Liverpool fans demand credit for beating ‘bare bones’ Real Madrid

Liverpool beat Real Madrid (though it really didn’t matter) and they are not getting enough credit.

Send your views to theeditor@football365.com

Hey Will Ford…
Have we played anyone yet?

Asking for a friend.
Gronkie (LFC)

(Erm, no – Ed)

Why take pleasure in seeking doubts in hope, F365
I have refrained from sharing thoughts here since Klopp’s departure and Slot’s arrival. With no expectations into the season, nobody including our fanbase expected us to be here at this stage.

Having said that Will Ford’s latest article makes me wonder the scraps F365 are picking on to get clicks or they held Will Ford to the gallows if he didn’t write the article. The narrative here is that Liverpool haven’t beaten a proper team (and hence we’re probably at the top).

How about y’all create a world XI and then ask Slot’s team to play them? The lads may still manage to beat them and y’all would want retired legends to take to the field.

The article is THE definition of how deprived we are as brain-numbed zombies who take pleasure in seeking doubts in hope,

Come on F365, do better brainstorm sessions.
M. Nair, Mumbai

(Is tongue-in-cheek not a thing in Mumbai? – Ed)

Liverpool beat Real Madrid! Sod the injuries
At the end of last night’s Liverpool game I heard the commentary team say that Madrid were at their “bare bones.”

But let’s consider the fair comment from Bellingham recently, along with the endless similar comments from players previously: Madrid is THE ultimate destination.

And I get that. They’ve won more of the biggest prizes; they are, as statistically as you can say, THE BEST TEAM. Every elite player wants to play for them…

And that’s why I found the “bare bones” comment just a teeny bit triggering.

Yes, we’re operating in the upper echelons. Yes, all the teams are outstanding.

But Real Madrid have the most outstanding team and squad of all. Any reserve player is by definition one of the best reserve players in the entire world, a player who turned down every other opportunity and went to Real. A player who would most likely get into almost any other team in the world; not squad, team.

So, look again and I think you’ll see their bare skeletal bones are, actually, incredibly fleshy and muscular. And they get zero sympathy from me.

2-0, you c**ts.
Lew, Oxford

Shame it doesn’t matter…
Love that Liverpool won/hate that it matters little.
Aidan, Lfc (also love Bradley)

…I’m 20 minutes into Liverpool – Real Madrid and it hit me.

These new format Champions League games are a series of Community Shield games.

Nice anticipation, but not too many nerves, because if Liverpool win it’s great… If not it’s of no great significance.

Both teams will reach the knockout stages (with an extra game or not) anyway.
Graham

A question for Gary Neville
I wonder if our old friend Gary Neville still thinks Liverpool’s midfield is their weak spot after last night’s game. My word, all 3 of them were good! And if this is what fatherhood does to Curtis Jones then I hope he has 3 or 4 more.
Adam (Leeds)

He’s a keeper!
Sensible Liverpool supporter question – does anyone know why Kelleher, with his last two years of fantastic auditions, has not been trusted to step up and be number 1?

Mamardashvili is a fantastic keeper and, if reports are to be believed, a relative steal at a deal worth 25m plus add-ons but from the outside, it feels like Kelleher has earned the right to take the no.1 spot without any concern on PR (the fans seem to love him?) and the 25m could be bolstering a deal for another, more needed player? Before considering an incoming players wages being a higher premium in the main, to players promoted from within.

Certainly not a criticism – I just can’t think of a no.2 in the Champions League more trustworthy (maybe Ortega?) than Kelleher, he’s only 26 and has similar numbers of international caps to Mamardashvili and while Kelleher only has half the 1st team appearances at the top level, the only reason he doesn’t have like-for-like is because Alisson has remained at the top of the game. It’s arguably more impressive that with his inconsistent appearances, he’s managed to remain so consistently solid.

