Peee-yew! Liverpool stunk up the joint at Fulham on Saturday. Regardless of result, I always hate waiting for nine days for the next match. But waiting for nine days after we played like crap is a special kind of torture.
The Fulham match also takes on extra significance because it was opening day. Opening day matches magnify our normal recency bias. A lot. At this point in the season, we’ve seen our Reds play one “real” match, and they were awful for most of it. It’s therefore natural for us to feel like the team is bound to have an awful season.
That feeling’s natural, but it is also wrong. Read on, and I hope you’ll agree.
Let’s start by talking about the players on this team. Many of them played badly on Saturday. But that performance does not define them.
Player Breakdowns – 2022-23
I’m going to do this by position, starting with the goalkeepers and moving up the pitch until we get to the forwards.
Goalkeepers
#1 – Alisson Becker (Brazil) (DOB: 10/2/92 – age 29) (joined LFC in July 2018)
You’re going to start rolling your eyes at how often I say something like this about these players, but it’s not going to stop me: Alisson is one of the top five goalkeepers in the world. He’s so good he gets to go by one name.
Let’s start with the obvious – Alisson is a BIG man. He’s 6’3”, which is tall, but still just the average height for a Premier League keeper. However, Alisson is wider (thicker, if you prefer) than most keepers, who often tend toward the skinny side. His combination of height, broad shoulders, and wide chest make him appear bigger than the average goalkeeper – and he is. I couldn’t quickly find the average weight of PL goalies, but at the 2018 World Cup the average was 184 lbs.
And, at least in this job, looks matter. His physical presence alone is enough to make attackers think twice before striking the ball.
Despite Alisson’s size, he is also quite quick. Because Liverpool play a very high defensive line, the opposition will often try to pass the ball to an attacker who has run behind the defense, using a “through pass,” as discussed here (in the section called “Gegenpressing – the Liverpool Way”). Alisson uses his quickness to nullify this threat in two ways. First, he often gets to the ball before the attacker who is the intended receiver. Second, when the through pass reaches its target and the attacker is one-on-one against Alisson, Liverpool’s big keeper usually charges out toward the attacker, “making himself big” by stretching out his arms and legs, and cutting off the attacker’s shooting angles. Alisson is probably the best keeper in the Premier League (and perhaps the world) when facing an attacker one-on-one.
Broadly speaking, in modern football goalkeepers have two jobs. First, they must stop shots. Second, they must use their feet to distribute the ball to their teammates, start attacks, and be available as a “safety valve” who can receive a back pass from a teammate who is being pressed.
Alisson excels at both jobs.
Measuring the best shot-stopping keepers by stats can be a bit tricky. The keepers who make the most saves are the ones who face the most shots – therefore they play for the worst teams. Thus, many folks look to the keeper’s “save percentage” – which is the percentage of shots “on target” (i.e., shots that would go in the goal if not saved) that a goalkeeper saves. Last season Alisson was third in the Premier League in save percentage (behind José Sá of Wolves and David Raya of Brentford). Alisson saved 75.3% of the shots on target that he faced.
More recently, stats nerds have come up with a more “advanced” statistic for measuring shot-stopping abilities – it goes by the catchy title of “Post-Shot Expected Goals Minus Goals Allowed.” This “post-shot xG” is different from the xG that I’m typically talking about on this blog, which instead assesses the “pre-shot” likelihood that a shot from a particular position will result in a goal. For example, when I say that Liverpool had 2.6 xG against Fulham on Saturday (and they did, according to fivethirtyeight.com’s algorithm), that xG number is based on the “pre-shot” likelihood that the chances Liverpool created in that game would result in goals. In other words, that “regular” xG number does not take into account where the attacker actually kicked the ball when they took a shot.
By contrast, with “post-shot xG,” the statisticians take into account exactly where the shot went – whether it’s straight down the middle at the keeper’s chest height, in the low-right corner, or in the postage stamp in the upper-left corner of the goal. Thus, with “post-shot xG,” statisticians are calculating the percentage likelihood that a Premier League keeper would save that shot, now that we know where that shot went. Thus, when we take a keeper’s total “post-shot xG” and then subtract the number of goals that keeper actually allowed, then we have a good sense of how good that keeper is at stopping shots, relative to his/her peers. A really good keeper will have a high positive number – showing the number of goals they saved above the number an average keeper would be expected to save. A bad shotstopper will have a negative number.
