Liverpool FC Forum

We were linked to many players this summer that some said would improve our starting 11 without question. I was curious now how they are doing and did we actually miss out or was it a good thing for us. A few on the list did seem standouts and very expensive but are not shining too bright at the teams they went to. It is important to note how much they sold for as Willian for 35 million must seem a flop, Eriksen for10 million must seem cheap even though they play the same amount of minutes.

Christan Eriksen

Henrikh Mkhitaryan

Marco Rojas

Micah Richards

Toby Alderweireld

Ashley Williams

Kyriakos Papadopoulos

Victor Wanyama

Loic Remy

Tom Ince

Christian Atsu

Willian

Diego Costa

Hatem Ben Arfa

Christian Tello

Christian Benteke

On the couple I would have liked and the one's we were most strongly linked with

Christan Eriksen  10 appearances for Spurs 1 goal , playing well and showing his class

Henrikh Mkhitaryan  14 appearances for Borussia Dortmund 5 goals, stats speak for themselves

Micah Richards  3 appearances for City, apparently still struggling to get a game, although i still rate him.

Tom Ince  10 appearances for Blackpool 6 goals, great return but he'd (currently) be no more than a squad member with us.

Hatem Ben Arfa 11 appearances for Newcastle 2 goals , good player

Christian Benteke  9 appearances for Villa 5 goals , Benteke actually put in a transfer request in the summer before being talked out of it, imo deffo one we should have put our money on

Agree with Woof's assessment really, the others don't stand out, except for one.

Diego Costa really is hammering them in in La Liga. Hindsight is a wonderful thing but now I do wish we bagged him

16 goals in 16 games. 13 in 12 La Liga appearances is a great return.

werent we linked with soldado and yarmalenko as well?
probably easier to just list the players we werent linked with last summer, it became ridiculous.

Eriksen can't get in the Spurs side most of the time but you know he has quality. Ridiculous that AVB doesn't use him more. Willian has been in and out at Chelsea so have only really seen flashes.

Mkhitaryan and Costa are the ones for me that got away. The former would have completely transformed our midfield. I'll admit that even I'm surprised by how well Costa has done this season. The guy is an absolute beast.

stmichael » Fri Nov 08, 2013 12:45 pm wrote:Eriksen can't get in the Spurs side most of the time but you know he has quality. Ridiculous that AVB doesn't use him more.

  Don't know where you get that from St Mike

Since the beginning of September Eriksen has started 9 games and come on as a sub 3 times, 12 appearances in 14 games can hardly be called under used.

Agree about the quality bit though 

Diego Costa is looking good

Greavesie » Fri Nov 08, 2013 8:22 am wrote:Agree with Woof's assessment really, the others don't stand out, except for one.

Diego Costa really is hammering them in in La Liga. Hindsight is a wonderful thing but now I do wish we bagged him

16 goals in 16 games. 13 in 12 La Liga appearances is a great return.

He didn't want to come here, not much we can do about that to be honest.

We were linked with dozens of players in the close season, and ended up picking up some highly questionable ones in the end.
Of that list above, what exactly did we have to offer - no CL, no likelihood we're going to get it anytime soon, a recent record of dysfunctional club management, an unproven manager, a stadium that lags miles behind others in terms of capacity..
Dry your eyes folks - if anybody here thought the romantic past was or is enough to tempt big big stars here, you're very deluded...

Were we ever really an option for Eriksen without CL football? I'm not convinced we were.

Raoul » Sat Nov 09, 2013 8:35 pm wrote:Were we ever really an option for Eriksen without CL football? I'm not convinced we were.

Well he went to a team without Champions League football

I doubt the Europa League was much of a pull and Spurs don't generally pay top dollar in wages, so I'm guessing we just weren't seriously interested.

It's a strange one that, was gutted we weren't in for him.  Having said that you have to wonder why the likes of Man City, United, Arsenal, Chelsea etc weren't in for him either.  He had been talked about for years as a big talent so something must have been putting clubs off.

If we had brought in Costa over the summer we would have the best front line in the WORLD.

Trouble is I don't know how Suarez, Sturridge and Costa would play together as they are three totally different types of players.

The Armenian kid is also doing well at Dortmund, really missed out on his creativity while Coutinho was out for 2 months.

The likes of Costa and Mhiktaryan I don't think were ever likely to sign.  We might have had a slight chance, but both were already playing for CL clubs.  In Costa's case Athletico had already sold Falcao, which made it even more unlikely, plus Costa's desire to play for Spain through citizenship would look a bit ridiculous if he had moved onto England! Then you have the European cup finalists coming in for Mhiktaryan, difficult to compete with that.

Perhaps the one we were linked with, who was more realistic and is looking like a real good player this season, is Loic Remy.  But I can see why the club maybe didn't want to risk it with him having a rape allegation hanging over him.  On top of all the bad press we got over Suarez, we probably didn't need that!  Again though, I don't see Remy, Suarez and Sturridge working as a three - but I know who I'd rather have on the bench between Remy and Aspas.