KopTalk.com Forums Football Liverpool FC Forum Central defence sorted ?

He looked surprisingly comfortable on the ball and did not panic when some other players played him the ball when they shouldn't !!! he was always available to receive the ball and looked settled, Wolves have allot of movement and skilfull players, I thiught he might struggle with that, he did well, I remember him playing one bad ball when he tried to spray it to the wing and it did not make it, I am not saying he is a great ball playing CB.

I have seen him play a few games recently, he always played pretty well and did not let the team down, that's good enough for me under the current circumstances.

Under our current dire circumstances where the club didn't think that a top CB was required, definitely, but him becoming world class, sorry, can't see that happening. He lacks both the pace and passing ability for that, but having genuine CBs has helped us keep clean sheets, which is great.

Not sure where everybodys obsession with world class has come from?

Just won champions league and the prem with most of the team not being world class to start off with at least.

I'd say the only world class signings we made are van dijk and alisson.

Most of our players have come from within or have been nabbed from lower league teams.

We've had Klopp for 5 years now and you can name on one hand high value players which we have bought so unless we suddenly become chelsea or city overnight I don't think we are just going to start buying world class players willy nilly unless we are have some kind of change.

It depends how you define world class, let's leave Messi and Ronaldo for now because they stand on their own on a different pillar from the current generation but for me judging whether a player is world class or not is can he start for the other top teams. Would Alisson start for Real, Barcelona,Bayern etc? Yes in my opinion, Vvd yes, Arnold and Robbo from last season yes, Wijnaldum yes, Fabinho yes, front 3 definitely yes. So based on the formula most of our starting 11 that won those trophies are world class in my opinion.

Sorry but saying Philips has the potential to be world class is laughable. He is a limited player doing a decent job

Very fair point and I agree with you that yes now most of our team probably would have a good chance of getting into those teams so I suppose the same wouldn't be said for phillips and kabac and that would be fair enough as well?

My but is, that, none of those players were really thought of as world class when we signed them so I don't believe we are just going to sign ready made world class players unless it's the odd one here or there. So by the same notion that our players have grown to be world class I don't see why kabac and phillips should just be already dismissed out of hand. Look phillips isn't going to turn into Van Dijk but I rekon if he chooses to be a good back-up option I would happily take it. I think his style is something we don't really have and we could utilise.

The absolute worst defender I have ever seen in a Liverpool shirt by a country mile is Lovren. I've heard people say Lorven was a good back-up in my mind phillips and kabac are already miles ahead of him because having Lovren in the starting line up was like being 1 down before kick off. He was a bull in a china shop. I was listening to one of the fan channels on youtube and when talking about phillips the presenter said that Lovren was a miles better defender, I actually spat my drink out when I heard that. So far as of yet he hasn't put a foot wrong, Lovren errors would have lead to 4 goals being conceeded in the time that phillips and kabac have started together.

I agree on Lovren, I think Lovren's problem was he thought he was better than he was !!!! he was a good defender but we all knew he had a big mistake in him and he usually made 1 mistake per game, the question was would our opponent take advantage, as you say, when you saw his name on the team sheet you knew it was a risk, Phillips tends to do the simple stuff well and does not take risks thinking he is Beckenbauer.

As for World Class, for me it is if that players is one of the best (top 5) in his position, so that means they would get a game in the best teams like RM/Barca/Juve/Bayern etc, we have only gone out and bought 2 World Class players for me recently (VvD & Alisson) and we paid a World Class fee for both.

We have also bought very good players who have become World Class under Klopp (Salah/Mane/Fab/Wij/Firminho), we have also bought cheap lesser known players who have turned into World Class (Robertson/Henderson/Coutinho/Gomez) under Klopp development.

I think we will only buy World Class if Klopp cannot find an alternative to fix an immediate problem, otherwise he will identify and develop a player to suit his system, like he has done with the likes of Wij & Salah.

On Phillips, we do not need World Class, we need a good reliable squad player at CB who can cover when we lose the likes of VvD/Gomez/Matip, happy playing in cup games, from what I have seen he can do that, he is also abit different wo out other CB's with his dogs of war style, so is useful to bring in against teams who bomb the box with big forwards on the end of crosses, the likes of Burnley/WBA/Newcastle etc, same go's for bringing him on late as extra cover when a team starts launching it, like Wolves did the other night.

Nail on head for me.

I agree world-class is not what we need good quality gelling players with a sprinkling of world-class (whatever that is) players

Just like we had last season