I agree on that, all things considered our season turned out far better than Liverpool's and I think we have the better forward option now. Time will tell.
Cody Gakpo: Finish The Story
- Thread starter horsechoker
- Start date
Stories were that we didn’t spend in the winter for a panic buy since we wanted to save up for the summer?
It’s not as if that was the wrong strategy. I can’t see how we’d go after Hojlund if we had a 42m player singed 6 months ago
That wasn't such a good run though, was it? He gained an advantage as he had the momentum thanks to a fairly basic, rather badly defended one-two, while all the other defenders were mostly standing and not facing their own goal. He also lost that advantage with an awful carrying and was lucky to be allowed to shoot. The finishing was decent, I guess.
The fawning over other clubs' players is almost pathological on here sometimes. I get it with the likes of Haaland, Mbappé, Pedri, FdJ, Vini Jr., etc, but not over Cody fecking Gakpo.
Absolutely. It's very fecking odd. Especially when they emphasise how good opposition players are by denigrating United players in the process. It's tedious.
That's exactly what I thought as well - no way this turns into a goal in regular season or Bayern got bit my the Maguire flu. The only thing worse than Bayern's defending was Liverpool's own defending
Never seen a player go from alright to The Real Deal during preseason.
Your post is based on the fact that you think Gakpo played exclusively as a 9. Being shifted from 9 to 10 to left wing and still producing is impressive for a player coming from The Netherlands, to a team in a mess in January. They might play different positions but he has been a better signing thus far than Antony. The problem is that you see that statement as me calling Antony a flop rather than somebody who sees him as someone will continue to improve. That's my opinion on how things stand as of now.
The problem with Antony is his fee isn't justifiable in the slightest his ability doesn't reflect the profile of money and there were alternatives. Olise rumoured to have a 35M release clause and even Diaby went for 50M. United massively overpaid and it likely hampered the deal for Gakpo.
Looking back it was desperation from the club Murtough and ETH which created that mistake. The only hope is that the player can kick-on. Still think this team lacks threat and it will be a massive issue in the coming season because if Rashford doesn't hit form, United haven't signed anyone in the market to have a similar influence. It's been briefed that the club see Hojlund as a future prospect.
Looking back it was desperation from the club Murtough and ETH which created that mistake. The only hope is that the player can kick-on. Still think this team lacks threat and it will be a massive issue in the coming season because if Rashford doesn't hit form, United haven't signed anyone in the market to have a similar influence. It's been briefed that the club see Hojlund as a future prospect.
Far better is a stretch, they almost caught us despite, having a "disastrous" season in their own standard, humiliated us 7:0 and scored like 30 more goals in the league. And no way in hell we have a better forward line than them unless Hojlund hits the ground running, which I surely hope so.
Well you see how that thing works, the same can be said about January, now way in hell we could spend anything when you drop 100m on Antony 4 months prior. What is done is done of course, but Gakpo would have been very handy, even if we still had Hojlund as a target.
What was the point of Weghorst then? We might as well kept Dubravka and played him as a striker.Yeah erm, no player in the World was pushing us to 85 points from Jan man, and certainly not Cody fecking Gakpo
Why has he been a better signing? For scoring a couple of extra goals? Gakpo only got better when he moved inside which shows how hard being a wide man in England actually is,
It seems people are just stating this as fact. Rashford and Antony didn’t have a centre forward to work off of and we had two players carry the front 3 on their own. Struggling this and that, moving positions nonsense doesn’t compare to having 2 of our front 4 being emergency loan signings.
Look at this
https://one-versus-one.com/en/compare-players/cody-mathes-gakpo-vs-antony-matheus-dos-santos
Then posters will tell us how great Gakpo has been? Antony smokes him in almost every stat.
I’m not saying Antony has been great but I’m saying Gakpo hasn’t been as well and there’s a weird energy to defend one over the other
Just urgh. Why should anyone care that he's "an academy lad". he's vile beyond toleration.
