Liverpool defended terribly at Watford but at the other end the Brazilian, who next faces former club Hoffenheim, showed why he is their main man up frontLiverpool arrive in Germany on Monday in less than ideal shape for their Champions League qualifying play-off first leg with Hoffenheim. Questions are once again being asked about their defensive capabilities following a somewhat shambolic showing at Watford on Saturday and with uncertainty continuing to surround the future of Philippe Coutinho.Fresh season it may be but for Liverpool that fresh optimism is already being tested. It is too early, of course, for total doom and gloom, and especially so with Jürgen Klopp around. Liverpool’s fiery manager will no doubt have his team fired up...
Barcelona want the Brazilian to follow Luis Suárez to Camp Nou, leaving Jürgen Klopp with a potential hole in his team just as the season is about to startAn unhappy transfer window for Liverpool has every chance of becoming more grim should Philippe Coutinho make a £100m-plus move to Barcelona and, though some well-rehearsed arguments are being heard from both sides over whether the club should make a stand or accept the inevitable, there is an unpalatable truth beneath all the posturing that is not being shouted so loudly.This is, simply and briefly, that Liverpool are a selling club. They might not see themselves that way, they might keep denying it and taking encouragement from Jürgen Klopp insisting that no...
Whether Jürgen Klopp’s side have the quality in central midfield and defence for a shot at the title may be more apparent when the transfer window closesGuardian writers’ predicted position 5th (NB: this is not necessarily Andy Hunter’s prediction but the average of our writers’ tips)Last season’s position 4th Related: Liverpool’s Jürgen Klopp demands more from Sadio Mané and Mohamed Salah Continue reading...
Mauricio Pochettino has bucked the trend by not adding to his Tottenham squad but the rest of the top clubs have plenty of spending left in them yetAs well as this summer being remembered for the transfer window in which just about every Premier League club tried to break their own spending record, there is a good chance it will eventually be remembered for something else. To wit: the summer when no one apart from Real Madrid knew whether they had broken a transfer record or not.Take the case of Manchester United’s Romelu Lukaku, the £90m man, as the back pages have it. When Everton sold him the price was stated at £75m plus add-ons, which might have more or...
The Liverpool manager has missed out on a key defensive signing as the club show an inability to learn from past mistakes in the transfer marketTransfers are not part of Peter Moore’s remit as Liverpool’s new chief executive and the club’s alleged tapping up of Virgil van Dijk predated his official start date in the job, but his first Premier League meeting in Harrogate on Thursday will have been awkward regardless. Southampton are not the only member club to regard an emissary of Fenway Sports Group with scepticism and suspicion.Liverpool’s owners, including John W Henry and the chairman, Tom Werner, were heavily involved in the damaging decision to withdraw interest publicly in Van Dijk on Wednesday, 24 hours after Southampton...