How many have made a difference this season? When you think about last season, most did such as Long, Brownhill, isgrove and Fletcher. This season I'd say Morsy and James.
Depends what you mean by making a difference. Armstrong and Kent have both won us games this season, even if they have been inconsistent. Rotherham away springs to mind as the best example.
I'd say Kent def has made a difference. Stats may not show how much but we would have been far weaker without him as an option. Performance against Leeds was a highlight. Gethin Jones making his debut against Leeds when we desperately needed him and he played very well. Adam Armstrong has scored or made a couple of crucial goals Matty James has steadied the ship and is getting up to speed nicely. Janko unfortunately never had a run but obviously scored a good goal on debut It depends whether you want to look at things from bottom of a packet of anti depressants or from on top of a hill top screaming ecstasy. It's probably somewhere in between. I don't think our loans have dominated the division like they did League 1. But think it's a much tougher league and to buy players like James, Armstrong and Kent is probably outside of our wage and transfer budget. Next year I hope we get 4 or 5 really quality loans in who supplement a good core of 15 permenant players and 5 youngsters/lower league diamonds will give us a good squad of 25.
We are not in a position to have a full squad of high quality young players we own so we have to gamble on loan players to fill holes. It's all about finding the right balance in terms of ability attitude and application. I think overall it's been utilised successfully over the last couple of seasons which in turn can only be a positive in terms of future recruitment both in permanent and loan deals. This season, although neither Kent and arm strong have been overly prolific they have both in flashes proved their ability. Even Jones has had steady games. Elder I'm at a loss with.
Do we have 15 perm players at the min? Or would that include new signings? Inevitably, that 15 would actually include that 5 youngsters/lower league diamonds.
Neither consistent enough this season for me. Both have shown glimpses of ability but not often enough. One has often been found wanting in the work rate stakes.
Sam Morsy made a big difference and we've missed him I believe. I would argue that Ryan Kent has as well, maybe not the end product we want but certainly his speed and attacking exuberance has given us an extra dimension. We'd be pretty short of pace going forward without him. Matty James has helped us and clearly he has class on the ball, probably a level above most of our players skill wise, but it's a little early to proclaim him making a difference. The rest have all just contributed here and there, probably no better or worse than someone else could have done. Adam Armstrong has suffered from a lack of service for me, whilst he hasn't shone himself we just don't seem to get the balls he needs fed into him enough. He's a one on one finisher and the balls he tends to receive are head height and he's battling with defenders. Janko hasn't been fit but could have been a good option, whilst I'm not sure Elder was required given Callum Evans' decent enough contribution. So all in all, perhaps we haven't struck gold with the loans this season, but none have been awful or had stinkers neither.
Gethin jones is a good squad player but definitely isnt ready for first team football week in week out. Were really weak at full back id say, only yiadom first team standard. Poor recruitment in that area id say. In general id say its not been the best season for recruitment, but thats the luck of the draw with the way we operate. Were desperately missing Hourihane's set piece quality, we scored alot of goals from set pieces and thats something that needs replacing in the summer. Big summer coming up recruitment wise, im hoping hecky will be backed accordingly but if it's anything like january it could be an absolute shambles.
I'd say ubique's post is pretty on the mark. As for loans Morsy has been a success, James may be one the rest have been different shades of failure.
Loaning players, like most things football wise is a process of give and take. There has to be something for all three parties to the transaction. That is why most of our loans are either young players, or players recovering from long term injury. There has been lots of criticism of Kent recently, but he is a prime example of how the system works. His club looked at him as a player showing promise who needed to play some men's football because he has reached a point where he is becoming stale with games in the U23 team. They resolve to let him out if the opportunity arises, but at what level. They want him challenged, but they do not want to over face him. They think that the Championship is the right level and search for a club with good coaching and with good facilities but with limited competition for first team places. In other words, a club where he will get games in the first team and will learn from his experiences. They hope that he will improve as a result of his new challenges. The player hopes for the same result as his club. He hopes to improve and put himself in contention for a first team spot when he returns. That is a hard ask at a club like Liverpool, so the second prize is putting himself in the shop window. He hopes that he might earn a move to another good club, either in the Premier League or the Championship. He knows his career is going to be short, and he wants to earn enough money to make sure he has a good life. Failing the first two options, he will consider Barnsley or another club even further down the pecking order. I do not think Kent has suggested during his time with us that he has the pace or the talent to play for Liverpool, but I do think he has done enough to give himself a breathing space before he has to make a decision about his next step. Barnsley would have known that they were getting a talented young player who had come to us for games and who had come to us to learn his trade, "on the job" as it were. We would have been aware that he was not the finished article. Nevertheless, he came at a price that we could afford. A big club like Liverpool could perhaps have waived the loan fee in order to place him in the right environment. They may even be paying part of his wages costs so that he could come to us without busting our pay structure. For a club like us, fresh in the Championship, it represented a win/win situation. We got a player that we could not afford, at a price that we could afford. What was not to like. The problem with the fans is that every deal is looked at from the club's point of view. The fans are only interested in winners, and when the player lets them down, he becomes a loser. In the real world, things are not like that. Each party to a contract is looking for something to their ultimate advantage, and consequently, contracts are always a compromise. Each party gets some of what it wants, but no party gets it all. There are lots of examples, and lots of examples of fans thinking we got done. The answer is in the compromises that we had to make in order to get a deal in the first place. In the end, there has to be agreement, and there has to be a bottom line. In our case it is the loan fee and the players wages. If we cannot agree on these, then sadly, we have to walk away. Fans have no idea how many times we walked away before we got a player at the right price and the right quality. They only know about the players that we sign, and if some of those players do not make the standard, it might just be that we cannot afford the market price. Sad I know, but true nevertheless.
