Trent Alexander-Arnold

Lol Valverde would turn him into Roberto's backup If he were here instead of Liverpool.

I agree though, great talent. Improving with each season. Should see his career at Liverpool imo.

He'd not close to Alves though. Alves was as complete of a RB as you're ever likely to see.

I agree. Alves was on another level and for me, easily the GOAT right back in his prime.

However there haven't been any truly great RB's that have come since him, only Kimmich and Arnold come to mind (Carvajal is not that good). Both have had superb seasons but Arnold won the CL and had one of the most pivotal semifinal performances ever to achieve that. I think he's the best since Alves was on top.

Prime Alves had Arnold's ability to deliver the final ball, plus far superior linkup, and several tiers above Arnold in terms of workrate/defense.

serghei said:

Lol Valverde would turn him into Roberto's backup If he were here instead of Liverpool.

I agree though, great talent. Improving with each season. Should see his career at Liverpool imo.

He'd not close to Alves though. Alves was as complete of a RB as you're ever likely to see.

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The lad looks very impressive, but he would be largely useless here. His crossing is his best attribute and we're only capable of playing on the ground here.

Would love to see a modern Barca with a player like him, a taller striker and some physical, mobile midfielders in the near future.

DonAndres said:

He's had the best season for a RB I've seen since prime Alves years. He gave one of the truly historical CL performances against us at Anfield, and had 15 assists in league + CL. He and Kimmich are both pure class, and Arnold is freaking 20 years old.

Klopp has to get a lot of credit because of the confidence he instilled TAA with at such a young age but he is a huge talent in his own right. Liverpool's fullbacks are something else. I'd pay 80m+ for him but Liverpool would be idiots to ever consider selling.

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Every single player has improved under Klopp
The opposite applies to Valverde

Zidane82 said:

Every single player has improved under Klopp
The opposite applies to Valverde

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Not to mention that when players are aged 23 or 26, that they are usually improving in a natural way.
And when your core players have 31 and 32 years, no magician in the world can help them.

Messi 32
Suarez 32
Pique 32
Vidal 32
Bsuquets 31
Rakitic 31
Alba 30
Our guys are ready to fly all over the pitch guys, lol...

Not to mention that Klopp picked his signings based on football he wants to play.
Yet, our board is byuing players whom they want like panic buys Dembele, Coutinho or Malcom.

Klopp is awesome, but...
But I would like to see how his team would have played with a team filled with 32 years old players and where he wouldn't be able to buy players whom he wants but Barto would buy him Malcoms and similar players.
Not to mention that our players won everything and are mentally drained, while Klopp has a team of young and mentally motivated players.
A hint: Klopp's team consisted of our mentally drained, old, slow and tired turtles surely wouldn't play nice or win a CL.
Neither with 3 Klopps on our bench.

Imagine Pep yelling:
Come on, Messi, you need to run 14kms per match!
Come on, Busi, you need to run.
Busi replies: coach, I can't run. I tried. I just can't do it anymore.
Klopp: Suarez, you have to run and lose some weight.
Klopp: Raki, try to run faster.

How to do any of these things?

I don't think it's down to individual improvement, it's more a team improvement. For example i think Semedo would look great at Liverpool and fans would be angry we sold him.
In my opinion full backs need to be fast eneough, good enough defenders and have a good stamina, if, on top of that, they can beat opponent 1 on 1 and cross great we are talking about elite full backs. Now, Barca basically doesn't need that, we need defending midfielder on the wing.

Look what those L'pool FB do, basically very simple....run down the side, harass opponent and then feed the ball in the box where players are attacking it.
Who is attacking the box in Barca? Noone or just suarez standing wrongly on the far side. Even then I'm willing to bet our FBs are told to keep possession and not try to find lonely player in the box. Both our FB are doing that, the only difference is Messi who often feeds Alba with those godly passes and therefore Alba looks miles better than Semedo.

I said many times during the season, our style (current, not philosopy) is to blame, slow passing without any attacks in the box, basically we don't even use FBs.

