Author Topic: Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain  (Read 752142 times)

Offline Clint Eastwood

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Re: Welcome to Liverpool Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain
« Reply #160 on: August 31, 2017, 08:08:51 pm »
Forgive the basic question... is he cup tied in the CL ?  I'd think not, since the Arse are not in the CL this year, but just wanted to confirm...cheers in advance
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Offline SP

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Re: Welcome to Liverpool Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain
« Reply #161 on: August 31, 2017, 08:11:34 pm »
Bizarre we didnt get him on a pre contract agreement. We should of been putting this money towards a centre half and goalkeeper. Hugely injury prone too. Lets hope he doesn't bring his injury record with him.

It is a World Cup year. He wants to move and revitalise his career before the World Cup. Arsenal has an ever decreasing circles vibe about it. He wants out this year not next. He was probably not prepared to wait, and would have move to Chelsea this year in preference to the prospect of us next.

Offline sminp

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Re: Welcome to Liverpool Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain
« Reply #162 on: August 31, 2017, 08:17:20 pm »
You're wildly wrong about this I'm happy to say.
He's going to play a ton for us when we play a 3 man midfield and excel there. He has the perfect skill set for it.

I agree, I think he'll prove himself to be a great signing. I don't understand some of the negativity I've seen about this.
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Offline Tommy Torres

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Re: Welcome to Liverpool Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain
« Reply #163 on: August 31, 2017, 08:17:21 pm »
£35m for a player to sit on the bench! Times have changed, doesn't seem that long ago we were looking at signing Carlton Cole and actually did sign Paul fucking Konchesky!

Changed for the better and whilst I don't see him in our strongest 11, I'm sure he will get plenty of opportunities with all the games we have this year and further strengthens our squad which has been sorely needed.
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Offline johnj147

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Re: Welcome to Liverpool Alex Oxlaide-Chamberlain
« Reply #164 on: August 31, 2017, 08:26:38 pm »



Really love versatile players and this guy's one of the better ones..welcome Alex. :scarf
looking good ox all the best lad  :scarf

Offline Medellin

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Re: Welcome to Liverpool Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain
« Reply #165 on: August 31, 2017, 08:28:03 pm »
Welcome to Liverpool fc!  :wave
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Offline johnj147

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Re: Welcome to Liverpool Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain
« Reply #166 on: August 31, 2017, 08:28:14 pm »
There was an opportunity for a mega non-Melwood column double lean there and they missed it.  :(
ha ha brilliant

Offline abs-ibs

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Re: Welcome to Liverpool Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain
« Reply #167 on: August 31, 2017, 08:35:54 pm »
Got to say I'm happy he is with us. I've seen him tear apart a few teams over the years and it was him coming on for Arsenal last season that got them back into that mad game at the Emirates last year. Hope he gets better n better under Klopp.

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Offline dogeibbor

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Re: Welcome to Liverpool Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain
« Reply #168 on: August 31, 2017, 08:38:13 pm »
Excellent OP! Looking forward to see him in action for us now  :)

Offline robgomm

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Re: Welcome to Liverpool Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain
« Reply #169 on: August 31, 2017, 08:43:32 pm »
Really excited to see him improve under Klopp and be a big part of the next few years for us.

Offline hesbighesred

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Re: Welcome to Liverpool Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain
« Reply #170 on: August 31, 2017, 09:03:23 pm »
Excellent OP Babayagu, thank you for the effort!
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Offline the_red_pill

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Re: Welcome to Liverpool Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain
« Reply #171 on: August 31, 2017, 09:13:35 pm »
He's going to surprise a lot of people - way better player than is generally perceived.

Happy he's here and it's INCREDIBLY impressive he took significantly less money to do it
Yep. Like I kept saying for a very long time now.. he is the Arsenal player I always looked out for against us, because of his explosiveness, pace and power and finesse with the ball. We'll obviously see more of his creativity here, but he's got pace and power- something we always need in midfield.

Now... imagine adding pressing to an almost finished product..
The lad WILL improve. There is no question about it. Just the fact that he HAS TO add pressing to his game will elevate him to a different level naturally- and that's before Klopp would even start working on improving his other areas.
« Last Edit: August 31, 2017, 09:15:50 pm by the_red_pill »
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In such a sumptuous festival of shite, I wouldn't be so quick to pick a winner..

But he'd make the shortlist

Offline the_red_pill

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Re: Welcome to Liverpool Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain
« Reply #172 on: August 31, 2017, 09:20:30 pm »
Better than nothing.

Should be a decent squad player.
Oh he'll be great against the smaller sides. That's what we need. We're already very good against the best sides so against the "smaller" teams, he would have very few who would come near him.
Besides- he belongs in a team going for greater things.
"Some listen to understand. Others listen to respond."
"A fool does not delight in understanding, but only in revealing his own mind."
In such a sumptuous festival of shite, I wouldn't be so quick to pick a winner..

