instead of 15, beat City at Anfield like they usually seem to do and draw away at Chelsea.
Yea but Pogba went for nearly 3 times as much and Sissoko went for £5m less the same window. The new PL money really hyper inflated fees. And I’d still be surprised if it was top 10 midfielders of all time. Zidane cost way more 15 years earlier and Veron was close 12 years earlier.
It was a bad transfer but at the time it looked like on paper that we might have found a Xabi Alonso type. And IIRC Bayern were interested too.
I don’t really see that it matters what Pogba and Sissoko went for, that doesn’t change how much Xhaka cost, and it doesn’t change where he ranks in the list of most expensive centre mids at that point in time. I also clearly said that inflation is a factor for his position in a list of most expensive midfielders.
In fact, I don’t see anything in your post that challenges my assertion that Xhaka was an expensive signing at the time and not a cheap option.
I also said that he was one of the most expensive centre mids ever at that point, so I don’t really see why you’re questioning whether he still is, where he sits in that list now isn’t relevant if we are discussing whether he was expensive or cheap when we signed him.
He wasn’t a cheap option but he sits in stark contrast to Pogba the same window, ie going out and buying world class talent. He was still a moneyball signing of sorts. Performed well in a mid table system in a lesser league and we hoped he would carry that up a couple of levels. And he hasn’t yet. The likes of City are/were able to spend more money on youth prospects like Stones and Sterling for 50m a piece or 50m and 60m on fullbacks. That kind of puts 35m on Xhaka into perspective.
On paper they looked good signings that window but the fact all the signings from that window failed was a huge setback.
Still maybe with experience Xhaka comes good
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