Gakpo is 5 years older than Garnacho and I know which one of those players I would rather have and it isn't Gakpo.
But we prioritised summer recruitment over the January market. If you’re using that example you can’t really dismiss it. It wasn’t that we couldn’t afford him, it was that we didn’t want to spend the money and judging by this summer we did have the money. We paid off all but 40m of the 200m credit we took out last year. We had money.
and let's be real, Liverpool only bought him as Jota and Diaz were injured and they gambled, and lost, on this signing making the difference in them getting into the top 4.
You want to tell me that we had money to spend in January but Weghorst was the best recruitment we could have got?
That's not the point he made.
We had money we chose not to spend in January as we wanted to keep it for the summer targets. We gambled, and won, that taking 2 loan players would be enough to win at least one trophy and get top 4. We were a better performance from De Gea away from winning the FA cup as well.
I mean, we could have got both really. 30m for Gapko and Hojlund we which overpaid for a tad.
His fee will rise to 45m. We wouldn’t have gotten both.
Yeah very strange thread.
He's not that good. He is a good goalscorer though.
Yeah we bought a 23-year old as a short-term solution to save one particular season.
Your logic is incromprehensible most of the times.
But it''s consistent and based upon my everything Liverpool = bad philosophy. I refuse to talk any sense about your shit bag football club.
If we had money to spend, loaning someone like Weghorst was money and time wasted. Even the sole act of resorting to loaning players in was and still is an absolute embarrassment, when we had no fit striker and an injury crook like Martial as striker option.
We needed a striker back in January, just like we need 2 strikers now don't you agree?
And we could have had prime Schmeichel on goal and City would have still beaten us, let's not kid ourselves.
None of this is particularly relevant to the point being made about us not spending 45 million euros on Gakpo in January. We had money to spend that could either be spent in January on a player like Gakpo for possible short to mid-term benefit or be kept back to be used for summer targets. The club decided that getting a midfielder and experienced striker on loan for a tiny fraction of the cost of buying a player on a permanent deal was the better way to go. Especially when that player (Gakpo) is best on the left where at the time we had Rashford, Sancho and Garnacho as options.
So no, I do not agree it was an embarrasment to get Sabitzer (a quality player) and Weghorst (didn't score enough but otherwise did what the manager asked him to do), especially when the end result was a trophy and finishing 3rd.
If we end the summer with Mount, Onana, Hojlund and Amrabat then the squad is a lot stronger than the one that finished last season. If buying Gakpo meant no Hojlund (an actual 9 rather than left sided attacker), then I think we'd be worse off in the long run.
Perhaps we just agree to disagree. I have many issues with Glazernomics, but, with hindsight, the January non-spend isn't one of them.
Gakpo isn’t a RW.
Rating a LW or a CAM/False 9 to a RW like Antony is not the same.
People talk about how left footed RW’s are more rare and harder to find like GOAT types like a max player of Maradona & Messi compared to the LW ability of a max player like Ronaldo.
Even Robben vs Ribery, the right wing seems a bit more different.
Rate Gakpo to Rashford not Antony.
Another example is Salah - arguably one of the best players in the world over the last 5-7 years coming from the left in comparison to Mane or even Gakpo himself. No doubt they are good but right wingers are just different.
Even the performance of Sterling vs Mahrez couple seasons ago or even possibly Madueke vs Mudrynko just last season.
Rating a LW or a CAM/False 9 to a RW like Antony is not the same.
People talk about how left footed RW’s are more rare and harder to find like GOAT types like a max player of Maradona & Messi compared to the LW ability of a max player like Ronaldo.
Even Robben vs Ribery, the right wing seems a bit more different.
Rate Gakpo to Rashford not Antony.
Another example is Salah - arguably one of the best players in the world over the last 5-7 years coming from the left in comparison to Mane or even Gakpo himself. No doubt they are good but right wingers are just different.
Even the performance of Sterling vs Mahrez couple seasons ago or even possibly Madueke vs Mudrynko just last season.