This advanced goalkeeping metric shows that last season Alisson was fourth in the Premier League last year (again José Sá of Wolves was first – he was without doubt the best shot stopper in the league last season). Alisson was similarly third in the league in this “post-shot xG – Goals allowed” in 2020-21. Curiously, in Liverpool’s title-winning season of 2019-20, Alisson was only 15th in the league in this stat (which makes LFC’s runaway title win that year seem even more impressive). That season was an anomaly – Alisson was also third in this stat in his first season at Liverpool, in 2018-19. All of these stats, by the way, are coming from https://fbref.com/en/, which is a terrific site for the football stat nerds (or wannabe football stat nerds) among you.
As a distributor of the ball to teammates, Alisson is excellent. He made the second-highest number of passes of any keeper in the league last season, and he also made the fewest number of “launches.” That is, Alisson kicked the ball long as a “get this thing out of here” clearance less often than any keeper in the league.
Alisson oozes self-confidence. This is critical for keepers, who have to forget about their last mistake immediately after making it (at least until training the following week, when coaches will probably force them to relive that mistake a few times). Alisson’s self-confidence sometimes demonstrates itself through tricky dribbling moves around pressing opponents. On at least one occasion, such showboating got him in trouble. But, the vast majority of the time he pulls it off and it just looks damned cool. However, clearly the coaching staff has discouraged this behavior – Alisson attempts such dribbling tricks far less often now than he did upon first arriving at LFC.
#62 – Caoimhin Kelleher (Ireland) (DOB: 11/23/98 – age 23) (joined LFC Academy in 2015)
This is the man who generated my favorite football miracle moment for last season – the winning penalty kick in the League Cup (a/k/a Carabao Cup) Final against Chelsea. That’s a priceless moment. He’s a talented backup keeper, who has filled in nicely for Alisson when called upon.
For those who don’t know their Irish Gaelic pronunciations, you pronounce this young man’s name [KWEE-vehn] – it’s the Irish equivalent of Kevin. Kelleher is a product of Liverpool’s youth academy, which he joined at age 16 from Ireland.
Kelleher is recovering from a groin injury which kept him out throughout the preseason, but should be available for full training soon (if he’s not already).
#13 – Adrián (Spain) (DOB: 1/3/87 – age 35) (joined LFC in August 2019) 
Adrián is Liverpool’s third-string keeper, and, for multiple reasons, you never want your third-string keeper to be playing. Having said that, I recently watched the Paramount Plus documentary, The End of the Storm, about LFC’s 2019-20, league-winning season. I really enjoyed the movie, and I recommend it. The movie reminded me of the fantastic job that Adrián did filling in for Alisson at the beginning of that season, beginning less than one week after Adrián joined the club as the second-string goalie. Since then, of course, Kelleher has passed Adrián on the depth chart. Nonetheless, just two weeks ago, Adrián again did a nice job filling in for Alisson and Kelleher in the Community Shield victory over Manchester City. Adrián played throughout this preseason due to injuries to both the first- and second-string keepers.
But, Adrián has also had a few difficult moments as a Liverpool keeper. Most notably, he made a huge mistake (look at time stamp 7:09 in the video link) leading to a decisive goal late in the match against Atletico Madrid on March 11, 2020. This was the second leg in the Champions League Round of 16 at Anfield. I was there that night, with Eric, my good friend and fellow LFC devotee.
Adrián appears to be a very well-loved teammate who acts as one of many “glue guys” in the tight-knit Liverpool locker room. For that reason alone, I love having him on the team.
Left backs
In Liverpool’s tactical system, both fullbacks play a huge role. Like all fullbacks, they make up half of the defensive back line, and must defend well. But Liverpool’s fullbacks play a more featured, critical role in Liverpool’s attack, compared with almost any other team in the world (both Bayern Munich and Manchester City arguably use their fullbacks in equally-critical attacking roles, but the list is not much longer than that). As I told you in Primer Part III – Basic Tactics, both of Liverpool’s starting fullbacks – Andy Robertson and Trent Alexander-Arnold – are among the Premier League’s leaders in assists every season.
Knowing the critical role played by both fullback positions, let’s start by talking about the left backs.
#26 – Andy Robertson (Scotland) (DOB: 3/11/94 – age 28) (joined LFC in July 2017)
The feistiest man on the pitch in nearly every match in which he plays, Scotland’s Andy Robertson quickly endeared himself to the feisty Liverpool fanbase after he joined the club in 2017. There are many, many moments that one could use to illustrate this Robertson trait. My two favorites are these: 1) his press against Manchester City in his first season at LFC. Robertson started by pressing a player at the midfield line, and then kept charging forward and pressing as City passed the ball backward three times, until Robertson ended up pressing the City goalkeeper from the right wide forward position on the pitch; 2) shoving Lionel Messi, perhaps the greatest player of all time, on the back of the head during a Champions League semifinal match, just to piss him off.
