Granit Xhaka: Page 2 - The Arsenal discussion community: One More in the Tolly

Granit Xhaka

Claudius

They finished 8th in Klopp's first season. And the team he inherited was shit.

Clrnc

To challenge for title we will need alot more quality depth than now.

But how far away from a title challenging team if we manage to build a team like this for example?

-------------Leno/Martinez
AMN or new RB - Gabriel - Saliba - Tierney
Ceballos Partey Aouar
Pepe Auba Dembele

JazzG

Have to keep him this summer, if we are planning a major rebuild of our midfield then it is vital he stays. His performances in the last few months I'd be happy to keep him in the team. He has definitely got back to the kind of level we need in midfield and think he could work well with someone like Partey (if we get him that is!).

speedy

Claudius wrote:
They finished 8th in Klopp's first season. And the team he inherited was shit.

He inherited this

In the forward line they had
Roberto Firmino
Danny Ings
Christian Benteke
Daniel Sturridge (who they played injured and ruined)
Divock Origi

In midfield they had

Philippe Coutinho
James Milner
Jordan Henderson
Luis Alberto (spanish international)
Joe Allen
Emre Can
Lucas Leiva
Adam Lallana

Defense
Martin Skrtel
Dejan Lovren
Alberto Moreno
Mamadou Sakho
Joe Gomez
Kolo Toure
Nathaniel Clyne

They have a good handful of development players that didnt make it. but you can see was the building bocks of the current side, they're young talented and very sellable if needed.

MistaT

The season starts in roughly a month, and to me that's too quick to think we can bring in a whole new midfield. Will be much easier to start with a foundation similar to how we ended last season (Xhaka-Ceballos) and then imrpove from there by integrating new signings. Personally, I think we're in need of bonafide quality, to make Xhaka/Ceballos job easier rather than a complete rebuild as I doubt we'll sign 2+ players for our CM.

goon

Jesus, is that the squad Klopp inherited? It's atrocious. I'm not sure spelling out the squad in that way is doing much for your argument speedy 😆

Claudius

speedy wrote:
Claudius wrote:
They finished 8th in Klopp's first season. And the team he inherited was shit.

He inherited this

In the forward line they had
Roberto Firmino
Danny Ings
Christian Benteke
Daniel Sturridge (who they played injured and ruined)
Divock Origi

In midfield they had

Philippe Coutinho
James Milner
Jordan Henderson
Luis Alberto (spanish international)
Joe Allen
Emre Can
Lucas Leiva
Adam Lallana

Defense
Martin Skrtel
Dejan Lovren
Alberto Moreno
Mamadou Sakho
Joe Gomez
Kolo Toure
Nathaniel Clyne

They have a good handful of development players that didnt make it. but you can see was the building bocks of the current side, they're young talented and very sellable if needed.

I just bolded 3 players who are in the regular starting lineup he has used in the past 2 seasons. A starting line-up that has multiple players up for awards. A significant makeover occurred here. Klopp inherited shit. Mikel is in a similar place. He might sacrifice some Coutinhos for the good of the group, but we need to radically transform this squad over 3-5 transfer windows.

And that’s why we need to get comfortable with asking: can player X be a starter in a team challenging for the title in 2-3 years? If the answer is no...

Klaus

Can't sell our most important midfielder. The way a sane club would handle it would be to sign the intended replacement now, and then ship Xhaka next summer if the new player has shown he's able to step up.

We've seen plenty of times that it's not that easy though. Just look at the last few years. Ceballos is too easy to press and Guendouzi was as slow on the ball as I've ever seen any Arsenal midfielder be. Torreira is a high-pressing scrub who can't be trusted with distribution. Experiments where we've played two of them at the same time to compensate have been fruitless too.

Xhaka can be frustrating and limited, but each new season proves time and again that he either has to be replaced properly or we might as well not bother, and that's not even factoring in how much he has improved lately. As things stand he's one of the three most important names on the team sheet. That's actually probably a conservative estimation now that Martinez has shown himself to be such an able backup to Leno.

ohboy

Claudius wrote:
speedy wrote:
He inherited this

In the forward line they had
Roberto Firmino
Danny Ings
Christian Benteke
Daniel Sturridge (who they played injured and ruined)
Divock Origi

In midfield they had

Philippe Coutinho
James Milner
Jordan Henderson
Luis Alberto (spanish international)
Joe Allen
Emre Can
Lucas Leiva
Adam Lallana

Defense
Martin Skrtel
Dejan Lovren
Alberto Moreno
Mamadou Sakho
Joe Gomez
Kolo Toure
Nathaniel Clyne

They have a good handful of development players that didnt make it. but you can see was the building bocks of the current side, they're young talented and very sellable if needed.

I just bolded 3 players who are in the regular starting lineup he has used in the past 2 seasons. A starting line-up that has multiple players up for awards. A significant makeover occurred here. Klopp inherited shit. Mikel is in a similar place. He might sacrifice some Coutinhos for the good of the group, but we need to radically transform this squad over 3-5 transfer windows.

And that’s why we need to get comfortable with asking: can player X be a starter in a team challenging for the title in 2-3 years? If the answer is no...

Spot on, that really should be the goal of this team.

Liverpool also got lucky, managing somehow to get really decent money for Benteke and Ings, then getting £140 million for Coutinho by himself.

With that money alone you can put the cost of Salah, Mane, Robertson and Van Dijk and still have money left over 😆

That is key for us. We will not be able to get generate the funds from a Coutinho type sale, but we definitely can raise significant funds to restructure this squad.