We won a trophy and qualified for the Champions League. This is far better than nothing and the Europa League.
The pathway there will be largely forgotten, irrespective of how many goals they scored or the silly result.
That silly result certainly won't be "largely forgotten" anytime soon no matter how hard you're hoping for that to happen
A trophy is always nice and so is qualification for the Champions League, but it's not like you're in with a shot, so it only counts for so much. Of course still much better than the Europa League but we've been in the CL for 5 or 6 years in a row under Klopp I believe (or have we been out one year as well, not sure), so it was bound to happen sooner or later once we had a down year.
More likely to win it than you lot...That silly result certainly won't be "largely forgotten" anytime soon no matter how hard you're hoping for that to happen
A trophy is always nice and so is qualification for the Champions League, but it's not like you're in with a shot, so it only counts for so much. Of course still much better than the Europa League but we've been in the CL for 5 or 6 years in a row under Klopp I believe (or have we been out one year as well, not sure), so it was bound to happen sooner or later once we had a down year.
Maybe not by Liverpool fans. Literally the only time that even pops to mind is when I see a Scouser talking about it. I guess it may not be forgotten as your lot will probably go on about it forever. Have fun.That silly result certainly won't be "largely forgotten" anytime soon no matter how hard you're hoping for that to happen
A trophy is always nice and so is qualification for the Champions League, but it's not like you're in with a shot, so it only counts for so much. Of course still much better than the Europa League but we've been in the CL for 5 or 6 years in a row under Klopp I believe (or have we been out one year as well, not sure), so it was bound to happen sooner or later once we had a down year.
Saying we had a "far better" season than you is just factual.
How is the rest of it irrelevant? What kind of bizarre logic is this
No-one cared, but as his name is banned still it’s a way of describing who is being mentioned.
I won’t discuss whether a person is vile, or not.
Close to zero is indeed better than zero, I'll give you that
Yeah you would've just never mentioned it again to any Liverpool fans you know if it was the other way around, would you? You guys are so much better than us Liverpool fans
Oh god yeah. Constantly.Yeah you would've just never mentioned it again to any Liverpool fans you know if it was the other way around, would you? You guys are so much better than us Liverpool fans
But you are right, we are better.
From what I've seen of Gakpo he looks like an ideal replacement for Firmino. He might even be an upgrade.
I said at the time in January that not signing him and going for Weghorst was the difference between mounting a title challenge and being in a race for top four.
I still don't understand why there was no money to spend in January, yet seemingly plenty available in the summer?
I said at the time in January that not signing him and going for Weghorst was the difference between mounting a title challenge and being in a race for top four.
I still don't understand why there was no money to spend in January, yet seemingly plenty available in the summer?
It’s good to see Liverpool stuck with Gakpo as their primary striker and Nunez as their alternative. The levels of their attack has dropped considerably since Mane, Firmino, Salah days.
How can a United fan watch the team seeing the absolute black hole at number 9 in December think that it is okey not to go in the market and buy a proper talent? Is it the constant "no value on the market in January" PR that has done the illusion I am not sure really, but it's bollocks. We are so far behind City that I don't think we have a transfer window to spare. Even before the Ronaldo fiasco we needed a new midfielder, when he decided to jump ship we needed a forward too. We need 2 strikers this window but we will get only 1 probably. There were probably better fits to our need back in January than Gakpo, but we could have used him definitely.
Winning the league cup and qualifying for the CL will mean feck all in the long run to the ultimate goal of winning the PL back. You will never win the PL nowadays with the lack of goals we put up, while their ability of scoring will help. People kidding themselves that we are in any better shape then they are, need a reality check.
so your plan is to once again make a general argument about strikers etc than the one about Gakpo.
Here's my argument: Gakpo is a player we did not need in January and I think the club were correct not to try and sign him at that point
Here's your argument: We should have bought a striker in January
Can you see how my argument and yours do not amount to the same thing?