But he'd make the shortlist

Offline TomDcs

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Re: Welcome to Liverpool Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain
« Reply #173 on: August 31, 2017, 10:04:41 pm »
Welcome Oxo Chambo lad!! Fair play to him coming here and taking less money to try and push his career forwards.

Offline God's Left Peg

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Re: Welcome to Liverpool Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain
« Reply #174 on: August 31, 2017, 10:06:19 pm »
Welcome Alex, work hard and allow Klopp to make you great.

OP blew me away, that was some effort. Thanks, BY.
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Offline Sudden Death Draft Loser

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Re: Welcome to Liverpool Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain
« Reply #175 on: August 31, 2017, 11:01:10 pm »
You've posted about this about ten times now. Does it really annoy you that much?

Yes
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Offline Kopenhagen

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Re: Welcome to Liverpool Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain
« Reply #176 on: August 31, 2017, 11:06:34 pm »
He's talented and will improve under Klopp. Nice to inject more pace into the side, and The Ox does that.
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Offline burriana

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Re: Welcome to Liverpool Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain
« Reply #177 on: August 31, 2017, 11:07:43 pm »
More importantly, calling him The Ox needs fucked off sharpish

I'm with you. Shite nickname, rugger bugger wank.

Offline kopite17

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Re: Welcome to Liverpool Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain
« Reply #178 on: August 31, 2017, 11:09:23 pm »
Mane-Firmino-Salah
Sturridge-Solanke-Ox

Can't remember many times where we've had such an exciting set of players to choose from for the attacking side of the team and thats not forgetting Coutinho, Lallana and Ings

Really great times ahead!

Offline Always_A_Red

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Re: Welcome to Liverpool Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain
« Reply #179 on: August 31, 2017, 11:15:19 pm »
Welcome to the best club in the world Alex!  :scarf
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Offline Espresso Bar

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Re: Welcome to Liverpool Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain
« Reply #180 on: August 31, 2017, 11:35:56 pm »
Liverpool Reds Ox

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Re: Welcome to Liverpool Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain
« Reply #181 on: August 31, 2017, 11:46:10 pm »
You're wildly wrong about this I'm happy to say.
He's going to play a ton for us when we play a 3 man midfield and excel there. He has the perfect skill set for it.
Do you think he'll play more in our midfield than Lallana, Coutinho, Wijnaldum and Can?

Offline thejbs

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Re: Welcome to Liverpool Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain
« Reply #182 on: August 31, 2017, 11:59:27 pm »
Always liked this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sOcVNnfKUH4

Showing him getting pissed off because Ars weren't pressing.  He'll have no such frustration with us.

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Re: Welcome to Liverpool Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain
« Reply #183 on: September 1, 2017, 12:11:50 am »
Do you think he'll play more in our midfield than Lallana, Coutinho, Wijnaldum and Can?

Yes

Offline jckliew

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Re: Welcome to Liverpool Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain
« Reply #184 on: September 1, 2017, 12:22:00 am »
RESPECT to the Ox for turning down 220k per week tp play for us for 120k per week. RESPECT.
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Offline Reese

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Re: Welcome to Liverpool Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain
« Reply #185 on: September 1, 2017, 12:22:13 am »
People are severely underrating what he is gonna bring to our team. Think he will be a starter soon enough.

The pace when he, Mane and Salah are on the field. :lmao

Offline jckliew

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Re: Welcome to Liverpool Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain
« Reply #186 on: September 1, 2017, 12:29:13 am »
People are severely underrating what he is gonna bring to our team. Think he will be a starter soon enough.

The pace when he, Mane and Salah are on the field. :lmao

Which position is he going to play? Cout's. ;)
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Offline the 92A

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Re: Welcome to Liverpool Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain
« Reply #187 on: September 1, 2017, 12:31:02 am »
First of all Baba, the quality of some of your recent posts really are outstanding, give it a day on here and i'll  move this to Opinion on the first page of the site as it deserves more exposure. You always put your stats in context and they become far more useful than spreadsheets of figures. I come to football from a different perspective but look forward to reading your posts. Coming from my point of view one thing I've noticed is that you rarely hear any match going Arsenal fans slagging the lad off, they can see the work he does and how it enables others to perform. I'm excited to see how he'll fit into a team that will use his game intelligence and work as a unit with him. Hopefully Klopp and his team can help him with his injury record, which does concern some of the better Arsenal supporters
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Offline Lord Vader

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Re: Welcome to Liverpool Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain
« Reply #188 on: September 1, 2017, 12:31:56 am »
I think he has to be more consistent or he will have splinter issues

Not surprised as his name has been ringing around for ages, the part of this i now get (other than the pace and potential on his day) is Klopp's words

I think a manager sees a player do well and gets a soft spot as we all would and that player lodges themselves on the radar.

