Argo

Can natural composure really be coached that much? Maybe to a point but give Barkley even Pep or prime Wenger and he will still have a nosebleed in the final third. I remember Henry saying that when he was managed by Pep that he would get his players to the final third but once there it was down to them.

Deep lying playmaker, Jorginho's eventual successor in other words.

Gilmour will be good but he's not ready for regular PL action yet. His best position isn't a question for me, it's DLP.

As a winger now way, he will in my opinion never have the consistency to be a title winning winger. Adama would be worth a gamble if wingbacks were a big part of Frank's plan, Wolves were prepared to negotiate a fair enough price AND Lamptey walks in the summer but while the former and latter two scenarios could happen at a push, the middle one never will.

I think a big problem is his concentration issues when he has nothing to do, for all the critisism our defense gets how many times now have teams scored against us with their only serious chance of the game? Even if he improves that's a big problem if we want to start winning league's again.

I do think individual quality does make a big difference, when two of our front players are on form like say Pulisic and Willian were in October we don't even miss Hazard but at times like now his absence is really hitting us. Look at Liverpool for example, the crazy thing is as a team playing unit they have actually declined this season but they have a sheer amount of peak quality that they get the job done regardless.

I think it's something in the middle to be honest. We aren't creating glorious chances at will, but we mess up a lot of promising situations. Although that's probably to be expected when it's Willian and young players fronting our attack.

He wasn't but he was still given players of his liking even if they were plan Cs. The reality is we are a club without the funds of Paris or City (and that's before we factor in the fact Pep is a much more appealing manager to play under than Conte) or global appeal of Real/Juve/Barca/Bayern etc meaning were unlikely to beat them to players (I'd go as far as saying to stand a chance against those clubs we have to hope they're either fans of the club or want to live in London so badly) All Conte's supposed plan A's (bar Lukaku) were either at one of those clubs already or wanted by them, there's no problem being ambitious and going for them, but there needs to be a bit of reality while doing it and accepting that there's every chance we won't win out against those clubs. For example, if Frank decided he wants Mbappe and Oblak this summer I will applaud him for ambition, but if on the extreme likelyhood that we miss out on both he then decides to put his tools down and act like a schoolchild he will be very much open for critisism and rightly so. I wouldn't expect Frank to happy but I'd still expect him to get on with the job he's paid multi millions of pounds for. Infact I would imagine Lampard would tell the club to not bother signing Cork and instead promote Gilmour, if Conte was that outraged by the prospect of Drinkwater he could have used Chala, Ruben or even Mount, that way he'd have money stored up for a when a player he really wants becomes available and have even more protection/leeway against bad results. Fair enough, but two years (he wanted him in 2017) is still quite a short turnover to go from one extreme to the other (wanting him so badly to not even wanting him when he inherited him). Bare in mind he wanted Alexis aswell, had we granted him both wishes we'd be currently stuck with two more past it duds on extreme wages.

Point is everyone wanted Conte "fully backed" and one of those players he wanted was someone he shafted as soon as he got hold of him at his next club. It's no coincidence that Klopp has only got major funds once he got it in a sale, I'm sure he would have loved to have kept Coutinho and got his world class reinforcements in at the back but he couldn't. There's slowly building then there's still having Karius, Moreno and Lovren as regulars two years in. I mean look at them now for example, now the Coutinho money has dried up they're signing a cheap and cheerful winger from the Austrian league while some of their league rivals are by all accounts going all in for Sancho. I'm not saying we are a star at fully backing managers, but this notion that Klopp has been handed all his plan As on a gold plate for the duration of his time at Liverpool is hilarious. The difference between him and Conte is he accepts it can't always happen, accepts a plan B/C/D (Ox, Robertson, Wiljnaldium) and focuses on actually earning his millions by coaching his team instead of whining about how he's overachieving while losing 7-1 on aggregate in the space of a week.

When he had to make do with bang average defenders and incompetent goalkeepers for two years, or is this the point you tell me he was happy with them and didn't want to upgrade?

How about you answer my questions instead of swerving them. Do you honestly believe he was happy with Karius and Mignolet as his keeper options for two years? Do you honestly believe his first choice was Wjnaldium when Kante and Pogba were on the market? Just because he choses to get on with his job and actually earn his multi million salary instead of acting like a pechaulant schoolchild like Conte doesn't mean he gets it ALL his own way. Yeah, maybe we should have "listened to him" and got him Radja Naingolan, a player he inherited at his next club and decided he wasn't actually good enough after all.

So to clarify, you believe Lloris Karius and Ragnar Klavan were his first choice targets?

Of course he was happy to sell Coutinho, it was the only way the defensive reinforcements he needed for him to compete were going to be funded. In an ideal world however he (like any manager) would choose both.

So you think he wanted no signing last summer? Or didn't want to upgrade his keepers and defenders before he did? Or had his heart set on Wjnaldium in a summer rivals were getting the likes of Kante and Pogba? He got "backed" because he got a windfall in a sale, nothing more nothing less.

Klopp being fully backed in the market is a myth. He has had one big spend on the back of the Coutinho sale and that's it.