24 Jun 2026 18:46:17
Latest rumour is Fran Garcia. Real Madrid's lb who played under Iraola. Last year of deal could be available for less than £10m.
24 Jun 2026 20:22:30
A very good Spanish friend of mine is a Real Madrid fanatic and works for the club in some capacity. I asked him about Fran Garcia, and he texted me the following
' Hi Bro, he defends very well on the left side, good physical condition for Premier, not really ? about technic but good attitude.'
No idea what he's talking about, but I hope someone can work it out.
?
24 Jun 2026 20:50:56
I think he comes in for Tsimikas.
24 Jun 2026 21:15:32
Honestly, don't see the point of another non HG left back. Waste of a non HG space. Chambers or Beck would make more sense as a back up.
24 Jun 2026 21:48:27
If Kerkez had a long injury, I wouldn't be comfortable with just Chambers or Beck.
24 Jun 2026 22:08:35
There's absolutely no reason to think Kerkez will have a bad injury, AZ, and both Beck & Chambers are capable left backs. Waste of a non HG space to give it to a mediocre Spanish left back.
24 Jun 2026 22:11:33
I can't even work out what Bro means.
24 Jun 2026 22:23:11
Even Alan Turing couldn't work that one out lads. ?
24 Jun 2026 23:05:23
Viktor, Beck is injury prone and about to turn 24. His future is elsewhere. Chambers had a good loan, but needs another one. Same with Scanlon.
24 Jun 2026 23:24:57
Still, rather not waste a non HG space on a mediocre Real Madrid cast off. Non HG spaces are like gold dust.
24 Jun 2026 23:25:28
AZ,
Chambers and Beck will never play for Liverpool's first team. I don't get how so many social media supporters think every kid in the Academy should get games in the first team. Do they want to support a mid-table team struggling to get a Conference League spot? Chambers and Beck are at the older end of the Academy groups and their chance has passed.
24 Jun 2026 23:34:02
Their chance? They never got one. Never seen them given an opportunity, as they are always on loan.
24 Jun 2026 23:39:14
Not saying they should be first choice, Kemlyn, saying one of them is more than capable as back up. It makes absolutely no sense spunking money on Real Madrid dross to waste a non home grown space, because that's what signing Garcia would amount to.
25 Jun 2026 00:27:01
If Tsimikas comes back, doesn't he take that hg spot, Viktor? In theory you can have no home grown players in the squad. It just means the squad size is reduced to 22.
25 Jun 2026 00:55:42
The day we have no home grown players in our squad will be the day the club loses its identity.
Everyone is clamouring for foreign players in the league. There are players out there losing chances due to mediocre players being signed. We need to find a better way to balance the teams.
Players coming into the league in their mid 20's are going to be a quick fix and the kids will never get a chance.
It is time to incentivise teams to use academy players or sign from the Championship. Football is leaving the working class behind and we are all cheering for it. It won't be long before we are priced out of going to a match. You can forget about bringing your family to the match as these mediocre players need paid through the nose.
25 Jun 2026 01:31:57
Bring Trent home. ?
25 Jun 2026 01:33:38
Why have a youth academy if we are so adverse to using it? The main criticism aimed at Slot was that he didn't use our youth players enough and here are two LBs from our academy who have had multiple good seasons out on loan and should be more than capable to make up our squad, but we are now saying they should be sold in favour of bringing in an older LB instead.
I'm with Vik on this. There is no need to bring in an LB to be back up when we have Tsimikas, Beck, and Chambers still with us. Even if Tsimikas is sold, Beck and Chambers should be more than enough to be back up to Kerkez.
25 Jun 2026 02:01:57
I think we should buy the best three players in the world for each position in the team. Doesn't automatically mean we'd have the best squad or team in the world...