So this is a 100% klopp signing

Hope the lad does well and shows us he was hindered at arsenal. he will certainly add competition to the front line players and keep them on their toes.

Price tag : Well these days the numbers just seem to be all over the shop and there is enough cash in the game to make it go stupid, a 30-40 million flop is what cost us 20 mill 4 years ago. I just look at transfer fees like prices in the supermarket and ignore them and look at the litres per £ or kg for £ and at 24 if he does its a great buy.

I hope a proved wrong that he isn't a notch lower than sterling who was a fantastic player 1 in 3

Welcome to the club, i hope he sits with Kennedy and Thomas as players who were good for us after playing for the arse.

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Offline SerbianScouser

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Re: Welcome to Liverpool Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain
« Reply #189 on: September 1, 2017, 12:32:44 am »
Which position is he going to play? Cout's. ;)
We've got 5 AMs and 2 WFs, surely for the sake of squad balance we'd be looking to play him as WF rather than 6th AM.

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Re: Welcome to Liverpool Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain
« Reply #190 on: September 1, 2017, 12:33:30 am »
Babu excellent breakdown and I was hoping you could help with a question. What exactly should our players be looking to do to be the "lockpick". We failed numerous times last season even with Lallana and Coutinho playing and ended up becoming one dimensional attacking the wide areas. What are we looking for to attack zone 14 with an end product. If Lallana and Coutinho failed to un pick the lock what is it that we are missing. One twos or a bit more pace from the ball carrier in order to commit another defender out of the low block.

I'm writing something on this as we speak  - "Needle Players". It will basically be a "how do we fuck up a low-block" thread.
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Re: Welcome to Liverpool Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain
« Reply #191 on: September 1, 2017, 12:37:10 am »
Oh and what a fantastically informative, well researched and well reasoned opening post! Outstanding - surely must do this for a living?
Thanks mate & I wish I did :D

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Offline Gifted Right Foot

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Re: Welcome to Liverpool Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain
« Reply #192 on: September 1, 2017, 12:45:24 am »
Nice post Babu.  Really interested to see where Klopp and our system can take Ox.

Offline BabuYagu

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Re: Welcome to Liverpool Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain
« Reply #193 on: September 1, 2017, 12:52:41 am »
First of all Baba, the quality of some of your recent posts really are outstanding, give it a day on here and i'll  move this to Opinion on the first page of the site as it deserves more exposure. You always put your stats in context and they become far more useful than spreadsheets of figures. I come to football from a different perspective but look forward to reading your posts. Coming from my point of view one thing I've noticed is that you rarely hear any match going Arsenal fans slagging the lad off, they can see the work he does and how it enables others to perform. I'm excited to see how he'll fit into a team that will use his game intelligence and work as a unit with him. Hopefully Klopp and his team can help him with his injury record, which does concern some of the better Arsenal supporters

Cheers mate, appreciate that. It comes from years as a financial advisor having to turn numbers into something my clients, usually barristers and the likes, could understand. :D

I've rarely seen a team collapse and a single player still look decent. Like the Brazil v Germany disaster. Once the players know they are going to get hammered, there is just a general group acceptance. That comes from whoever they perceive as the groups alpha. He stops trying, they all stop.

That's happened a couple of times with him though. I've seen Arsenal look rubbish but he would still be running around, trying to make something happen, looking frustrated at doing so alone. I watched the every touch of his from the weekends game and even then he was having a pop at Ramsey, signalling for peopel to come towards him when he was isolated on the wing against Moreno & Mane. Then when he had people nearby he tried to get some attacks going and did okay.

As for his injury record, I posted about that in the Arsenal roundtable but in short, it shows that players need intensive training to condition them to intensive work. However some clubs allow players to skip training to be fit for matches. This ultimately exacerbates things. Likewise coming back from injury and trying to play your way into fitness. It's not true of all players - some like Suarez were just born unbreakable - but if you have a player who is repeatedly injured like that, this could be happening. It's interesting that Sanchez who I had down as a Suarez-like terminator suffered this himself at Arsenal with a hamstring injury that seemed to drag on for way too long due to Wengers desire to get him on the pitch before he was fit.

So there is some light at the end of that tunnel, Sturridge's too (which I am most excited by).
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Offline Bangin Them In

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Re: Welcome to Liverpool Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain
« Reply #194 on: September 1, 2017, 12:54:18 am »
Interesting signing

When he went to Arsenal he was the next big thing
Moved about the team and dropped in and out, like any kid, confidence is everything

Waste of time going there in the end, depends on his willingness to move forward, he can be anything he wants
Clearly forcing his move and dropping money to move here is a great first step, shows actual ambition

Wish him well, could be sensational in an attacking team,as he was always meant to be
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Offline nyrrard

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Re: Welcome to Liverpool Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain
« Reply #195 on: September 1, 2017, 01:41:12 am »
Was a bit envious at Arsenal when he first came there. Still only 23! Did not really hit his stride in a static Wenger team, but from what i´ve read I believe he will in Liverpool.
Will be funny to follow. Interesting he picked #21...

