{"id":1572,"date":"2019-07-25T10:09:37","date_gmt":"2019-07-25T10:09:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.andcouldheplay.com\/?p=1572"},"modified":"2019-07-25T10:09:37","modified_gmt":"2019-07-25T10:09:37","slug":"why-might-liverpool-be-keeping-their-transfer-powder-dry","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.andcouldheplay.com\/why-might-liverpool-be-keeping-their-transfer-powder-dry\/","title":{"rendered":"Why Might Liverpool Be Keeping Their Transfer Powder Dry?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The new season is approaching rather rapidly now, isn\u2019t it? It\u2019s just over a week until we\u2019ll be lining up against Manchester City in the Community Shield, which plenty of people from both sides will either claim to be a huge trophy that is indicative of how the campaign ahead will pan out or else declare to be meaningless, depending on how things pan out. Given I thought the Cityzens looked genuinely moronic when they included it in their list of trophies when they chose to declare themselves to be \u2018Fourmidable\u2019 at the end of 2018-2019, I\u2019m not going to be changing my tune and suggesting that the match is anything other than one more glorified pre-season friendly regardless of who ends up winning it. That\u2019s not to say that I don\u2019t want to see our lads win, of course. Whilst it genuinely is just a friendly, beating City would give them a degree of confidence heading into the new campaign, especially when they failed to do so in two season-defining games last time out.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-partner=\"tweetdeck\">\n<p dir=\"ltr\" lang=\"en\">Suppose <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/hashtag\/LFC?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">#LFC<\/a> don\u2019t sign any forward or attacking player before the Community Shield &#8211; 99% certain.<\/p>\n<p>Man\u00e9 won\u2019t play the game as the club indicated.<\/p>\n<p>So, we\u2019ll probably go with Salah-Origi-Firmino up front most possibly against the best team in England in terms of quality.<\/p>\n<p>\u2014 Rithwik Rajendran (@rithwikrajendra) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/rithwikrajendra\/status\/1154065600123006976?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">July 24, 2019<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p>As much as I don\u2019t think it deserves all that much importance being attached to it in terms of the result, there\u2019s no question that the Community Shield is the curtain-raiser for the season ahead. We\u2019ll learn a certain amount from it, even if we won\u2019t actually see the squad at its strongest thanks to the absence of Sadio Man\u00e9 and the fact that the likes of Roberto Firmino, Alisson Becker and Mo Salah will only have been back training for a few weeks. What it will tell us is just how fit the team is and whether or not J\u00fcrgen Klopp has a few surprises up his sleeve. Will Adam Lallana be fit enough to start, for example? If so, will he play as the defensive midfielder and give Fabinho the freedom to play elsewhere, as the manager seems to be keen to experiment with? Perhaps more than anything else, it will be the German\u2019s last chance to decide whether or not his squad needs strengthening, which he appears resolutely determined not to do. Why might that be?<\/p>\n<h2>Klopp Genuinely Believes We Don\u2019t Need To Strengthen<\/h2>\n<p>Since J\u00fcrgen Klopp has come into the club he has extolled the virtues of training over spending money. In the build-up to the match with Real Madrid in the Champions League final in 2018, the German couldn\u2019t help but talk about how the Spanish side were strong because they had been together for so long. It\u2019s clear that he values the idea of working with his players, improving them on the training pitch and getting a tight-knit group of lads who are all pulling in the same direction and understanding his methods. I do believe him when he says that his squad is strong enough and that it will take a world-class player to improve them; or at least I believe that he believes that. I\u2019d argue that that\u2019s true of the first-team but that the squad as a whole could be improved relatively easily and without a huge outlay, but the only opinion that matters is the manager\u2019s.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-partner=\"tweetdeck\">\n<p dir=\"ltr\" lang=\"en\">I think I\u2019ve accepted we\u2019re not making any big signings this summer. Couple subs maybe but nothing special. If Klopp trusts his squad then I trust him.<\/p>\n<p>\u2014 Owen (@OSMLFC) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/OSMLFC\/status\/1141313024910942208?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">June 19, 2019<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p>The Community Shield match alone won\u2019t tell us whether the manager\u2019s faith in his squad is misplaced, but it will give us a very good idea. We know, for example, that Rhian Brewster is perhaps the reason why Michael Edwards is seemingly not shopping for a forward player this summer. If he can perform against City\u2019s defence as he has managed against the backlines of the likes of Tranmere Rovers and Bradford City then maybe his confidence will be well-founded. Equally if Adam Lewis is able to step up and cope with the attacking prowess of Raheem Sterling then Klopp\u2019s evident refusal to buy a backup left-back will be more understandable. City\u2019s team won\u2019t be at full strength either, of course, with both Sergio Ag\u00fcero and Gabriel J\u00e9sus missing for the match. They\u2019ll be just as keen to win it, though, so it\u2019s a match we can look to as a touchstone for both the upcoming campaign and the manager\u2019s belief in his squad.