I appreciate it could be that Alisson intends to sign another contract and Mamardashvili at 2 years Kelleher’s junior, is happy to understudy for 3/4 years where Kelleher isn’t but even then, from the outside in, there’s a definite possibility of cashing in on Alisson in his early 30’s while there is a ready made replacement, rather than letting him go for pennies or naught in his mid to late 30s.

If I’ve missed an obvious piece of news on this – apologies – just curiosity has got me on this one and has not been informative, so some ITK F365 knowledge is what I’m after.
Harold Eddie Hooler
P.S – I honestly can’t call which is the better result (prestige probably has me leaning beating Real – but it’s close given how dominant Arsenal were) but really good to see both Arsenal and Liverpool this week putting a serious boot down.

More on those Liverpool contracts
Like Adam (Leeds), I’ve found that the gloss has been taken off Liverpool’s storming start to the season by the continuing uncertainty around Trent’s, Van Dijk’s and Salah’s contracts. I’m sure there’s much more to the situation than has been publicly discussed, and of course the club can’t just give them all whatever they want, but letting your three (in my view) best players get to within six months of the ends of their contracts all at the same time seems incompetent regardless of the mitigating factors.

On Salah first, I’m firmly in the Give Mo His Dough Camp. I get where Lee’s coming from – we’re going to have to replace Salah sometime in the next few years whatever happens and players of that age can go downhill suddenly and without much warning. But his comparison with Henderson and Milner doesn’t stand up – first because Salah is a much better player than either of them, and second because I’m not sure we did really get stuck with Milner or Henderson longer than we wanted.

And his idea of giving him a one-year contract when, as he notes, 2025-26 is an AFCON season and these tend not to be Mo’s best, makes no sense to me.

If I was in charge, I’d be happy to offer anything up to three years on his current (reported) £350k a week. That’s about £55m. Yes, there’s a risk he becomes a bit rubbish at some point and we’re stuck paying him. But signing any player, whether 33 or 23, involves financial risk. If we sign someone else to replace him, that someone else will almost inevitably (given our budget) never have played at the very top level (challenging for the EPL and UCL) before. That could very easily lead to writing off £50m+.

And it’s only the full £55m of regret spend on Salah if he becomes rubbish from the start of next season, which seems pretty unlikely. Even if he does start falling short of LFC standards, say, sometime in the second season of a new contract, surely someone in Saudi Arabia would come in for him.

I don’t know what Mo’s actual view on the Saudi Pro League is. There’s an assumption in some quarters that because he’s an Arab Muslim, he must be keen to play there one day. I’m sure it’s not as simple as that. Even so, I still think we’d have some chance of moving him on if he did start to fall short later in the contract.

Re-signing Salah now also strengthens our hand in signing his replacement. Give him three more years and that gives us loads of time to find a replacement or to bring one through from the academy. If we lose him in the summer, we’ll have no choice but to sign a replacement quickly, regardless of whether the perfect player is available. And any club we try to buy from will know we’re a forced buyer and add £10m on the price.

The case for offering him a big contract now becomes even stronger when you consider what happens if he doesn’t extend with Liverpool. He seems determined to stay at the highest level, so he’d almost certainly end up at a rival club, either elsewhere in Europe or even in England. Presumably Real is a non-starter given they’ve already got too many superstar forwards and Barcelona have their salary funding issues, but Bayern, PSG or Atletico all sound like possibilities.

In England, I’m not sure you could rule out City. They re-signed Gundogan despite the clear (and now seemingly crystallised) risk that he was past it. You could argue that they’ll have learned a lesson from that, but you could also argue that shows they don’t have an absolute policy of not signing older players. Losing our best player on a free to our biggest current domestic rival would be a huge blow. Or at the very least a huge gamble on the expectation that his form is going to fall off a cliff very soon. If not City, then Arsenal or Man U both seem like realistic possibilities. I’m not sure Mo is the “never for another club in England” type, particularly if he’s leaving Liverpool feeling like the club have failed to recognise him for the all-time great player he is.

