Superblue

I didn't realise but his wife and kids can all speak English fluently which should help him pick it up far quicker than what would usually be the case.

I always thought that this season our preference would be to play a 4-3-3 with a holder and two 'number 8's'. Now however I think we are more likely to see a hybrid of 4-2-3-1 and 4-2-4. I think the two midfielders will be given the task to sit and hold. This would likely be Kante (if he's back to full fitness this season, he will be a game changer for us in that midfield) and Kovacic but we would also have Jorginho and Gilmour as options. I also think that at times when we perhaps are playing the lesser teams or chasing a goal that Barkley can be an option in there to add a bit more attacking thrust. Then looking at the front four I think Lampard wants energy, movement, freedom, versatility to go out and overwhelm teams. I can see Havertz becoming the number 10 and being given some freedom to at times drop and play deeper to act as a link and other times play much higher up to Werner. The pace and direct nature of Pulisic and Werner and guile and creativity of Ziyech and Havertz could end up being something pretty special. And then we have an abundance of options available to us in that front line alongside these four. Chilwell coming in and James hopefully kicking on too I think will also make a difference in having two full backs capable of getting up and down and providing the width through overlaps. I think it may take some time to get going, but when it does I could see this group building up some real momentum and causing a massive headache for a lot of teams. I'm really looking at getting the next 3 games in the league out the way before the next international break and then hopefully Lampard has his strongest squad on paper available to him at that point.

This is pretty amusing, reminds me of the stories of Dennis Wise putting his own stamp on English lessons for the Italian influx, making sure they knew all the slang and swearing. If I was one of the English boys I'd definitely have a little fun with some of the lads coming in with regards to the language. We use so much slang in this country and lots of words have different meanings in different areas, it must be incredibly confusing for the foreign lads coming in at times. Great interview though, and a great press conference too the other day. Elite, winning mentality. I hope he gets off the mark over the next couple of games because I think if he strikes hot it'll take a lot to stop him. This season might be too soon, but over the next couple of years I'm very confident he'll be firing us into a serious title challenge and trophies on the horizon.

The Liverpool move for Jota is interesting. It just goes to show that they do have money to spend. Perhaps they were willing to hold out until later in the window to secure the best deals and prices possible and maybe there was some complacency with Werner because Liverpool probably thought they were the only team realistically in the running for him. From what I've read regarding Werner, Klopp tried to convince him to stay in Leipzig and they would make a move for him eventually, he just couldn't guarantee when. Judging from his comments recently and the obvious bit of needle between him and Lampard, I think what we've done this summer has rattled him a bit. Particularly the signings of Werner and Havertz, two young Germans who have been linked with moves to Liverpool. When there's barely a few million, if not less, between the price tags of Jota and Werner, I know which one I'd prefer and it's the one wearing blue.

I know that Thiago plays deeper but that creative presence will still help act as the link between midfield and attack. At present Firmino acts as that link because the midfield lacks creativity. If Firmino no longer has to drop as deep as he has previously to help Liverpool's build up play, there may be question marks around him eventually because he doesn't get huge numbers for goals. For me, Liverpool would benefit from having a striker option more comfortable with playing higher up. Origi is about a similar level to Batshuayi. I think over time it will prove a mistake that they didn't push to get Werner.

The point is that Firmino drops deep and acts as both the link and the creative spark in the central areas of the pitch. If Liverpool now have a playmaker playing deeper in midfield, do they still need certain aspects of what Firmino offers the team. It'll be interesting to see because Thiago is a different style of player to what they currently have in their midfield so it may impact on some players with their roles and balance within the team.

We definitely beat them at home in Conte's second season when Rudiger did a job on Salah.

Thiago is an excellent signing and adds something creatively that the Liverpool midfield lacks which is almost purely built on a workmanlike mentality to help the front three and full backs flourish. It will be interesting how important Firmino remains with this. Is his ability to drop deep and link the player still needed with this purchase, and if not he may come under much more scrutiny for the lack of consistency he has as a goalscorer. I'm still amazed they passed up the opportunity to buy Werner. I understand the current economic situation regarding Covid but they haven't really spent anything for the last 2 summers and won trophies in that time, surely the money was there to add a couple of players and in particular when Werner was so reasonably priced. However the one thing to note about the Thiago signing is he's 30 years old in about 6 months time. Perhaps there is a mentality there to add on what they have now and win as much as they can over the next couple of seasons but the team isn't getting any younger with this signing. It reminds me of the Chelsea team at the start of the decade. It had been left to grow old together and whilst we still won trophies, it reached a point where we had to replace a number of key players all within the space of a year or two. Liverpool if they're not careful will find themselves in the same position because Van Dijk, the entire first choice midfield and front line are all of a similar age within a year or two of each other. They are in their prime now, but we've seen ourselves how quick that prime can drop off suddenly.