But Andy Robertson is far more than just piss and vinegar on the football pitch. He is also enormously skilled. His partnership with Sadio Mané on the left side of Liverpool’s attack generated dozens of great scoring opportunities for Liverpool across many seasons. Now, Robertson is building a similar partnership with new left winger Luis Díaz, but that’s still a work in progress.
Robertson’s skill crossing the ball from the left wing is phenomenal. He is an outstanding presser, and his speed, determination, and grit make him a very good defender even when pushed back toward his own goal.
Robertson is among the top 10 left backs in the world.
#21 – Kostas Tsimikas (Greece) (DOB: 5/12/96 – age 26) (joined LFC in August 2020)
Tsimikas may be the second-feistiest player in Liverpool’s squad, just behind the Scotsman who he backs up. Affectionately known as the “Greek scouser,” Tsimikas constantly displays passion and aggression on the pitch. Tsimikas’s biggest moment as a Liverpool player came last season in the FA Cup Final penalty shootout, when he scored the winning penalty kick (see video at time stamp 4:19). He’s a very able backup to Robertson. Like Robbo, Tsimikas crosses well, though he is less adept than Robertson at interchanging short passes with other attackers.
Right backs
#66 – Trent Alexander-Arnold (England) (DOB: 10/7/98 – age 23) (joined LFC Academy in 2004 (age 6))
Trent Alexander-Arnold is the best attacking right back in the world. Football pundits and opposing fans often criticize Alexander-Arnold as being a weak defender, but I strongly disagree. To be sure, there’s no doubt that Trent is better as an attacker than as a defender. But, because LFC’s tactical approach requires Trent to spend most of his time far up the pitch in an attacking position, he is often out of position when the opponent counter-attacks. Many times, this means that Trent must first sprint to get back to defend. If he gets there, he then often finds himself one-on-one in an isolated position against the attacker. Sometimes Alexander-Arnold gets burned, as happens to all defenders occasionally when they are isolated. Despite his mistakes, in my opinion, Trent is well above average as a defender, compared with his peers in the Premier League.
As an attacker, he simply has no peer.
Last season, Trent led the Premier League in expected assists (this is just like expected goals, but the stat goes to the passer rather than the shooter). He finished second in actual assists, behind only teammate Mo Salah (who was just behind Trent in the xA department).
Trent finished fifth in the league in xA in 2020-21, when Liverpool’s center back injury crisis left the team badly out of balance. He was second in 2019-20 (although Kevin DeBruyne almost doubled his numbers that season).
To put all of this in context, at the start of the 2019-20 season, Trent was 20 years old. To put it in even better context, Trent is supposedly a defensive player, and I’m telling you how he ranked in assists against everyone else, including all midfielders and attackers. Naturally, in most teams, it’s the midfielders and attackers who generate nearly all of the assists.
But this is Liverpool. And now we’re talking about Trent. As I mentioned in Part III on tactics, Trent already stands in fourth place all-time among Premier League defenders in assists. Barring a serious injury for one or both fullbacks, Trent and his teammate Andy Robertson are a lock to be first and second on that all-time PL assists list within a couple of seasons.
Trent’s passing skills run the gamut. He often lifts long diagonal passes in the air from his defensive position at right back toward the attacking left quadrant. He can also fire lengthy, curling through passes from that same position toward attackers attempting to run behind a defense. He routinely exchanges quick, short, one-touch passes (frequently including “one-twos,” a/k/a “give-and-gos”) with Mo Salah and the right-sided central midfielder (often Henderson), as Liverpool attacks on the opponents’ doorstep in and around the right side of the penalty area. And, of course, he is one of the best crossers in the world, curling in balls from the right side to attackers in the box waiting to pounce.
Alexander-Arnold’s vision and touch match his passing. He is elegant, strong, fast, and lethal. He strikes fear in defenders and attracts almost as much defensive attention as Mo Salah himself.
Trent Alexander-Arnold is the scouser in the team. And he is a badass.
#22 – Calvin Ramsay (Scotland) (DOB: 7/31/2003 – age 19)
Calvin Ramsay is one of the three new kids on the block this season. When Ramsay’s transfer was completed in June 2022, most expected that he would be Trent’s back up at right back this season, because Neco Williams has moved on to Nottingham Forest. That still may be true at some point, but an injury has kept him out of preseason. That injury means Ramsay will probably need to wait several months, if not longer, before settling in as the second-string right back. I haven’t yet seen him play, so Ramsay remains mostly a mystery. His YouTube clips from the Scottish Premier League look good, but great YouTube clips – especially from leagues in smaller countries – often don’t translate into good players.