BBZ8800 said:

Not to mention that when players are aged 23 or 26, that they are usually improving in a natural way.
And when your core players have 31 and 32 years, no magician in the world can help them.

Messi 32
Suarez 32
Pique 32
Vidal 32
Bsuquets 31
Rakitic 31
Alba 30
Our guys are ready to fly all over the pitch guys, lol...

Not to mention that Klopp picked his signings based on football he wants to play.
Yet, our board is byuing players whom they want like panic buys Dembele, Coutinho or Malcom.

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Ah yes, because if Valverde was allowed to buy the likes of Willian , Parejo etc. Im sure he would have started playing some amazing and breathtaking football.

BBZ8800 said:

Klopp is awesome, but...
But I would like to see how his team would have played with a team filled with 32 years old players and where he wouldn't be able to buy players whom he wants but Barto would buy him Malcoms and similar players.
Not to mention that our players won everything and are mentally drained, while Klopp has a team of young and mentally motivated players.
A hint: Klopp's team consisted of our mentally drained, old, slow and tired turtles surely wouldn't play nice or win a CL.
Neither with 3 Klopps on our bench.

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Im sure Klopp would have considered the likes of Foldberto , Rakitic , Suarez etc starting material. Klopp thrashed your boy Valverde with the likes of fucking Origi , Shaqiri , Milner and you are here bullshitting as usual thinking Klopp wouldn't win anything or play entertaining football with the likes of Dembele , Coutinho , Semedo , Arthur properly integrated and with a clear system in mind.

messi2140 said:

Ah yes, because if Valverde was allowed to buy the likes of Willian , Parejo etc. Im sure he would have started playing some amazing and breathtaking football.

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Willian, no matter how crap he is, would probably offer more than Malcom.
That means more options over 50-60 matches in a season.

messi2140 said:

Im sure Klopp would have considered the likes of Foldberto , Rakitic , Suarez etc starting material. Klopp thrashed your boy Valverde with the likes of fucking Origi , Shaqiri , Milner and you are here bullshitting as usual thinking Klopp wouldn't win anything or play entertaining football with the likes of Dembele , Coutinho , Semedo , Arthur properly integrated and with a clear system in mind.

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CL final:
Mane 27
Firmino 27
Salah 27

Henderson 28
Wijnaldum 28
Fabinho 25

Fullbacks:
Robertson 25
Alexander 20

Messi 32
Suarez 32
Pique 32
Vidal 32
Bsuquets 31
Rakitic 31
Alba 30

Do you understand simple basics of biology?
If you take 100 random footballers aged 23, they will be able to run: faster and have more stamina than average guys aged 30.
If you'll reply: but but but, there is one guy aged 32 who is running a lot. Then google what averages mean and why I have mentioned 100 players.
One AVERAGE and on LARGER SAMPLES, younger players will always be able to run more and faster than 30 years old players.

Then basics of psychology:
After each achievement, you will be less and less motivated.
Now take 100 guys who won 100 trophies and 100 guys who won 0 trophies.
And measure their motivation.
I know: but but but, there is one guy aged 34 like CR7 who is still motivated.
Again, google average and larger samples and again I have mentioned 100 guys, not rare exceptions.

So, basically:
Biology, age, stamina, physical skills in general:
Liverpool>Barcelona
Psychology, motivation:
Liverpool>Barcelona
Technique:
Other teams have come close to us, so our advantage is small.

If you want Klopp to coach us, you need to play a faster football.
How to play faster with a master of slowing down Arthur?
How to play faster with another master of slowing down: Busi?
How to play faster with another turtle who has average technique: Raki?
How to play faster with Suarez who is fat, slow, complacent, unmotivated, old, and struggles with a first touch and simple passes?
How to play faster with Messi in a team, who moves slow, does what he wants on a field, and everyone needs to pass the ball to him in EVERY SINGLE ACTION?
Dembele, has pace, lack brains.
Malcom, lacks everything.
Coutinho, lacks pace, stamina and defending.