It makes things incredibly hard to plan with that hanging over. And if he developed and became one of the, or the, best left back in the world, how frustrating would that be to then lose him for barely any more money than was originally paid for him. As @Vesper mentioned, when you factor in wages, agent fees, etc they probably will do no better than break even on this deal if Madrid want him back. At least if a buy back clause is inserted, as the buying club I'd want the buy back to be around double the original purchase price. If he becomes a great player, Spurs are getting mugged off by Real Madrid.

Alexander-Arnold for how good he is going forward is really poor defensively, and isn't the quickest either. Whoever plays on the left I feel needs to be quick and direct. It will cause him a lot of problems and also help to pin him back which is vital when he provides Liverpool their width. Pulisic is the one hopefully fit to play there, particularly after the carnage he caused in the last 30 minutes a few weeks ago. However, if he isn't fit, I'd be inclined to play Werner there and bring Giroud in as a focal point.

From what it sounds Ziyech won't be fit for a few weeks so it could well create an opportunity for Havertz to play there. The lack of width hurt us at times and I think CHO probably should have started, but even then tonight he would have played on one side and we still would have had one of Havertz or Mount playing wide, unless Werner played there. Again I think Lampard loves versatility in his attack and that versatility gives him multiple options but with a smaller group of players to work with. We now only have three players naturally comfortable with playing as wingers but multiple others that can 'do a job' in those positions I think until Lampard has the the squad fully available it's difficult to judge too much what he wants to try and do this season with this group. Without a pre season it will be very difficult for a number of these new players to hit the ground running when they've had no opportunities to play together with new teammates and not much time to train together. You could see this clearly with Havertz tonight. He looked mostly tidy and the talent is clearly there but he simply wasn't on the same wavelength as others around him but should we expect nothing less when he's only been training at the club for a week and with a number of players on international duty, will have been training with the whole squad only for a couple of days.

One thing I've read in a couple of different reports is that Lampard plans to initially use Havertz out wide whilst acclimatising to the pace and intensity of the league, before he likely ends up playing centrally.

One other thing of note is if we don't manage to buy Declan Rice this summer, I think Lampard will use Reece James at times in midfield. Particularly to help see games out or especially when Kante is not fit to offer a better defensive presence in the middle.

Firstly it's huge to get a win first game of the season. It's easy to forget that we're coming straight into the season off the back of no real pre season, which is even more difficult for us when we've had a higher turnover in players compared to most. No team this weekend has made me stand up and think "bloody hell, they look really good" so to get 3 points to start us off was vital. It was also important to win a game not playing particularly well. I can't remember many times, if at all, that happened last season. We always seemed to have to play well to win games and when we didn't play well we got beat. I can't help but feel last season we would have drawn or lost that game after the equaliser but we did wrestle some control back in the game in the second half and saw the game out comfortably after the third goal which is another pleasing aspect of perhaps a little bit of maturity starting to show. One player that I've always been fairly critical about, Christensen, I actually thought played very well tonight. There were a couple of times where he stepped across to make an interception which could have been more dangerous than it ended up being. He looked much more composed and assured than he did towards the end of last season. I mentioned the other day about loaning out RLC this season and keeping Barkley and stand by that even more so after today. The only way RLC can recover properly from this injury is playing week in week out and getting back rhythm, something he won't be afforded here. People have mentioned about this 4-2-4 but I think realistically when everyone is back and fit it will be more of a 4-2-3-1. What I did notice however is that Lampard seemed to want the attacking players to interchange. Didn't work too well today but I think with the right personnel it could cause teams massive problems. All of our attacking players are versatile which seems to be something that Lampard puts in high regard and I think he'll try to make use of that this season. For example later in the game when Werner moved to the left hand side for a period, I could imagine when that is providing space for Pulisic to move centrally it could create a few openings.

Werner looks a potential superstar. He's so rapid and lively. Havertz I think will take longer to get adjusted to the league. Everything he does looks tidy and effortless, but you can see he's not quite on the same wavelength as the rest at present. I think he'll definitely be more suited to playing centrally long term.

I see this summer most outgoings will be loans. There's simply not enough activity in the market to get satisfactory prices for some of the players we want to dispose of. If the market and finances begin to stabilise over this season, it will hopefully be easier to sell players next summer.

Whether it's this summer or next, I view Declan Rice as a key signing for us. My brother in law is a hammer, and has raved about Rice for ages. He says he's an absolute cut above anything else West Ham have got in their squad and is both their best centre back and centre midfielder by a large distance. I was always a little sceptical, but I've watched him a lot more in recent times and each time I've seen him he has been very good and he offers something at present we lack in our squad, which is a dominant, defensive minded midfielder to shield our back line. Whether his long term future is centre back or centre mid, I think he would come into our team immediately and improve it and his role can be assessed long term. If we brought him, I also think he would be the long term choice to take over from Azpi as captain.