Until Ramsay is ready, I expect James Milner to serve as LFC’s backup right back. But I’ll talk about Milner in the midfielder section, since that is his preferred position.
Center backs
Liverpool has four immensely talented center backs who would all start for almost any other team in the Premier League. Given the injury crisis to LFC’s center backs that occurred just two seasons ago, this should feel like luxurious comfort. However, because one of LFC’s four brilliant CBs has wend down in the last preseason match with a knee injury that will sideline him for an unknown period, the PTSD won’t allow us to get comfortable.
#4 – Virgil van Dijk (Netherlands) (DOB: 7/8/91 – age 31) (joined LFC in December 2017)
If you Google “best center back in the world,” a matrix of names and photos appears at the top of the page, under the heading “Soccer defenders from sources across the web.” The first name and photo listed? Virgil van Dijk. You don’t need to take my word for it on this one. VVD is the best of the best.
I wrote a lot of words about van Dijk in last season’s preview, and they still apply now:
Virgil van Dijk is one of the 10 best players in the world. His presence dramatically changes the way that we play — not for any one reason, but for a whole slew of them. Let’s start at the beginning. The foundation. The primary job of every center back is to defend, and the fundamental prerequisite to defending well is positioning. Virgil’s reading of the game, anticipation, positioning, and tackling are unsurpassed. Indeed, he is so good that teams actively avoid attacking down his half of the field. He is so good that, for almost a full one-and-a-half seasons, no one, including Lionel Messi himself, was able to dribble past him.
Now, in fairness, there are lots of other defenders in the world, and in the Premier League, who also have amazing skills in this particular area. Strikingly, some of those defenders play for teams in the bottom half of the Premier League. In this specific area, as fantastic as VVD is, his positioning and game-reading skills stand only inches above those of top rival defenders — not miles. Most of the gap between VVD and his nearest rivals is spanned by other skills and talents.
Physically, van Dijk is a Hercules among mortals. As Watford striker Troy Deeney once mused about VVD, when asked who is the toughest defender he has faced: “He’s too big, too strong, too quick, too good on the ball, loves fighting, a good head of hair. One of those guys that sprays on his top as well, so it smells lovely!” VVD is bigger than most center backs, and faster than almost all of them. He wins a ridiculously high percentage of aerial duels, because his timing and leaping abilities exceed everyone else’s. This aerial dominance translates directly to points. Quite simply, we will concede fewer aerial goals with VVD on the pitch, and we will score more of them on the other end.
And then there’s van Dijk’s speed. It’s critical, especially in the context of our high defensive line. When LFC loses the ball and the counterattack leaves open canyons of space behind the midfield, VVD’s speed, strength, positioning, timing, and calm quash most of those counters before they can fully unfold. Indeed, knowing that Van Dijk is behind him gives Andy Robertson (or, soon, Kostas Tsimikas) the peace of mind to commit fully to the attack, allowing Robbo can stand out as one of the most prodigious playmakers in the Premier League.
And that brings us to Virgil’s next exceptional trait: his mindset. 🎶“He’ll pass the ball, calm as you like, he’s Virgil van Dijk, he’s Virgil Van Dijk.”🎶
Henderson is the skipper, and the heart of the club. Hendo’s graft and passion lift his mates, as well as his determination to persevere while walking through storms. But if Hendo is the heart, then VVD is both body and brain. He sees the whole field, and knows exactly what is happening. He conducts his defensive line, while also directing the midfield and urging the attackers forward. His mere presence envelops the team in a tranquil cloud of contagious calmness. He can and does make mistakes (including one this past Saturday for Fulham’s penalty, as fans of our rivals will gleefully remind you) — not quite as often as most defenders, but still with some semi-regularity. But the apparent ease with which he recovers from those mistakes is anything but regular. His mentality is, if anything, more colossal than his physique. van Dijk’s leadership is just as critical to LFC’s success as is Henderson’s.
The other critically-transformative aspect of van Dijk’s game is his passing. I’m a sucker for any center back who passes well. This center back passes better than any other. The outlet ball in transition can make all the difference between a dull, stodgy possession and a thunderous counterattack. VVD’s skimmed passes into the feet of his midfielders, or all the way through to forwards, are sharp, timely, accurate missiles. And his cross-field diagonal aerial balls are majestic things of beauty, typically landing on the toes of a wide attacking forward or fullback, in perfect stride. Opposing teams often are forced to adjust their tactics simply to defend against this specific skill — the VVD diagonal pass. And any time you force the opposition to change the way they normally prefer to play, you substantially alter the overall dynamic of the match. As much as VVD’s presence helps our defense, his passing elevates our offense.