<\/p>\n<h2>I Don\u2019t Think He\u2019s Got Money To Spend<\/h2>\n<p>Ask anyone about Liverpool\u2019s current financial situation and they\u2019ll almost certainly tell you that we\u2019re rich. We\u2019re one of the richest club\u2019s in world football, of course, so that\u2019s understandable to an extent. Most people will point towards the likes of the TV money we were paid last season and how much we earned from winning the European Cup as proof that we\u2019ve got money to burn this summer. In reality I\u2019m not convinced that we have that much disposable income, for the simple reason that pretty much every player in the squad will have had a heavily incentivised contract, one of the incentives for which will almost certainly have been winning the Champions League. Let\u2019s hypothesise that twenty players were owed a \u00a35 million bonus the moment Jordan Henderson lifted ol\u2019 Big Ears, that\u2019s a \u00a3100 million deficit on the accounts before anything else has happened.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-partner=\"tweetdeck\">\n<p dir=\"ltr\" lang=\"en\">We&#8217;re Champions League winners, we&#8217;ve got J\u00fcrgen Klopp, we&#8217;ve got World Class players at the club, we&#8217;ve got Anfield, but we still haven&#8217;t won that trophy we&#8217;re all craving. This is our best chance of bringing in almost anyone we want. Why are we currently standing still?<\/p>\n<p>\u2014 6 (@AnfieldRd96) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/AnfieldRd96\/status\/1154003612227506176?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">July 24, 2019<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p>It\u2019s likely that players such as Virgil van Dijk and Naby Keita were signed thanks to similar promises made to the selling clubs, with the Reds promising them extra amounts if we were to lift one of the two biggest trophies in club football. With that in mind, doesn\u2019t it seem likely that we don\u2019t have anywhere near the amount of money that most supporters seem to think we do? The answer to that from most quarters appears to be that the manager \u2018doesn\u2019t like spending money\u2019, but I\u2019m not sure that I agree with that either. The people saying that \u2018this is Klopp\u2019s way\u2019 are missing a rather big point, which is that the manager has spent money every single summer since he\u2019s been at the club. In terms of big name incomings alone, here\u2019s the list with the year bought:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Sadio Man\u00e9 &#8211; 2016<\/li>\n<li>Georginio Wijnaldum &#8211; 2016<\/li>\n<li>Mohammed Salah &#8211; 2017<\/li>\n<li>Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain &#8211; 2017<\/li>\n<li>Virgil van Dijk &#8211; 2018<\/li>\n<li>Fabinho &#8211; 2018<\/li>\n<li>Naby Ke\u00efta &#8211; 2018<\/li>\n<li>Alisson &#8211; 2018<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>That list doesn\u2019t even include smaller purchases like Andy Robertson and Xherdan Shaqiri, so the notion that the manager \u2018doesn\u2019t like to spend money\u2019 is verifiably false. In fact, this summer would be the only one in which he hasn\u2019t spent big bucks, so the idea of the manager \u2018doing things his own way\u2019 includes splashing the cash. With that in mind, I think the reason he\u2019s not going into the market is far more likely to do with a lack of money to spend than it is anything to do with a desire not to spend it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The new season is approaching rather rapidly now, isn\u2019t it? It\u2019s just over a week until we\u2019ll be lining up against Manchester City in the Community Shield, which plenty of people from both sides will either claim to be a huge trophy that is indicative of how the campaign ahead will pan out or else declare to be meaningless, depending on how things pan out. Given I thought the Cityzens looked genuinely moronic when they included it in their list of trophies when they chose to declare themselves to be \u2018Fourmidable\u2019 at the end of 2018-2019, I\u2019m not going to [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1469,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.andcouldheplay.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1572"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.andcouldheplay.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.andcouldheplay.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.andcouldheplay.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.andcouldheplay.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1572"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.andcouldheplay.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1572\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1573,"href":"https:\/\/www.andcouldheplay.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1572\/revisions\/1573"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.andcouldheplay.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1469"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.andcouldheplay.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1572"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.andcouldheplay.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1572"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.andcouldheplay.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1572"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}