From what I read at the time, my understanding was always that Atletico were willing to sell us Aguero and Godin in a double deal for around £55-60m but they wouldn't sell in January, it would be in the summer. We weren't prepared to wait so instead brought David Luiz and Torres for far more money that January. If that is true, at least the moral of the story has perhaps taught us this time to not panic which was an option to do so in January and instead to bide our time and take advantage of opportunities.

I think if we made a move, what would go for us is I would expect him to be desperate to make the move and might even try to force Burnley's hand. He has a real huge chance of being England number one in time for the Euros given how bad Pickford has been for the last couple of years and Henderson will likely at least start the season second fiddle to De Gea.

Again it all depends on exactly what formation Lampard wants to favour. If it's a 4-3-3 then I think you would be looking at 4 first team players needed for those two advanced midfield positions. Three of those would probably be Havertz, Mount and Kovacic, so it would probably be then one of RLC and Barkley. My point is unless somebody comes in with a big bid for Barkley, I'd be inclined to keep him this season and loan out RLC to somewhere he'll play regularly. He had a year out injured with arguably the worst injury a footballer can suffer. He looks a shadow of the player that he was evolving into at the back end of Sarri's season here and I think it's a massive struggle for him to get anywhere near back to that playing sporadically. I don't think he should be written off yet but he should be given the best opportunity possible to see if he can come back fully from his injury and in my opinion that opportunity would be by going on loan and playing regularly.

The problem with Jorginho is how much his lack of athleticism and presence leaves us exposed defensively. Yes our best run during the season was earlier on when he was playing at the base but a lot of those games were completely gung ho and open. Once Tammy's goals dried up, the cracks started to appear. It was clear later in the season that Lampard started to prefer other options, and I personally prefer someone more defensively sound in that position. If Lampard wants two offensive minded players in midfield and two full backs shuttling up and down the wings, someone else besides the centre backs has to defend! I don't think any of the top teams currently don't have someone in midfield to shield and protect the defence. I genuinely think long term Lampard would like to have a midfield three of Rice, Mount and Havertz but we'll see. That's why I think Jorginho is dispensable. And the times when Lampard wants a more creative player at the base (which I don't think would be anywhere near as often) he still has Gilmour to come in and do that. With regards to the squad options, I would attempt to loan out RLC again. I wouldn't give up on him yet but he needs to be playing regularly and get rhythm back into his game to play himself out of the injury he's had. He won't get that here because the competition for places won't afford him a few games to get going. His loan at Palace was the initial making of him, and I think he needs to do something similar again to reset. It's different circumstances with CHO because I don't think the competition for places wide is nearly as strong as in midfield so he should get plenty of game time and opportunities this season. If RLC were to go out on loan for that reason I'd keep Barkley another year to backup Mount and Havertz.

I think the idea of selling Kante is based around us playing a 4-3-3 with a proper sitting midfielder and two "number 8's" which has been reported to be Lampard's preference. The problem with this is where does Kante fit in. He's not really a natural holding midfielder. He's the best option we have at present if Lampard wants to use that formation, but if the option was there to sell him in order to buy a natural holding midfielder would that be a better option? If the idea however is to play 4-2-3-1 then Kante fits in well for the two man midfield then. The best possible solution would be to sell Jorginho and buy a natural holding midfielder (just for argument sake let's say Rice) in his place. I think that would give us the best possible balance and options for next season but I think it'll be unlikely to move Jorginho on in the current climate.

Don't worry, us English don't understand what the Scousers are saying most of the time either. And the few times we can understand them, they only talk bollocks anyway.

Agreed, but we have to be realistic of the pull that Real and Barca have. Not so much for English players who seem to be content within their own bubble and therefore there dream is usually just to be playing for one of the top teams in England. But the foreign players who are usually much more open to play in different leagues and countries, the pinnacle will always be Real and Barca. United lost Ronaldo, Liverpool lost Suarez and Coutinho, Arsenal lost Henry and Fabregas, Spurs lost Bale and Modric, we lost Hazard and Courtois. The key though is players have "earned" those moves by being key players for their teams. If Havertz does the same and realises his enormous potential here but decides perhaps in his late 20's he wants to have the chance playing for Madrid then so be it. I'd rather have that problem than not have it because it means we'd have an elite player on our hands.

Hopefully a bit longer than 2-3 years but I've got no problem with this. In order to get that move to Real Madrid, he will have to be performing at a consistently high level for us. We get a few years quality service from him and then sell him on for almost certainly a profit seems a winning situation to me. I would much rather that problem than an expensive flop on our hands that we need to try to now get rid of.