CVByrne

Is it ok, no. Should a person be forgiven for saying something stupid like Saurez did. Yes. But really only once. We allow Saudi Arabia own football clubs and Putins henchmen, so let's not pretend football has some set of standards like that of a government minister. Suarez, made a stupid comment to Evra 11 years ago, he was punished for it. He's not even been accused of saying anything like that since, let alone punished. Cancel culture in full flow these days.

The only outfield players at the club who would be regular starters and thus candidates to be captain would be McGinn, Mings and Digne. Digne has captained Everton about 15 times in the Premier League in his 2 1/2 seasons with Everton so he was probably vice captain under Ancelotti. Unless Gerrard brings in a senior player in midfield who could be captain. It's from that list of 3 or potentially 4 players.

@nick76 if Gerrard wants 2 players per position + 3 or 4 youth players. Assuming Targett is leaving at a minimum on Loan again with loan fee + wages covered. Then we need another LB. We have too many midfielders / attackers who need to be moved on before we can really recruit other positions.

Who will make an excellent partnership. If Mings was freed up of the captaincy too, moving to vice captain with it going to McGinn he can stay 100% focussed on his game. He's still going to be key in organising the defence and helping cover for Carlos who takes on the playmaking role from CB

I think Left Back is the only open position we have in the squad and maybe CF. We need to move players on before we look at adding another midfielder.

Which makes complete sense. We needed a ball playing CB who could partner Mings and we signed one. I can't see what use Tarkowski would be now.

We only need a Left Back. We've currently 5 players who play in CB at the club. Loan out Hause, sign Bassey. Keep KKH around the squad until January Digne/Bassey, Mings/Carlos/Konsa/Chambers, Cash/KKH - then if Young signs a new deal we've a utility player in there too.

Except for being the person who said all along Villa would sell Grealish if an offer of £100m came in. So aside from being as bang on accurate about the biggest deal in the clubs history. Potentially he doesn't know much. What The Athletic have is a good network and they will share between their team information that comes out from selling clubs and buying clubs. fwiw Gregg consistently linked us to Kamara, Bissouma and Phillips as our CDM options and we signed one of them. So it'll be interesting to read about left side of defence, assume Hickey / Bassey are the two.

and they will probably leave it in the past

I'm sure they won't judge him for an incident 11 years ago. The fact he is a good friend of Gerrard probably is enough of a character reference about who he is as a person. I'd say they'd be excited to learn from such a talented player.

Exactly, in those games our Strikers are surrounded by opposition players and it's their movement and quick passing interplay that will unlock defences. Coutinho Buendia playing with Suarez and Ings. Between them there is guile and fast interplay that can unlock goal scoring chances against these team.

Definitely bad news for us. Not getting a full pre season with our most important coach. New coach needs to bed in etc.. I wonder if Danks now stays or if we need a new coach. Definitely bad news

I suppose the best way to think about what Suarez brings on top of his vast experience and the added profile he will bring to the club. It's thinking about the teams we've failed to break down because of their low block. Watford, Newcastle, Burnley etc.. games we struggled to get through and when we did we didn't have the clinical finishing we needed. Lots of teams will not press us in our own half and we can play out from the back easily. Those same teams will kick the ball out long from their own kicks. Watkins is least effective in games like this where the opposition compact the space in their half and gift us possession in ours. The movement and finishing of a Suarez in these games would be key to getting us vital goals and nothing else is needed. Then we have the obvious use off the bench to get us a goal in a game. His effectiveness is still very high for 30 mins that's for sure. Adding competition to the forward line like this and Archer there learning too. That will improve our attack next season for sure Vs what we had this season. Especially if Ings finds his finishing touch again. Ings Suarez Coutinho are the right three to find the space against these tall low block teams who want to force us wide and crossing the ball into the box instead of using quick passing and movement to unlock them.

Gerrard is good friends with him. Messi is great friends with him too. I assume he's a nice chap and just did some really stupid things in the heat of battle he regrets. Can't let incidents like that define a person otherwise everyone is guilty for any stupid mistake they've ever made

We all go to football games where thousands of the people there are disgusting racist violent coked up thugs. Yet we focus on stupid antics Suarez did a decade ago when he was a stupid kid.

Yeah if Ings found his goal scoring touch again he'd be superb in our team. He has a great understanding with Buendia and Watkins already

Tammy misses too many chances. He's no better than Watkins. Similar non penalty goals per 90 in a weaker league.

I think he will, but only in January. I think the fact we've EFL Cup games and essentially two pre seaons (one during WC) he'll stay with us

We've Archer to come into it too

My point was PL experience

6'1"

We'll there is competition now. Carlos can play with any of Mings, Konsa or Chambers. So whoever is playing best will partner him. Mings and Carlos our the two best CBs at the club imo.

With Kamara and Carlos among the top passers in the top 5 leagues you can take it as a given we'll return to Gerrard ball and building from the back. What Carlos is the best in the world at is switch plays, which are completed passes which travel 40 yards of the width of the pitch. He averages 3.8 of these per game. Digne and Cash are going to love this. Kamara is among the best at those too. So we'll see us playing from the back, we've two players who are press resistant and will look to beat high press with switch passes and passes that bypass the press. Mings will focus on defending which he's very good at. He's great at blocks, clearances, interceptions and he doesn't get dribbled past. Mings is also great at carrying the ball forward out of defence.

I think Gerrard had rightly surmised we had very few players who had 3+ years of Premier League experience. No players who had learned senior top level football at other clubs. Crazy as it sounds we had only Danny Ings and Ashley Young in our squad with 3+ years experience of Premier League football experience or European football experience. Now we've got Ings, Young, Chambers, Coutinho, Digne, Carlos, maybe Suarez next as very experienced players. You add in McGinn, Mings, Martinez and we now have a new core group of senior experienced professionals and that should stand us in good stead in those crunch moments. Toughen us up and mental strength. Kamara has played 28 games in Europe at 22yo. So he is experienced for his age too

I think with the two 10s you need a player like Suarez who knows where to be, anticipates passes etc.. we see how well Ings links up with Buendia, because he has that poachers brain and the way he thinks. Watkins doesn't have that