We need to be more aggressive in moving players on, and taking some calculated risks.

Clrnc

Klopp has really done a super human job. My goodness that squad is worse than ours now

speedy

Clrnc wrote:
Klopp has really done a super human job. My goodness that squad is worse than ours now

Thats better than our midfield
[font=Source Sans Pro]Philippe Coutinho[/font]

[font=Source Sans Pro]James Milner[/font]
[font=Source Sans Pro]Jordan Henderson[/font]

[font=Source Sans Pro]Joe Allen was decent back them aswell. [/font]

[font=Source Sans Pro]Martin Skrtel[/font]
[font=Source Sans Pro]Dejan Lovren[/font]

[font=Source Sans Pro]Easily as good as our CB's. Were not geting 20m offers fkr our guys. [/font]

[font=Source Sans Pro][font=Source Sans Pro]Roberto Firmino[/font]
[font=Source Sans Pro]Danny Ings[/font]
[/font]

[font=Source Sans Pro][font=Source Sans Pro]Are better than everyone we have up top bar auba. Ings has the same number of goals with far less minutes on the pitxh then auba. He's also post 4 knee surgerys and he's post ACL rupture. That tells us tbr level that kid could play at. [/font][/font]
[font=Source Sans Pro][font=Source Sans Pro]Benteke was very similar to drogba in style, very injuries knackered him but he had the same goals per game at villa that dgroba had at Chelsea.[/font][/font]

[font=Source Sans Pro]Liverpool bought all these guys for there potential at a young age. And others who flopped. But they'd started building long before klopp arrived. They sold and reinvested wisely. Were skint were bringing in mari cedric luiz willian etc. Set the expectations at a tktle challenge the season after this one at your own mental demise. [/font]

QuincyAbeyie

This comparison is all over the place. You're using Ings' stats from this season and Benteke's from before he got to Liverpool. All that matters is how they did while at Liverpool, more specifically how they were doing when Klopp took over as that's most relevant when comparing it to how our squad looks now.

speedy

Quincy Abeyie wrote:
This comparison is all over the place. You're using Ings' stats from this season and Benteke's from before he got to Liverpool. All that matters is how they did while at Liverpool, more specifically how they were doing when Klopp took over as that's most relevant when comparing it to how our squad looks now.

Yea bentekes stats for when he arrived are perfectly relevant. They chose not to build a team around him or play him. He was still a very good player from memory they got £30m for him straight away which was what he was worth.

Ings scored 10 or 12 goals from left midfield in half a season before they signed him. He wasnt a scrub then or now.

These players were project signings before klopp. Some developed into top plahers. Others they struck gold on. But the age profile allowed them to sell and build. And the project started a long time before klopp arrived.

Klaus

Benteke was definitely not worse than Lacazette when Liverpool got him.

Claudius

I think the Liverpool story just shows you need yo be clear what your target is and you need to be ruthlessly efficient one getting there.

And don’t mind the noise. Liverpool used more money than any other team on agents, they had questionable signings like Ox, and some of their players took forever to gel. They didn’t zoom down the autobahn. But they had a clear plan, focused and funded it.

speedy

Claudius wrote:
I think the Liverpool story just shows you need yo be clear what your target is and you need to be ruthlessly efficient one getting there.

And don’t mind the noise. Liverpool used more money than any other team on agents, they had questionable signings like Ox, and some of their players took forever to gel. They didn’t zoom down the autobahn. But they had a clear plan, focused and funded it.

Its just like everything in life you long term plan and you usually end up in a good place. You don't you won't unless you're incredibly lucky.

And the most annoying thing in life is when someone puts a long term plan in place and when 5-10years of hard work pays off people think "look at that overnight success". You often see it with chefs they've worked their asses off from tbd bottom and saved everything they could for 10 years and finally open a restaurant. Its 15 years in the making and people think overnight success. its making the tough decisions and doing what you dont want tk do in thr short term to pay off in the long term.

Liverpool got the good enough scouts in place, signed these young guys that were rough and gave them a coach with proven recored and developed them for years. And when they sold they brough better in.

United when for the short term fixes and threaded water for years bring in big names to fill holes. While liverpool brough in potential and bags of it. Ifs only now united have focused on building something they look like their going somewhere.

Currently we've a mix, but we can't keep signing cedric, luiz, Coutinho, willan players. In 2 years you've nothing to show for it. But to be fair we have a lot of great youngsters coming through aswell and hardly any transfer budget.

Ray

You say that, but the signings that actually drastically improved Liverpool were Alisson, VVD, Fabinho, none of whom were young guys who were rough or needed to be scouted, but rather were big money signings. Pretty much confirms that if you want to win a title, you need to spend bigger than everyone else in a short space of time. They spent something like £240m in the 2018 calendar year before winning the CL and PL, it was a gamble they took and it paid off.

Before that they were a side who got into top 4, with purple patches in the season but never enough to win a title.

Klaus

Can't underestimate the influence Milner and Wijnaldum have had on Liverpool. It's almost been on pair with their big money signings.

Claudius

Klaus wrote:
Can't underestimate the influence Milner and Wijnaldum have had on Liverpool. It's almost been on pair with their big money signings.

Those players are critical. But they are glue. They’d be useless in the absence of the big money pillars. You need both. That’s why I say you need to have a clear squad building philosophy and execute.

goon

It’s not about individuals or 17 yr plans, for a team in our position it’s just having someone who knows how to build a squad to match what they want to do on the pitch. Klopp had a crystal clear idea which is why he’s worth his weight in gold. Arteta and Edu will make or break this side and it won’t take that long to find out.

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