Who in our team is actually good enough for Liverpool's modern football?
Only Frenkie.
Maybe Semedo.
Maybe Alba.
That's it.

So, yeah, cool story, Klopp would turn this bunch of slow, drained, tired turtles into a team which can run and press.

But I see that you are still overrating our team.
You, Cule4Life, KingLeo10 and others laughed at me during a season 1000s of times because of Dembele, Malcom, Arthur, Semedo.
You have my offer and my bet: let's see whather more than 1 out of these 4 forum's favorites will stay here after a summer of 2021'.
And whether more than 1 of them will ever in their career (at Barca or after Barca) will reach our forum's expectations.

Semedo may leave a club this summer.
Malcom, Crystal Palace level.
Arthur gaining weight steadily.
Dembele, I have no idea how will he improve brains.

But keep living in your illusion that we have one of the best teams in the world.
When you remove Messi and Frenkie, this is a team of old, drained players who were good 5-10 years ago, and young players are a bunch of the most overrated and horrible transfers since Gaspart's era.

Not about TAA but generally I dont understand why we dont scout players from the sub top/midtable PL teams. Liverpool found the majority of their players in these teams, some of them for peanuts: Robertson, Mane, Joe Gomez..... Van Dijk swell but ofc he was expensive. Some very good players in those teams IMO we should scout.

Seems my point went completely over your head ,but Im not surprised. Keep writing wall of texts that don't make any sense.

Riordon said:

Not about TAA but generally I dont understand why we dont scout players from the sub top/midtable PL teams. Liverpool found the majority of their players in these teams, some of them for peanuts: Robertson, Mane, Joe Gomez..... Van Dijk swell but ofc he was expensive. Some very good players in those teams IMO we should scout.

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A top team can't do that as successfully as Liverpool have done. Now that they themselves are a top team they won't be able to develop the cheap talents to the same extent as they've done in recent years.

A talent needs to be allowed to fail if he's supposed to develop. If you're a club that's competing for titles, you can't afford losses, hence less chance for talents to get playing time from the proven seniors.

That implies Valverde is forced to work with only slow old turtles. Do you think he desperately wants to replace Suarez-Rakitic-Busi but the club just doesn't let him do it? I doubt it.

His wishes were apparently players like Willian (turned 30 in August) and Parejo (turned 30 in April)..so the next old players we could say: they can't run that much anymore, they can't develop, they're too old.

I think Valverde just doesn't mind this slow ass turtle football because there is no indication he wants to change it in any way. Either that or he is way too sacred of the team and Barto to even think about it

Andresito said:

A top team can't do that as successfully as Liverpool have done. Now that they themselves are a top team they won't be able to develop the cheap talents to the same extent as they've done in recent years.

A talent needs to be allowed to fail if he's supposed to develop. If you're a club that's competing for titles, you can't afford losses, hence less chance for talents to get playing time from the proven seniors.

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I think he means scouting midtable Premier League teams in general. I really like Maddison but not sure he would be good enough for Barca. Then again, I wouldn't have thought Eriksen would be either.

DonAndres said:

He's had the best season for a RB I've seen since prime Alves years. He gave one of the truly historical CL performances against us at Anfield, and had 15 assists in league + CL. He and Kimmich are both pure class, and Arnold is freaking 20 years old.

Klopp has to get a lot of credit because of the confidence he instilled TAA with at such a young age but he is a huge talent in his own right. Liverpool's fullbacks are something else. I'd pay 80m+ for him but Liverpool would be idiots to ever consider selling.

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Yup I think he's been the best RB past season.

Only [MENTION=16942]BBZ8800[/MENTION], and probably the new [MENTION=23863]Tackle[/MENTION] chap, can have the nerve to use a situation Valverde caused (i.e. overreliance - to the state of near adulation - on veterans and established players above new talents) as an excuse for his failures. Incredible. You can't win with these guys .