Indeed, no other player is as critical to LFC’s overall team balance as Virgil Van Dijk. When he is absent, everything changes. Without him, we are forced into adjustments all over the pitch. We have a lot of other extremely talented players, and they understand how to adjust. But those adjustments, especially over long stretches of the season, can never patch over the gaping hole that VVD’s absence creates.
#32 – Joël Matip (Germany) (DOB: 8/8/91 – age 31) (joined LFC in February 2016)
Among LFC’s four top center backs, VVD is the world superstar, Ibrahima Konaté is the young up-and-comer, and Joe Gomez is the unlucky but heroic fighter who has come back from repeated major injuries. Joël Matip? He’s the Steady Eddie.
Matip exudes calm on the pitch, never appearing to panic, despite his somewhat awkward, gangly, 6’5” frame. He may be all knees and elbows, but those are tranquil knees and elbows, thank-you-very-much.
Through most of his Liverpool career, Matip has struggled with nagging injuries that have prevented him from sustaining a long run as a starting center back. Then in 2020-21, like Gomez and van Dijk, Matip eventually suffered a season-ending injury that required surgery.
Last season, with the help of Liverpool’s top-notch sports science team, Matip bucked that injury trend and featured as a starter in 42 matches across all competitions, including 31 Premier League starts. And, as van Dijk worked himself back into top playing form gradually over the course of last season, Matip returned from his surgery immediately as the best version of himself. Matip is not nearly so critical to Liverpool’s overall team balance as van Dijk, because Matip plays a much smaller role in transitioning the team into attack and directing his teammates across the back line. Nonetheless, at least for the first half of last season, I thought Matip was a more reliable and overall better defender than the great VVD himself.
He’s not fast, and nothing he does is flashy or elegant. But he’s smart, he’s calm, he’s in the right place, and he’s effective. He wins a lot of aerial duels, and he’s good when defending one-on-one. Like VVD, Matip also made a major mistake last Saturday against Fulham – and on the very same play (giving away the ball in a dangerous area that led directly to van Dijk giving up the penalty). But, also like van Dijk, Matip quickly moves on from his mistakes and gets back to work. As my second-favorite manager, Ted Lasso, likes to say: “Be a goldfish [because they have a 10-second memory].”
Although Matip plays a smaller part in the attack than VVD, he still sallies forth into the attacking half with some regularity. I love watching Matip’s towering, unwieldy, skinny, placid self smoothly dribbling past rows of defenders – often all the way to the edge of the opposition penalty area. It’s delightful.
#5 – Ibrahima Konaté (France) (DOB: 5/25/99 – age 23) (joined LFC in July 2021)
Not unlike his teammate Virgil van Dijk, Ibrahima Konaté has the full physical package of traits and skills. He’s big, strong, powerful, and fast. He anticipates well, recovers extremely quickly when an attacker gets past him, often uses his wide body to muscle attackers off the ball and/or toward a less-dangerous position, and he is fantastic in the air. Like nearly all young defenders, Konaté is probably more prone to mistakes than his three Reds counterparts. But, his physical gifts and skills are so magnificent that he usually gets away with those mistakes by recovering right away.
Last season, Klopp showed great faith in young Konaté by making him VVD’s starting center back partner in eight of LFC’s 12 Champions League matches, including the final. Konaté also started all of LFC’s FA Cup matches, plus 11 Premier League matches. He got a lot of playing time for someone new to the team and the league. That’s because he’s a badass.
#2 – Joe Gomez (England) (5/23/97 – age 25) (joined LFC in June 2015)
Joe Gomez is a brilliant center back. Strong, fast, smart, and great with the ball, he checks nearly all the boxes. He’s not as strong in the air as his fellow Liverpool CBs, but his only major problem has been fitness. This man has been snake-bitten by injuries harder and more often than any Liverpool player during the 11 years I’ve followed the club – and that includes Daniel Sturridge, who fell apart physically at the height of his short but brilliant career.
It started from the very beginning of Gomez’s career at Liverpool. Signed by Brendan Rodgers in June 2015, the 18-year-old immediately started for Liverpool at left back – playing 90 minutes in that out-of-position slot for each of LFC’s first five league matches in 2015-16. Rodgers finally took the teenager out of the lineup in the sixth league match. A month later, LFC fired Rodgers and hired Klopp.
Then, during the October international break while playing for the England Under-21 squad, Gomez suffered a torn anterior cruciate ligament in his right knee. Following surgery, Gomez was out for a full year, returning to training in October 2016.
In the first half of the 2017-18 season, Gomez started at right back (again – not his actual position) in place of the injured Nathaniel Clyne.
