I think our recruitment probably does involve some form of giving Klopp a player who has specific fundamental attributes and then allowing Klopp to decide how they fit in. I'd say that's pretty normal, especially with younger players. Jones, Elliott, Trent don't really play roles they did for acadmey teams.
Yeah that's got to be right. And we're clearly flexible about players positions. We have form with Elliott and Jones of players moving back into the 8 position from further forward. And we've got form of goalscorers like Gini moving backwards too. And Carvalho fits into both those categories.
However, given Elliot's outstanding qualities are his passing, and he's not that quick, nor likely to run in behind that much, I'm fairly sure we never had him pegged as a wide forward in our system. His attributes fit certain roles in our team and not others. And likewise with Gini, you can tell from the way he plays that he was never going to be a wide forward for us. He could have ended up as a false 9 mind. Trent is very similar in that his relative weaknesses would be exposed in midfield but are hidden at RB and his attributes can shine just as much there as they can in cm. Plus he moved backwards as part of his move from youth to senior player. The difference with Carvalho is he profiles as an attacking player, it's not clear how what he's very good at particularly fits into a Klopp midfield. In some ways this comes down to the role vs position discussion. I think we're very flexible about positions but we're less flexible about roles, and our forwards have certain roles in the team and our midfielders have other roles. If you're looking at the role that our midfielders typically fulfill, I don't know why you want Carvalho given his attributes.
