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Liverpool Echo
Liverpool Echo
Sport
John Aldridge

FSG need to move fast and complete sale to help Liverpool move on from tough dilemma

It’s crazy the way football can turn around. Everton getting a new manager and beating top of the table Arsenal, and Liverpool getting beat 3-0 on the same day by a team fighting relegation in Wolves.

Things seem to be going from bad to worse, and personally it’s hard to take. But it is what it is, you can’t say it’s a lack of a work rate, because all the players work really hard.

But when you make basic mistakes, and defend like school boys, then you win nothing.

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I don’t know what’s wrong with Fabinho, and I can’t understand why Jordan Henderson isn’t starting games. Liverpool had no leaders against Wolves, and he’s a leader and the captain, or maybe even James Milner.

When the chips are down, you don’t play Naby Keita in midfield. You play Henderson or Milner in there, because you’ve got to win the midfield battle.

Regardless of the age of Henderson or Milner, they will both do a job. So that’s it in a nutshell. And when the 18-year-old Stefan Bajcetic is your best player, that tells you something.

Everyone’s starved of confidence and belief, and I’ve heard those words so much. And take it from me, it does affect you.

If you give away two early goals, you’re fighting your way all of the way across and it’s on your mind and becomes really tough.

Everyone is down on themselves, the players are down on themselves. Is Jurgen Klopp down on himself? Of course he is. And if ever a manager needs his staff, it’s now.

Klopp is taking the brunt of it, but what about your people behind you. Jurgen needs a little bit of help.

I’ve been there myself with Tranmere Rovers, so I know what it’s like.

Liverpool are in a dilemma and FSG need to sell the club soon

With all due respect to Brentford, Brighton and Wolves - the three teams that Liverpool have lost to away from home in the Premier League recently - it’s not Manchester City, Tottenham Hotspur or Arsenal.

It’s teams that Liverpool should be beating, with all due respect to them. I have to put that out there.

Liverpool can’t be going to those places needing to score four goals to win a game, you just can’t. Even the fact that there were 20 shots, with only two on target as well, so the forwards have got to take the brunt of it because they’re not doing their jobs.

A lot of the underlying problems are the midfield, of course. Bajcetic, Thiago Alcantara and Keita are not battlers. Bajcetic is young, Thiago is a playmaker and a brilliant player in the right midfield.

Keita can’t defend, but he has a good work rate. You’ve got to get the midfield right, and whatever has happened to Fabinho, no one knows.

You’ve still got Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain who has played in midfield, Henderson, Milner. When the chips are down, you need your big players.

I’ve been saying before that the midfield needs sorting out. And it’s easy to say now, but the club should have signed a new midfielder.

Of the players in midfield that the club could have signed, Jurgen doesn’t think that they’re good enough, or maybe he does. If they’re available, you don’t go and sign Arthur Melo on loan, with all due respect to him.

It’s Liverpool Football Club, and if the owners, who have been good owners, can’t afford to buy the big players that are needed, then they need to sell the club as soon as possible.

Get the best deal that they can for themselves and let us move on. They’ve just got to get the best deal for themselves.

There’s nothing they can do about the transfer window now, but down the line at the end of the season, if they can’t afford to sign a £100m player, they might not come to the club now. Liverpool won’t be in the Champions League, so they’re in a dilemma.

If the club is not in Europe, then it’s going to be really tough to get the best players to come to the club. But that’s it in a nutshell, and where Liverpool are at the moment.

Let’s hope that Jurgen stays at the reins and is given the tools that he needs.

One more thing; it will be interesting to see what happens with Manchester City after they were charged by the Premier League for alleged multiple breaches of financial fair play regulations.

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