In May 2018, Gomez had surgery on an ankle, which prevented him from playing in the World Cup for England that summer.
At the start of the 2018-19 season, Gomez was finally fit, and finally able to start for Liverpool at his chosen position of center back. The then-21-year-old Gomez earned universal praise for his performances alongside Virgil van Dijk, until calamity hit again. In December 2018, a hard challenge from Burnley’s Ben Mee broke Gomez’s leg, which then required season-ending surgery in February 2019.
In 2019-20, LFC’s league-winning season, Gomez was back again, and he hit the apex of his Liverpool career (so far – remember, as of August 2022, this guy is still only 25 years old). In Gomez’s absence at the end of 2018-19, Joël Matip had earned the starting right center back spot next to VVD. But, when Matip suffered his own serious injury in late October 2019, Gomez took over and did not look back for the rest of the season. He started 28 league matches at CB in 2019-20, and the VVD-JoGo center back partnership appeared at that point to be set for years to come.
Then, the 2020-21 season brought disaster for Gomez and Liverpool’s entire central defense. First, Dejan Lovren left in the summer, and the club chose not to replace him in that transfer window. This meant that Liverpool started the season with only three senior (that is, non-youth Academy) center backs.
By the end of January 2021, all three of Liverpool’s center backs were out for the season. Gomez was the second to go down, after VVD suffered an ACL tear courtesy of a reckless tackle by Everton’s goalkeeper in October 2020. For several weeks after van Dijk’s injury, Gomez and Matip played quite well. Then, while on international duty for England in November, Gomez tore the patella tendon in his right knee (he had torn the ACL of his left knee in 2015).
Last season, Gomez was back again, and managed to go the entire year without a serious injury. But Gomez also got very little game time last season, as VVD, Matip, and Konaté all stayed healthy for almost every match.
Also, when Gomez made his initial appearances in domestic cup competitions last season, he looked very rusty and much slower. Nonetheless, when Gomez finally earned some playing time at right back near the end of last season, he again looked back to himself, despite playing out of position.
Now, Gomez appears set to start alongside Virgil van Dijk at right center back once again on Monday against Crystal Palace, as both Matip and Konaté are currently out. I’m confident he will do quite well. It would not surprise me if Matip has a hard time getting his job back.
But it would also not surprise me if Gomez goes down again in a few weeks or months.
To be fair to the guy, most of his injuries have been impact injuries, which are mostly down to bad luck. Unlike Daniel Sturridge, Gomez has not had repeated muscle injuries that reflect genetic vulnerability and/or poor fitness. Certainly, Liverpool’s coaching staff has never increased his risk of injury by overplaying him. He’s been snake-bitten.
Let’s hope that, starting Monday,Joe Gomez puts on some snake-proof boots and shin pads, learns a snake-charmer tune or two, and gets on with what should be an absolutely incredible career at the heart of Liverpool’s defense.
Other center backs
In the domestic cups, we will likely see both Nathaniel Phillips and Sepp van den Berg play CB for Liverpool, but we can hope that neither one of them get any playing time in the Premier League or the Champions League. Neither player is anywhere close to as talented or skilled as LFC’s top four CBs. Phillips did a terrific job filling in at the end of the disastrous 2020-21 season. He’s extremely good at heading the ball, and he would be a very solid center back for a team that prefers to sit back and pack the defenders into the box. But that’s not Liverpool.
Van den Berg was out on loan last season and has not yet found his permanent home.
Both Phillips and van den Berg were expected to leave Liverpool this summer, but Konaté’s recent injury has meant that they will both stay for the time being.
Midfielders
During preseason this year, midfield is the positional area that has generated a swath of controversy across Liverpool’s fanbase – at least those vocal supporters (and so-called supporters) who talk regularly about Liverpool Football Club on Twitter. Many Liverpool fans strongly believe that the club should have brought in one or more new midfielders during this summer’s transfer window. Because LFC chose not to do so, these unhappy campers are doomsaying that Liverpool are inevitably destined to finish behind Manchester City in the Premier League again this season.
Unfortunately, Liverpool’s building list of injured players – which currently includes two midfielders – along with the team’s crappy performance last Saturday in the opener against Fulham, have given the doomsayers even more reason to moan.
I think such histrionics are crazy. I believe the track record of Klopp and Liverpool’s transfer team speaks volumes. Over the last seven seasons, there have been multiple times when the fans and media have been screaming for Liverpool to fill “gaps” in the squad with transfers, and the management team has instead chosen to wait. Then, eventually, that management team has acted by bringing in the players they really want. Players like Virgil van Dijk. Alisson Becker. Fabinho. Ibrahima Konaté. Luis Díaz. Thiago Alcântara. In other words, the management team has waited until they could find the right choice for the team in the long run.
