11 Mar 2014

Transfer Update: LFC scout 'excellent' €10m star who shackled Suarez. Pointless...?

Given Liverpool's defensive woes this season, the club is sure to be linked with dozens of central defenders over the next few months. Steven Caulker and Ezequiel Garay are two names currently in the frame, and reports this week suggest that Red Bull Saltzburg central defender Martin Hinteregger is also on the Reds' transfer wishlist.

On Monday, The Guardian reported:

"Liverpool have made a check on the Red Bull Salzburg central defender Martin Hinteregger.

"The Merseyside club sent a scout to watch the 21-year-old in [Austria's] friendly against Uruguay"


Uruguay had to come from 1-0 to secure a draw against Austria, and by all accounts, Hinteregger handled Liverpool goalscorer Luis Suarez pretty well for someone winning only his second international cap. Given Suarez's excellent goalscoring record for Uruguay (and LFC), it's quite an achievement to keep him off the scoresheet (!)

Liverpool were also linked with Hinteregger in September 2013, with the Liverpool Echo reporting at the time:

"Liverpool are reportedly battling to sign Austria Under-21 ace Martin Hinteregger. Liverpool and Arsenal both have a long-standing interest in him".

When asked last week about Hinteregger's future, the player's agent confirmed that there are 'many interested clubs', and gave an indication of a how much the youngster might cost. He told reporters

"There is nothing official. I think Salzburg will ask for not less than €10m and I think that currently they do not have any intention of selling him."

In November, Salzburg boss Rodger Schmidt dismissed speculation about Hinteregger's future, and slammed the player's Agent for hawking the youngster around. He told Salzburg 24:

"I'm not interested in the rumours. He [Hinteregger] is in excellent form - I hope he does not get distracted and continues to perform well"

Clearly, Liverpool need another solid central defender, but I don't understand the logic in looking at defenders in the 20-21 year old age bracket. If Rodgers signs Hinteregger, where does that leave Tiago Ilori?

The Portuguese surely fills the 'young central defender' space in LFC's squad? Rodgers can't even accommodate Ilori in the current squad, so what's the point in signing yet another young, comparatively inexperienced central defender?

Additionally, with the fierce defensive competition at LFC, I seriously doubt Ilori will be impressed if Liverpool sign another young central defender, which could cause problems, and ultimately force Ilori into deciding to leave in the summer.



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28 comments:

  1. Congrats on the new addition to your family :-)

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  2. Joel Matt Murdock Hwa2:09 am, March 12, 2014

    Sell Agger and Kolo then we will have both Hinteregger and Lloris in our books next season, with Skrtel/Sakho our first choice pairing.

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  3. if we finish well we will have 4 seasons next year. We need more than we have now. There is no way we are in four competitions late into the year with the team we have now. Why sell anybody except maybe Aspas and Suso since it appears he doesn't want to be here anyway. We need to add some players but I wouldn't sell any defenders at all.

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  4. I'd sell Coates and Kelly.

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  5. You would have to think that the transfer committee have a bigger say than BR in who we buy - after all he's only 1/5th of it.


    Clearly they're buying players BR doesn't fancy/trust (Ilori, Aspas, Alberto) and completely hamstringing him. It in turn is putting more strain on the players he does trust as there's no real competition for their places.


    I hope this is rectified before the summer or next season could be pretty bleak if we're in 4 competitions with a small handful of players trusted to go out and do the business.

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  6. agree with you kolo is old and agger age also but they are not good defenders nowa days but in our 4 center backs i would like skrtel sakho llori vertonghen and one young CB

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  7. Johnson is a very good footballer. When he's on form he's first choice for his country and he's had only rare periods of bad form for his club. Believing that we can just replace a player like that is naive. We should do what we can to bring him into line with our wage structure and what the club thinks is best. If that's not good enough for him then he can move on but if he wants to stay then for goodness sake let's keep him. Replacing quality like that would be a massive challenge and very expensive. Why spend money we don't have to?

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  8. G Johnson(29) should be offered a new contract if he can get some good form from now until the end of the season. But it should not be the £110,000 a week he is supposedly currently on.
    B Rodgers needs to bring in a mobile solid hard to beat tough tackling attacking full back who will keep G Johnson(29) on his toes week in week out.
    N Clyne(23) Of Southampton needs to be brought for 5-10m in the summer.
    N Clyne(23) could put G Johnson(29) on the bench.
    B Rodgers needs to ship out these 4 dead wood average or injury prone players this summer:

    GK: B Jones CB: S Coates CB: K Toure RB: M Kelly

    B Rodgers should also bring in these 4 defensive players to the club with N Clyne(23) Of Southampton in the summer:

    1: GK: A Mccarthy(24) Of Reading for £4-£7M to compete and cover S Mignolet(25) for the next 4-6 years

    2: CB: S Caulker(22) Of Cardiff for £8-£12M to compete and cover M Skrtel(29) for the next 2-3 years and to take over from Skrtel

    3: LB: B Davies(20) Of Swansea for £5-£8M to compete and cover J Enrique(27) for the next 2-3 years and to take over from Enrique

    4: DM: M'Vila(23) Of Rubin Kazan for £8-£11M to compete and cover L Leiva(26) for next 2-5 years at club.

    Those 4 dead wood average or injury prone defensive players within our current squad desperately need to be shipped out this summer and replaced by the 5 class quality defensive players i have mentioned above.

