No. It's very clear what I was saying. That people railing against buying from the EPL or 'vanilla' players weren't really being fair. I have no problem keeping all the players you have mentioned. Allen has been great as a squad player, but he unsurprisingly wants first team football so we probably can't afford to keep him just for that. Lallana I think may be the same sort of player, but Klopp clearly likes his hard-work and he has stepped up. If Klopp wants to keep backing him, he can add more goals to his game. He has scored a few. Milner and Hendo have both lost goal-mouth influence by playing further back but both have real quality. I would keep them ahead of the others you have mentioned. I also think you are forgetting how good Ings was looking under Rodgers before his injury.
And BlueBen's idea that people are 'accepting mediocrity' is frankly silly. If we all protest and get FSG kicked out for not getting us the players we want then I think there's a greater chance of us falling further from the top spot than getting closer. Your 'accepting mediocrity' is our 'accepting the existence of big money clubs'. We can compete with all clubs, but there is a lot of big money washing around and statistically and practically that means we will miss out on the top level players until we can make the case on the pitch and make people believe in the 'project'.
I cant agree with any of this.
There is a reason we should be railing against buying form the PL or "vanilla" players because since we have started doing this (late Rafa up until now) we have won precisely dick all. One League Cup which we needed to win on pens against a Championship side I believe.
Joe Allen, Hendo, Milner and Lallana should be squad players. Not starting XI players. Milner came from City where he was a squad player. City have won two league titles and a League Cup off the top of my head in the last few years and made a CL semi. Fine when Milner is a squad player but he is behind better players.
The problem with us is that those guys arent behind better players. All four are honestly fine to be at Liverpool. They are all very good footballers, but not absolute top drawer so they shouldnt be starting games. Henderson is the closest to being a starter.
The reason people use the word "vanilla" is because it sums them up. They are all neat and tidy, work hard, and are all good to very good at what they do. But none of them go above that.
Lallana is really easy on the eye with almost zero end product. You can say Klopp loves his work ethic and technique etc. That's great. But we could find a ton of players out there with similar technique to Lallana and similar engine and ability to work hard but then who also has end product.
Allen the same. Neat, tidy, works hard. We can find so many players who can do that.... and more.
Ings played like 3 or 4 games. Sure he scored a couple of goals but Ings is nothing more than back up. And you cant claim how great he is gonna be off a such a short sample.
I know you're a glass half full kinda guy and usually I try to stay positive too and I dont think our squad is gash or anything but we really need a huge injection of quality.
We have excellent talent like Coutinho, Sturridge, Firmino, Can but it's not enough. Then the squad starts to become really vanilla.
It might sound silly when I say we want to compete with Barcelona and Real Madrid. But it's not silly. We do. We are five time champions of europe. We are the most successful english team in history. Barca, Real, Chelsea, United, City etc have world class all over the pitch. Well not so much United anymore...
You can try to claim we dont have the money to compete with them but thats bullshit. We are the 8th richest club on the planet. We blow huge wads of cash on shite season after season.
We have the money. We just buy so incredibly poor. We should be far better than we are. We gotta stop wasting money on vanilla players. 25 million on Lallana is criminal.