On Van Dijk, if we had to lose one of the three, he’d be the one I’d choose. He’s been our best defender more or less continuously for his time at the club (minus an understandable period of playing himself back in after P*ckf*rd smashed his knee up) and at his best he’s better than any centre back I’ve ever seen. And he’s also showing no real sign of decline yet. Plus centre backs tend to go on longer than forwards, so there’s probably a better chance of getting another three good years out of him than with Salah.

But the drop off from him to Quansah/Gomez/Konate is much smaller than from Salah to Chiesa/Doak/Gakpo. I also think the risk of getting stuck with him if his form drops off later in the contract is bigger because he doesn’t quite have Salah’s superstar status. So I very much hope we keep him, but also he seems the one whose loss would be the least damaging and where the risk of getting stuck paying a lot to a player who doesn’t play in a couple of years is greatest.

On Trent, it’s a weird one. I still remember (but can’t find on Google) those Steven Gerrard quotes after he decided to turn down a move to Chelsea. He said he could easily have gone off to Chelsea and probably won more medals, but when he came back to Liverpool afterwards, who was going to want to hear about it? I really hope Trent feels the same way, but I’m not sure he does.

Even ignoring the money side, elite football recently has become more about the individual and less about the team. I can’t imagine any Scouse Liverpool player ten years ago saying what Trent said about dreaming of the Ballon d’Or. Michael Owen, for all he had a bit of an ego on him, said he found the ceremony at Anfield where he was given his Ballon d’Or a bit embarrassing and couldn’t wait for it to be over so they could get on with the match.

Everything seems to be falling horribly into place with Real – Carvajal’s injury/decline, the bromance with Bellingham, them being the biggest club in the world at the moment and Trent’s individual ambition. I do wonder whether the match tonight (as I write) could have an impact. Madrid are four points and twelve places outside the UCL top eight with four games to play. Lose at Anfield and they’re in a bit of trouble (albeit still favourites to go through in this low-jeopardy format). I know that even Madrid getting knocked out of this year’s UCL makes no direct difference to Trent, but you’d have to think that seeing them getting beaten, and hearing about the squabbling amongst the Galacticos, while watching Liverpool (so far this season…) sweeping almost all before them would have an impact on his thinking.

Of course Bradley’s great – he’s a better runner with the ball, perhaps a bit quicker and focuses better on his defending. But there’s no other player in the world like Trent, and I’d hate to lose him. I’d also love to see whether Slot can make him an even better player.

I’m sure Michael Edwards and Richard Hughes are avid mailbox readers, so please guys, pull your fingers and your LFC chequebooks out and get those contracts signed.
Tom, LFC

Loving the Chelsea finance chat
Firstly just want say it’s a refreshing change to get a mail about something other than the usual stuff and secondly it’s nice to see a mail which not only discusses football finances but actually understands it as well.

People seemed very surprised when Clearlake started handing out 8 year contracts I however was not. The reason is I’m also a big NHL fan and it’s common to see long contracts like this in American sports for exactly the same reason boehly et al did it here – avoiding financial restrictions. In hockey teams have a salary cap set by the league and long contracts are often a way to circumvent the cap by shifting a large proportion of the expense either to the back of the contract or spreading it out.

So it didn’t surprise me really.

I am a massive loser (as I’m sure the other readers will attest to) because I actually read football clubs published accounts to try and understand how teams spend money. I’d say the vast majority of people including pundits and ‘experts’ don’t understand football finances and so it was a good change of pace to see a mail discussing it and understanding it.
Lee

Fantasy Man Utd
As the media outlets have all decided that United need yet another overhaul and a complete new team to suit Amorim here’s my choice.

Rules of the game, you get to pick one player from a PL club to fit into your plan. Don’t need 427 paragraphs to explain, just a list.

Gk – I’m keeping Onana but take Leno as 2nd choice
CB – Mickey van de Ven
CB – Gabriel
CB – Branthwaite
RWB – Reece James
LWB – Lucas Digne
CM – Rodri
CM – Bruno Guimares
LF – Jarrod Bowen
CF – Liam Delap
RF – Mo Salah
Steve (ex -Flixton Red), Ontario