In the meantime, Liverpool’s midfield choices are still pretty damned good.
#3 – Fabinho (Brazil) (DOB: 10/28/93 – age 28) (joined LFC in July 2018)
Fabinho is one of the 10 best defensive midfielders in the world.
The Brazilian had a few rough months at the start of his Liverpool career, as he struggled to adjust to Klopp’s tactical approach. Since then, however, he has been Liverpool’s rock, anchor, and shield.
Playing central midfield in a Jürgen Klopp team is quite the physical and mental challenge. Because Liverpool push both fullbacks high up the pitch to attack when LFC has the ball, this leaves the team potentially wide open to a counter-attack in the wide areas of the pitch, where the fullbacks traditionally defend. But those fullbacks can’t effectively defend a counter-attack in those positions when they are in the attacking third when Liverpool eventually loses the ball.
And that’s when and where Liverpool’s midfielders earn most of their money. All three midfielders must constantly be ready to cover defensively for more advanced players – usually the fullbacks – whenever Liverpool loses the ball. And the man who leads that midfield covering effort is Fabinho.
Fabinho has tremendous positional awareness and knows where to go to disrupt the opposition’s break. He’s also a terrific tackler. At 6’3”, Fabinho also is quite effective in the air, often heading the ball away from trouble.
Also, Fabinho’s pressing from his defensive midfield position is stellar. He is forced to walk a tightrope and make tough decisions whenever Liverpool loses the ball – should he be running backward to cover the empty spaces that the fullbacks or other midfielders have left behind, or should he instead burst forward to press the opposition and get the ball back right away? Occasionally, Fabinho makes the wrong decision. But most of the time, he is spot on.
But, if all Fabinho could do is defend, he wouldn’t be playing midfield for Liverpool. He’s also a terrific passer with great vision. He always makes himself available to receive a pass – whether from the defenders behind him or the other midfielders beside and in front of him. Although he rarely shoots, he can strike the ball well from distance, and he’s one of the best penalty kick takers in the team. Last season he scored eight goals for Liverpool, more than any other midfielder.
#6 – Thiago Alcântara (Spain) (DOB: 4/11/91 – age 31) (joined LFC in September 2020)
Thiago may be the most elegant footballer (yes, that’s a word – and it’s commonly used across Europe) I’ve ever seen. He’s also a very impressive person off the pitch. He’s been somewhat injury prone throughout his career, and that problem has unsurprisingly gotten worse as he marches on into his 30s. But when he’s out there, he is both a joy to watch and plays a key role in opening up defenses when Liverpool attacks.
Thiago’s vision and skill with the ball are nearly unparalleled. Not only does he maintain constant awareness of the position of nearly every player on the pitch, but he uses an uncanny ability to misdirect the defense by swiveling his torso and head in one direction, while passing the ball in a different direction, usually in the direct path of a teammate in space.
Thiago is a space-creating machine against packed defenses. He probably has more “technical” (i.e., based on technique) skill with the ball – whether passing or dribbling – than any other player at Liverpool, although I’ll shortly tell you about another who has a potential claim for that distinction. Using that technical skill, Thiago can easily evade a press, dropping a shoulder and dribbling past opponents into space. Or, he can simply pass around the press, using his vision and incredible one-touch passing ability to again find his teammates in areas where defenders are absent.
Thiago has spent his career playing for Barcelona, Bayern Munich, and Liverpool, three of the biggest clubs in the world. His teams at Barça and Bayern won 11 league titles, which he has not yet done with Liverpool. There is no doubt that he is eager to change that as soon as possible.
The son of a Brazilian footballer, Thiago is fluent in five languages: Spanish, Portuguese, Catalan, German, and English. Because Klopp speaks no Spanish, Thiago has stepped up as translator and big brother to both of Liverpool’s recent Spanish-speaking arrivals, Luis Díaz and Darwin Núñez. Despite all Thiago has achieved, he constantly displays a continuing hunger and passion for playing football. Last season, he suffered a minor injury while warming up before the League (Carabao) Cup Final, and he openly broke down in tears because he would not be able to play.
Unfortunately, Thiago suffered a fairly serious hamstring tear during the opening match Saturday against Fulham, and he is expected to miss six weeks.
Hurry back, Thiago. You bring all of us joy.
