Press resistant, great passer that can use both feet, lots of experience and has captained both his club and national team before.
I think if he applies himself he can turn into a better and perhaps more dynamic player than Xhaka.
I guess the argument about his off the ball work is that Xhaka’s off the ball work isn’t or moreso wasn’t great either. I think Xhaka improved defensively under Emery and moreso Arteta.
I have some doubts about Tielemans but am willing to trust Arteta/Edu on transfers a bit.
Assuming we play the same 4-3-3 type system we were trending toward this year, I see it as:
DM - Partey/Sambi/Elneny
8s - Odegaard, Tielemans, Xhaka, ???
I feel like we still need some help in that 8 position, even if we sign Tielemans. It could be selling Xhaka and getting in a better player. Or maybe Smith-Rowe settles into being an 8. In the long term, Patino could be part of the solution. But right now it looks thin to me. My gut also says that Ode/Tielemans/Xhaka is a trio short on athleticism and engine.
One thing I will add is that 25m is a good price for sure. And if we are getting Jesus for 35-40m and Tielemans for 25m, I would still expect us to have money left over to sign at least one other high priced player, who could take the window to another level.
Perhaps Madrid weren’t really that interested in him @JakeyBoy.
Certainly looks like he may be settling with what actual offers he got.
Hopefully that means Leicester aren’t gonna fuck around with their asking fee.
Despite his shitty form, I’m surprised Leicester fans aren’t crying about Youri.
It triggers me that it doesn’t trigger them like it did with Madders, who they also thought was the shits last summer…
I’m not as high on this guy as some on here let’s put it that way.
Wow! What a surprise 
is it because he isn’t a liverpool player? :pepe1:
I can count on one hand the people that are actually high on him in here.
I’d prefer Fabinho yeah.
I am coming around on him. I’m still concerned about his workrate off the ball and overall level of athleticism but I think we do need a player like him. He is both much more press resistant than Xhaka and contributes a lot more in the final third.
Maybe I’m just talking myself into the transfer but it feels like if we had a player like Tielemans instead of Xhaka then we would be more threatening on the left hand side in attack and we could also control matches much better even in Partey’s inevitable absences because he would help out with ball progression and beating the press a lot more than Xhaka can.
Still think we’d be heavily reliant on Partey staying fit for the full season.
For me unless we have some transfer window that shocks me, I’ll go as far to say to finish top 4 we need to get minimum 30 league games out of Partey.
Sounds like a very front loaded midfield.
Shallow on the back end
Bit like City.
For waht is worth, Rodgers has used Youri as the deepest midfielder before, in the Partey role.
Yeah, I think that is true. I guess the caveat is that we seem to be trending more toward the Pep style 4-3-3 in which the FBs are more conservative in possession while the 8s push forward in attack rather than the Klopp style where the FBs bomb forward and you rely on the 8s to be good tacklers and control transitions.
@Castiel made me come around to it. Ultimately, I trust the talent ID of Arteta(mostly) and Edu. Even the players we didn’t manage to sign kind of banged like Kulu and Abraham when people didn’t expect them to.
Reckon if we’re keen on Youri then Arteta and co. know he is the right fit.
Rodgers teams also concede 50 + goals.
We’re not far off.
I’m well aware.
Offensively we’re about 30 goals behind the top 2.
Defensively 20 goals.
50 goal gulf and 25 points or so to make up.
Fwiw, I looked at the prior year stats and from what I can tell he didn’t concede any penalties in the three years previous. Not great that he seems to have stopped giving a fuck this year but I’m not sure that otherwise its really a weakness in his game.