1. I usually get the impression that when finals are contested by evenly matched teams, the one who's more defensively oriented and takes fewer risks going forward in the match tends to win. Finals are usually cagey affairs, that's a given, but we do seem to approach most of them with a lot of will to take risks, because that's who we are and that's what Klopp & staff have worked on all these years, we are an offensive team and to attack well sometimes you need to commit numbers. Do i think sometimes we should cool down and let the other team hustle out while we counter? Definitely, and we're more than capable at that, but i'm just some guy.
2. Real Madrid are a top team and against top teams it's never a guarantee that we'll create chances at will. The midfielders did their role well in the latest final, we played a good game, that said, it's well established that Hendo isn't a player like Stevie, he's not a battering ram who'll force the issue. Could we do with a guy like Kevin De Bruyne? Sure, any team in the world would, but we played fine vs Real Madrid. They just weren't willing to take as many risks as we did going forward whereas we did.
3. Mané's LW contributions have already been effectively recreated with Jota and Diaz. You can't replace man-for-man a guy like Sadio but his contributions can be recreated and i believe that's what we did. But with Div and Sadio going it's imperative that at least one player comes on and i have full confidence that Klopp & staff will get the replacement right. It looks a tough market this summer seeing as i don't fancy the likes of Darwin Nunez, Nkunku, Osihmen or Jonathan David to adequately replace the #9 role Mané played lately. Mo's had a rough second half of the season but that's probably due to the workload he's been carrying after AFCOn plus a change in role after Sadio became the #9.
4. Some teams can buy dross for a hundred million pounds and then add up another seventy million pounds signing just because they feel like it. We can't afford to do it, which is why we play the waiting game a lot of the time. We spend money, but that we do with caution.
I think it's entirely possible that in the current market we can't find an adequate player to play the false nine for us once Sadio's very likely gone (with Bobby now clearly becoming a rotational option) and settle for waiting for the right player to become available (like we did with Konaté). I don't rate these names i'm seeing. Nunez, Nkunku, David, Osimhen, Abraham, Scamacca, Dembele, that diminutive Ajax winder the list goes on.
Two guys i do rate are Bowen and Raphinha, although i can't see them being content with being Salah's 2nd option. Bowen can play as a striker as well i believe. Who knows. Trust Jurgen really.
Any chance Martinelli becomes available he's wildly entertaining