25 Jun 2026 07:59:46
Keegans Purm, you are correct that you can have no HG players in the squad if you want. However, it would actually reduce the squad size to 17. List A is basically up to 17 non-HG players and a maximum of 25 players. As many of them as you want can be HG, but ideally you want 8 so you can fill your whole 25 man allocation for depth. Any player over 21 must be listed and, additionally, any player under 21 who hasn't been at the club a minimum of 2 years must also be listed.
In my opinion, our lack of decent HG players is a problem. Our HG first team players last season were Woodman (average and out of contract), Frimpong (struggling to adapt), Bradley (injury prone), Gomez (injury prone), Nyoni (18 years old), Rio (18 years old) and Jones (wants to leave to Inter). It was already putting an over reliance on the 17 non-HG players because we were effectively playing with a significantly reduced squad size.
Victor is right, we shouldn't waste one of 17 spaces on a player like Fran Garcia.
It's debateable whether we should even waste it on Tsimikas, and he's actually proven in the Prem.
Next season, assuming Jones joins Woodman on the exit conveyor, we'd have Elliott, Frimpong, Bradley and Gomez as the current 4 HG players. The good news is that Rio and Nyoni will have been at the club long enough to be added to List B, so they'll no longer have to be part of List A in order to play. List B, you can have unlimited u21's as long as they've been at the club for at least 2 seasons.
There is definitely a strong argument towards keeping one of the young LB's as back up. Personally I'd have kept Luca Stephenson as a utility player, but he looks set to sign for Bolton. Lewis Koumas, James McConnell, Stefan Bajcetic, Luke Chambers, Kaide Gordon and Owen Beck are also eligible to be registered as HG next season, so it'll be interesting to see if they're promoted to the first team.
25 Jun 2026 08:30:15
Mk, great post, thanks for clarifying it for me. On the Woodman front, I do believe he is now staying for another year, as on Transfermarkt his contract now states 2027 not 2026, so they may have given him another year or had it wrong in the first place.
25 Jun 2026 08:58:51
Unless Beck or Chambers are good enough to play in our first 11, then they should not be considered as back up for Kerkez regardless of their HG status. The only judgement should be their ability to adequately fill the spot and provide stiff competition for Kerkez, so standards don't slip.
Tsimikis doesn't fit that bill, and I doubt that either of Beck or Chambers do either. They'd have made the step up by now, if so. If we don't have one on our books, we need to purchase one, and they need to fit the above profile. It isn't complicated.
25 Jun 2026 09:02:15
Kaide Gordon defo being released by the club. Sure, I read Beck will be sold.
25 Jun 2026 09:12:05
It's not impossible that with Iraola's high energy football that we will see both fullbacks working their bits off for 60 mins and then being substituted for fresh legs. At that point we would need 2 potential starters in both positions.
25 Jun 2026 10:14:10
I'm not saying buy this Garcia guy, as I've never heard of him before this post, but we do need decent cover for Kerkez.
I personally have never seen Chambers or Beck play, so I don't know if they're any good, but Kerkez won't be able to play the full 90 in up to 60 games.
Also, what happens if Kerkez does his Achilles like Ekitike, or gets a broken leg like Isak, or does his ACL like Leoni? What then? Would you be comfortable with Chambers or Beck starting every game and playing the full 90?
Again, I haven't seen either play, but those are the questions we need to answer in order to know if they're good enough to be "cover" for Kerkez.
I'd personally like a utility type player who can cover either fullback position, someone like Pallestra but I don't think we're going for him.
25 Jun 2026 10:28:09
I agree, Gregarious
I'm all for using academy players if they're good enough or have the potential to be. Beck and Chambers have barely played for us. If that was Slot's fault, then fair enough, but if Kerkez has a long term injury (I think it's very presumptuous saying he definitely won't - we should always prepare for this in some capacity), then I would be uncomfortable with Chambers and Beck as first choice LB.
I'd rather keep Tsimikas for a year and then see how Chambers or Beck are doing after a potential loan. If Tsimikas is going, of course I'd prefer a HG player, but not at the expense of the right player.