    And then our defense would have class,quality competition for places for in every position.

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  9. I don't think Ilori is at risk here. I would expect us to cash in on Agger at the end of the season with Skrtel and Sakho as our first choice pairing. Keep Kolo for his final year of course and see how Ilori and an additional young CB develop. Whether it's this guy or someone else. I also expect Kelly and Coates to leave like someone said below. Shame about Coates though because he seemed the real deal when he broke through at the copa america. That should count as a warning for getting too excited about the likes of Ilori. Coates was just as highly rated, if not higher, a couple of years back.

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  10. Voted yes but of course not at all costs. Not sure what he is on now but it's about what he is worth to us and if he thinks he can get a better deal elsewhere he should take it. Other clubs won't think differently than we do in that respect. It's not like Johnson is regarded as one of the best in his position in the world so another top club will not pay over the odds for him either considering his age. And if smaller clubs go out and pay over the odds for players it's usually in key positions. Which right back is not.

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  11. Forget about Kelly though. He's a goner.

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  12. I don't agree. Everyone said that about lucas, then henderson, then flanno. Kelly showed great promise a couple of years ago and then had a huge injury set back. He is still young though and given the support and encouragement could still prove all the doubters wrong. Not saying he will, but writing him off like you are is foolish

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  13. Poor attitude? He's always given 100% for us. If you're refering to his poor form earlier this season, I believe he was playing while injured.

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  14. Lloris is Spurs' keeper, I doubt Rodgers would sign him as a CB ;)

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  15. Well he believes in having players who are versatile

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  16. I said "appears" to have a poor attitude. I don't know what it is - something about the look on his face when he makes a poor cross, slows things down and misses opportunities, etc. Looks like he doesn't really care - but I'm no body language expert.
    Anyhow if he's giving 100% then it's not enough and he should go. Poor form has been going on longer than this season. I've lost track of the number of chances he's wasted by taking an extra dribble, poor cross, or blowing a shot into the sky. His runs look good, his dribbles look good, but his end product in the final third is lacking, he wastes way more chances than he creates.

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  17. I cannot take this link seriously. I mean he doesn't even have a nickname.

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  18. The way the transfer committee works is if we don't go for a target it is Ian Ayres fault. If we go for him and miss out, it is Ian Ayres fault. If we get our target and he's rubbish it is Ian Ayres fault. If we get the target and he's good, BR is a genius - simples.

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  19. He loses the ball because he goes forward & tries to create, take people etc. He's actually a very skilled player who can play with both feet & we look much better when he's playing.


    Flanagan has come on a lot, but his positional awareness is not up to scratch yet & he offers nowhere near as much as Johnson going forward.


    Johnson is England full back for a reason - he's the best in the country in his position, & on form one of the best in Europe.

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  20. Glad to read this: totally agree. Casual and even serious football fans don't often understand what makes a really good full-back and it's sometimes hard to recognise good full-back play. It's not usually something you can see without attending games, either. Johnson is a consummate full-back in my opinion, whose form has suffered this season with a little loss of recovery pace and whose end-product has fallen away with the loss of confidence that has brought. But he's still, as you say, a skilled and accomplished footballer who offers a lot to the team when he plays.

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  21. He takes like 5 seconds to make up his mind, and by the time he does the opportunity is gone, or the choice he makes is the wrong one.
    I'll give you that he is very skilled, more skilled that Flanno but some margin too. Difference for me, Flanno seems to play with heart, Johnson looks like he's just doing a job - a jabroni if you will.

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  22. We'll have to agree to disagree on this one, because Johnson's range of passing is excellent, as is his dribbling.


    But indecision, not for me. When he's charging forward, he's also weighing up what's available to him. Which is why he fits very well into Rodgers style of lots of movement off the ball.

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  23. As a fullback he's not supposed to have very high attackign stats. But, given that he's more of an attacking player than a defending player his stats are poor. 1 assist. Last year he took 50+ shots for a return of 1 goal, his crossing leaves much to be desired.
    Besides his 1 assist, how often does his play lead to anything? Usually ends up with posession being lost, cancelling out any positive contribution he had.
    And has to be said, statistically, Johnson is the player most likely to have me yelling and cursing at the TV.

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  24. Sell Jhonson...Get a New Right Back Like Joel Ward or Martin Montoya or De Sciglio...Jhonson is a Defensive Liability and we cannot take risk with this player playing in Champions League next year...Flanagan will play for League Cup and FA cup as a Secondary Right Back

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  25. At this point, it sounds like we are simply looking to stockpile talent.


    There's nothing wrong with that from LFC's view... but from the player's perspective, why would he come here if he's not going to play.


    I'm sure when Ilori came, he wasn't coming here to be loaned elsewhere.

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  26. I agree with just about everything you say here.


    Could see Kelly sticking around (simply because he signed a new contract with the last 12-14 months or so).


    In terms of Coates, that's one that I always felt never got a real fair shake with the club. Granted he never proved himself when given the opportunity, but the opportunities were relatively limited. And some might say it's a shame the injury prevented him from showcasing himself this season, but it sounds like he would have been sold if he were healthy.


    Silver lining in the Coates injury is there seemed to be a reasonable chance that Skrtel would have been sold if Coates were healthy. Instead we held onto Skrtel and he's been our best, most consistent defender all season.

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  27. Joel Matt Murdock Hwa7:26 am, March 13, 2014

    Hahhahaha....you caught me!

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