verlaine1979

Potentially a cut above van Wolfswinkel and Fer anyway, so perhaps a little more legitimacy than the last time people on here were envious of another team's summer recruitment. Obviously, both Wijnaldum and Mitrovic could flop badly in the Prem, but the latter in particular seems to finish like a young Rickie Lambert if you watch his highlight reel, so I'd say whoever signs him could certainly justify approaching the season with a little optimism.

For two seasons now, we've had trouble creating chances if our preferred route of crosses from the fullbacks isn't working. I really do feel that if we start the season with either Davis or JWP as first choice alongside our two defensive midfielders, very little will change, despite the undoubted excellence of the likes of Mane, JRod et al ahead of them. Perhaps Juanmi has been brought in as the #10, but if so it's a complete leap of faith, as his stats suggest he's an out-and-out goalscorer, who contributes very little creatively - http://www.whoscored.com/Players/83080/History/Juanmi.

Any chance you could point out where he says that exactly? I watched the interview you posted yesterday, and all he said (while discussing the addition of Juanmi) was that we need to add more players to the attacking midfield. You could argue that he got his tenses mixed up and meant to say 'we needed to add more players to attacking midfield and now we have', but that isn't what he said. Moreover, Juanmi has something like 2 assists in three years, so he'd be an odd pick to add creativity behind the striker.

Of course, which is why I only said 'first choice'. However, Ramirez is seemingly out of favour at the club, Tadic was at his most influential playing from wide in the attacking 3 and both Mane and Juanmi are predominantly second strikers (albeit hopefully ones with vision and creativity themselves) rather than players you'd expect to do the fetching and carrying inherent in playing as part of our midfield trio. To put it more clearly, I would be very surprised if any of the players you mentioned displaced Davis or JWP from the midfield, so therefore my question remains - are we happy as those two being our most likely attacking midfield options?

You're happy with Davis and JWP as our first choice central attacking midfield options? We weren't painfully short of movement, creativity and goals in that position last season?

I think it's our defensive midfield that elevates our centre backs, rather than Fonte lifting whoever plays alongside him. Fonte is decent, but he's not going to be able to turn Yoshida or Gardos into a top-class player. What we'll really miss without TA in the backline is the ability to pass out from defense. Fonte and Yoshida are both real claggers once they're asked to move the ball more than about ten yards.

Tadic certainly looks like a player who should be able to play as the most attacking member of our midfield 3, but he did almost all of his best work coming in from wide, where we're already well-stocked with Mane, JRod, Juanmi etc. Of our genuine central attacking midfield options, Davis is a spent force, JWP has yet to impose himself for more than a few minutes at a time, and Gaston is completely out of favour. Without reinforcement here, I can see us enduring plenty of the same toothless football, where the only supply to our forwards is crosses from Cedric and Bertrand.

If he genuinely wants to sign for us, he probably will, and if he doesn't, he probably wont, as is usually the case with transfers. Everything else is just noise.

On another thread it's mentioned that RK says Juanmi is likely to be our only attacking reinforcement. Maybe he's more versatile than reports from Spain suggested, but most of them seemed to depict him as an out-and-out striker (two assists in three years would seem to back that up). Seems a bit odd when we've been crying out for some creativity in midfield for two seasons now. Only thing I can think (barring a sudden and unexpected reintegration of Ramirez into the squad) is that they're assuming that Schneiderlin will go, and that when he does they won't get a like-for-like replacement, but will look for someone who plays in a more advanced role, leaving VW to handle a greater % of the defensive responsibilities.

When was the last time the league was won by a team whose most decisive players (i.e. the one/ones they probably wouldn't have won the league without) were exclusively, or even predominantly English?

Do you think the siren lure of a few chats with Adam Lallana would have been as effective if Liverpool had been proposing to half his salary rather than double it? Plus, we do these kind of leading interviews too - like the one where Juanmi was asked if the new training ground was an important consideration in choosing to move to the premier league... of course, he said it was important, but somehow I doubt it was the clincher.

I suspect his head was turned mostly by the £90k a week Liverpool were prepared to pay him. Honestly, I think the whole players tapping up other players things is totally overstated - how much persuasion is required beyond: 'they'll double your salary'?

Guidetti's penalty last night was Lambert-esque, so he has that going for him at least.

Lallana scored 9 league goals and had 8 assists in his last season for us. In that same season Davis scored 2 and set up 7. If the latter's pass completion was higher, at least part of it will have been his annoying habit of immediately popping the ball back to the CB that's just given it to him instead of turning and moving up the field, though I'm not sure the difference between 84.6% and 85.3% merits a lot of attention. Also worth noting, in an admittedly ropey first season at Liverpool, Lallana still managed 5 goals and 3 assists to Davis's 0 goals and 2 assists for us last season.

Eder loooked useless at the last World Cup.

Yup, Fellaini got 11 league goals the season before his move to United. Mid-twenties seems to be about the going rate for top-class defensive midfielders, unless you can get an auction started.

Wasn't Rogers initially celebrated as the inventor of the Premier League high-press?

If he turns out to be very good, but still not quite good enough for Barcelona, I wonder if there's a clause that prevents them buying him back for what is presumably a fairly low fee and then selling him on immediately?

Loftus-Cheek was the best player on the pitch when he came on against Sweden, yet didn't start. For his delivery from dead balls alone JWP should have started ahead of Chalobah & Forster-Caskey - stupid selection in midfield, effectively decided to go 4-4-2 with Ings and Kane (albeit handing in a team sheet that pretended Ings was going to be a withdrawn #10).

When I looked a few hours ago as this rumour was breaking, there didn't seem to be a lot of enthusiasm for him from Arsenal fans on Twitter. Most seemed to think there's nothing between him and Coquelin, and that £25m would be a rip-off.

He's been playing more or less as a striker for Brazil in the Copa America I think - maybe they're replacing Suarez a season late.

Bearing in mind your staunch defence of another player most of those criticisms can be levelled at, I find your dismissal of JWP rather odd.

Loftus-Cheek looked by far our best midfielder when he came on against Sweden. Both Chalobah and Carroll were pretty dire, so RLC and JWP should start ahead of them, but seeing how conservative Southgate's selections are, I doubt it'll happen.

If 6 assists and 1 goal in 25 appearances as an attacking midfielder is a horror show, what would you call 2 assists and no goals in 35?