Sane is still competition for Bernardo because Sterling plays on the right too. So if Bernardo does not play well most likely Sterling takes his spot and Sane comes into the side.
Then surely his competition would be Sterling & Mahrez under that definition. Regardless I had indeed forgotten that Sterling is still able to play on the right for City, my bad on that one...
Of course Bernardo's mistakes are less damaging than Laporte's, he's making them much higher up the pitch.
True, which goes to show how important (no matter how attacking minded or defense minded a system is) it is for any side (that wants to win trophies) to have a strong defence. No matter how many goals said side can score (As Liverpool Pre-VVD, & Arsenal since the Invincibles era have shown).
Regardless of this, I still feel that Silva is making fewer mistakes (& having fewer bad games) than the likes of Salah (Who does not have as much competition for his place in the team as Silva does) due to the strong competition he faces at both positions that he can play in. Likewise one can also argue that his signing in the first place also helped Sterling improve his performances to become the player he is today, due to the competition for places it helped bring about.
Again, your logic is reasonably sound but you're taking it to the nth degree. van Dijk is in the running for the Balon D'or, he's literally been as good as anyone could have anticipated and you're still suggesting that he could have made less mistakes. I'd say that what you're suggesting is impossible.
With VVD, I would admit there isn't as much he can further improve upon compared to other CBs in the current game (and yes he is the best CB in the world in terms of current form). But he still made enough avoidable mistakes (where he fell below his usual standard) at certain times during last season* to justify brining in another LCB to compete for his place. In other words instead of him performing at 90% of his capability, the aim should be having him performing 92-95% of his capability.
Now while it does not sound like much at first, with the competition at the top being as tight as it is, improvements such as these are the difference that make or break any top clubs season.
And regardless for CB's who are not Balon D'or like VVD (players such as Laporte, Stones & Maguire), the benefits of increased competition are far greater...
*I can list examples to justify my point.
You're basically proposing that if Liverpool had Koulibaly as competition then van Dijk would have had an infallible season and not made a single error.
No, my point is that VVD would have made fewer mistakes than he did rather than completely remove them altogether. Not that he made many in the first place of course...
Firstly, that's not true, because Koulibaly would play alongside him
VVD is primarily a LCB though, hence why I deliberately picked Koulibaly (who is his main competition as the best LCB in the world) as a example, so playing VVD & Koulibaly as a CB Partnership would not be the best solution when...
and van Dijk would play over Gomez/Lovren unless he went on a horrid run of form.
..Another RCB would be need to be brought in as well to fully address Liverpool's issues at CB, someone like De Ligt (both they and our own clubs missed a massive opportunity to sign up for £85 million, now we all face the prospect of having to sign him for £120 million instead) or Škriniar that can fully address it once and for all. Because there is no point in having both VVD & Koulibaly when you also have Lovern & Matip as well, so they are better off ditching those 2 and get Škriniar/De Ligt in as well.
So it would need Liverpool to basically have three world class CBs for it to even work.
Well every Top side needs to have at least 4 good (at least) options at CB (In Liverpool's case having VVD, Koulibaly, Škriniar/De Ligt & Gomez will address this), with the purposes to provide enough depth to compete on all fronts, to cover for any injuries and of course to provide the needed competition for every one of those CB's to perform at the highest possible level.
Thus it is a failure of both our clubs to obtain this which explains a lot about how my club is in the state it is in and why your club has yet to win the CL under Pep (despite being in a pretty good position to do so otherwise). Or even why Liverpool ended up losing the League (by not having it themselves)...
And in that case you could just make the opposite case that the added pressure of having to perform every game actually has an adverse influence on the player's performance.
True, although one should raise question marks about if a player of that mentality has a place at the highest levels of the game, especially when there would be less need to play every single game of the season due to the additional depth/competition that would be in place under such circumstances, circumstances where players play fewer games, but are able to have better performances in the games that they do