As always a great OP BabuYagu. A great scouting report, very enlightening. Thank you.


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Re: Welcome to Liverpool Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain
« Reply #196 on: September 1, 2017, 01:49:28 am »
Great OP, I must admit I completely dismissed the idea of him being in midfield but you've certainly convinced me that he has the tools to excel there. I found two more compilations of him playing in midfield, his Bayern performance is particularly good.

Vs Sunderland (H) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pVUjqaQzG-k
Vs Bayern (A) https://mobile.twitter.com/EmanDaGoonn/status/839406190757044225/video/1

Also this compilation against Stoke showcases his vision several times, although he is playing wingback https://streamable.com/s2hkl
I have no idea how you found those videos and I didn't. I'm going to assume witchcraft and unless you can categorically prove you are not, request that you be burned alive.

Actually I can see now. You searched for "the Ox v" whereas I was searching for "Oxlaide v" :D Still not convinced you aren't a witch though.
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Offline jckliew

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Re: Welcome to Liverpool Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain
« Reply #197 on: September 1, 2017, 01:53:20 am »
We've got 5 AMs and 2 WFs, surely for the sake of squad balance we'd be looking to play him as WF rather than 6th AM.
i thought we only have one AM who is injured/unavailable.   ;)
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Re: Welcome to Liverpool Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain
« Reply #198 on: September 1, 2017, 01:58:14 am »
Hes growing on me already . Hes a long term Milner replacement and a long term Llana replacement at the same time. Once he gets off the Wenger string orchestra and into the Klopp heavy metal he should be perfectly suited for a high pressing game. Huge depth piece.
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Offline Xabier Alonso Olano

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Re: Welcome to Liverpool Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain
« Reply #199 on: September 1, 2017, 02:00:39 am »
Fantastic read Babu. Can someone put it in the quality posts you might have missed thread?

I fully agree about Oxlade-Chamberlain, think he's got the exact skillset that we need for both now and the future. One area that I haven't seen mentioned is his first touch, which at times can be elite level. There's one in the Southampton video in the OP where he's plucked it out of the air with such ease. In itself it might not seem significant but I have always appreciated the importance of a players first touch and control of the ball. In so many aspects of the game it's important; playing in tight spaces, taking in passes on the move, constructing attacks - Nothing more frustrating than a 5 plus pass move breaking down at the last pass due to a bad first touch - A bad touch can cost you possession, goals for and against (Bellerin at the weekend). Elite level control/ first touch can create chances and goals in itself. Think Emre Can's touch and cross for Salah vs Arsenal, his first touch on the move was perfect, the second just as good, but without the immediate control of the ball the chance would have either been blocked or reduced in quality.

I watched the Arsenal Stoke game, and thought that it highlighted his dribbling, and more importantly the quality of his dribbling, but not in the right areas of the pitch. His first touch on the move in a couple of them were perfect, taking his man out of the game instantly. That split second control that pushes the ball into space, that quickness of mind that is a common trait in so many of the best footballers.

I think he's very good at rondos too. I think that's one area he will show that his best position probably is in a midfield three, especially against low blocks, when we are having a good percentage of territorial possession. Quick one touch passing in and around the box, coupled with with his pace could be goals for us, especially if we can improve the quality and timing of his runs. I think in a midfield 3, it will immediately lend to him finding better positions in which to assist/score as opposed to wing back, or even on the wing in the system Wenger used him in.

Also he bridges the age gap between Lallana and Woodburn about as perfectly as you could hope for. Its a small detail, but an important one, squads are cyclic but with forward planning and a bit of luck you can minimise its impact. Klopp is assembling his squad for the next 5/6/7 years. Most of its here already, especially in midfield if we can get Emre to sign a new deal and with Keita in next season.

Another also; he's come at about as perfect a time as he could hope for, due to Lallanas injury and Coutinho waiting to be reintergrated. It gives him a better chance of starting and in a team that is playing very very well, I'm really hoping he can hit the ground running and push Lallana/Coutinho as hard as he can for a starting spot.

Final also! Our bench is going to be disgusting. Disgusting and filthy when everyone is fit. We could see a something like this vs City:

Karius, Klavan, Milner, Oxlade-Chamberlain, Coutinho, Sturridge, Solanke

That's real depth with potential match winning options, different skills sets and strengths for Klopp to change the game. Not sure I've seen much stronger benches for us down the years. All good signs for me. Think we are really gonna challenge this season, on all fronts and I think Oxlade-Chamberlain knows it too.