A week after questioning Liverpool’s transfer business, little has changed. With three weeks to go, the Reds still look short in key areas.
A recalibration of expectation.
A season of transition.
God, I hate those terms.
A week after I polluted your inbox with my moaning about a lack of signings, I had since hoped to speak of unexpected plunges into the market, but here we are. The empty car park spaces remain vacant. Worse even, there seems to be talk of losing Curtis Jones to Italy and Cody Gakpo to North London though, with the latter at least, there seems to be a reluctance to countenance that.
Inter seem very keen on Curtis and even his performance against Leeds, albeit in a glorified training session, has failed to put them off. A young international and Premier League winner for £30-35m. Who can blame them?
But isn’t it another one out and no one in? It’s reminiscent of an old Fast Show sketch where a much put upon housewife would greet her inane husband on his return from the shops to ask him if he’d bought the basic provisions for the evening meal. He would reply, ‘Even better than that! I’ve got some biscuits in the shape of radios, a map of Cairo and an ice pick!’ His wife would smile weakly and accept her lot. I know how she feels.
‘Lads, have you bought a right back, centre half and at least three forwards including two wingers?’
‘Even better than that! We’ve lightened the midfield options too!’
The season starts in three weeks.
Of course, you can never tell how much work is being done behind the scenes, nor can we see how close we are to getting signings in, but we’re doing a hell of a lot of ‘reviewing options’ and ‘monitoring’. Liverpool love a good monitor.
The Leeds game highlighted the issues wonderfully. Great for the first half when the big players started but woeful once we had to rely on the back-up. Fair enough, it’s unlikely that that defence will be starting a game together any time soon, but it highlights the paucity of options. The squad is so light.
And it’s especially frustrating when you look at the context of the wider league. Arsenal are about to learn some harsh lessons about defending a title while City have a new manager. If we still consider ourselves in that company then we’d be in a great position to take advantage. Maybe we still are.
We’ve been here before after all. The start of a season where you look at the bench and wonder if it’s worth bringing your boots, only to see the Reds launch into an unforeseen strong start. You never can tell.
If we are sleepwalking into the new season and accept the dreaded ‘recalibration of expectations,’ can we at least have a good winter window and go into the following season with a strong squad of players with fully integrated players?
My main worry is that the club has accepted this state of affairs, is waiting for value in the market and is prepared to go into the new campaign low on numbers until things change a bit. Fans don’t like that. No one walks out of a ground having lost and been cheered by the thought that it’s at least saved us some transfer cash.
I suppose we have to be patient. Little choice, really.