#14 – Jordan Henderson (England) (DOB 6/17/90 – age 32) (joined LFC in June 2011)
Club captain Jordan Henderson joined Liverpool Football Club in the same summer that I began following the team, and he is the lone remnant from that team (among both players and coaching staff) who remains. To put it mildly, Henderson has been through many roller-coaster periods and moments, both personally and for the team as a whole. At the start of Henderson’s second season, new manager Brendan Rodgers informed him that he could choose to go to Fulham in a swap for American striker Clint Dempsey, or he could stay at Liverpool to fight for his place. Henderson was shocked that his manager was close to getting rid of him, and chose to stay.
Since then, not only has Jordan Henderson become the club captain, but in that role he has lifted every available major trophy that the club was eligible to win. No other club captain in Liverpool’s incredible history has achieved that glory.
As a player, Henderson is a tempo-setter when Liverpool have the ball, always available to receive a pass, then getting rid of the ball extremely quickly once he gets it. Henderson usually plays in the right-sided advanced midfield position, but he also rotates as Fabinho’s backup in the defensive midfield spot. From the right side, Henderson regularly creates an impressive and lethal attacking triangle with Mohamed Salah and Trent Alexander-Arnold.
Henderson’s trademark is a lofted diagonal pass from the right midfield toward the left-hand corner of the penalty area.
The skipper divides opinion among Liverpool’s fanbase, but I harbor no doubt that his presence remains critical to the team.
#8 – Naby Keïta (Guinea) (DOB: 2/10/95 – age 27) (joined LFC in July 2018)
The weight of high expectations has proven quite heavy for Naby Keïta at Liverpool. In the 2016-17 season, Keïta’s performances for Red Bull Leipzig in the Bundesliga earned him praise as one of the top players in Germany. During the summer transfer window in 2017, Liverpool aggressively sought to purchase Keïta from Leipzig, which insisted that he was not for sale. Keïta’s all-action style, technical skills, and pressing ability appeared to make him a very natural fit for Jürgen Klopp’s gegenpressing machine, and in the summer of 2017 Liverpool fans delighted at making a habit of watching YouTube compilations displaying Keïta’s sparkling talents.
Liverpool’s effort to sign Naby Keïta in the summer of 2017 was both very public and very protracted. Finally, it ended in late August, with Leipzig agreeing to sell him to Liverpool the following season, for a hefty fee of £52.75 million. At the time, this was the second-highest transfer fee Liverpool had ever paid, behind only Virgil van Dijk (although Alisson Becker’s fee exceeded it only a few months later – and both players ended up joining the team at the same time).
In addition to the expectations created by the big transfer fee, the one-year delay from the time the deal was announced meant that Liverpool’s fans would have another 12 months to build up an even greater lather while awaiting his expected cataclysmic arrival.
Once Naby Keïta finally did arrive, he disappointed many of Liverpool’s fans, in large part because he couldn’t stay healthy. He made 33 appearances for Liverpool in his first season, and ultimately suffered a season-ending injury in the first leg of Liverpool’s Champions League semifinal against Barcelona.
Since then, Keïta has bounced in and out of the lineup, mostly due to injuries, but also due to occasional poor performances on the pitch. Transfermarkt.com lists 16 separate injuries that have kept Naby off the pitch for Liverpool since the end of that initial 2018-19 season.
Although, as noted, Naby has occasionally disappointed when he’s played, for the most part he has been extremely productive when he has been called upon. Keïta regularly leads the team in presses per minute, and he also stands among the Premier League’s best in various advanced statistics designed to measure a player’s contribution to a team’s goal-scoring opportunities.
Although I stand by my opinion that Thiago is the most technically skilled/gifted player at the club, Virgil van Dijk has publicly said that this title belongs to Keïta. There’s little doubt that Keïta’s skills with the ball are incredible. His quick feet and acceleration allow him to dribble past nearly any defender, and he regularly demonstrates the ability to pass through and around defenses to create great opportunities for teammates.
Keïta’s most important contributions to the team probably come when Liverpool lose possession, as he is a pressing machine. He can harass opponents from any direction, and his efforts often lead to Liverpool’s gegenpress recovering the ball quickly and creating a scoring opportunity.
Keïta is now in the final season of his initial Liverpool contract, and there have been many suggestions over recent months that the club is negotiating a contract extension. This has been a flashpoint among Liverpool’s supporters.
Although Liverpool fans are divided by their feelings about skipper Jordan Henderson, the most vitriolic disagreements on LFC Twitter typically involve Naby Keïta. Post-game comments online often appear to reflect two entirely different performances. “He was Man of the Match” one group will say. An equal number will loudly complain that “Keïta was shit. What did he do? What does he EVER do?!”
For my part, I am and always have been a big fan. I hope he signs a new deal, and I hope he can avoid the injuries that have plagued his LFC career so far.
Regardless of what the fans think about Naby, there is no doubt that manager Jürgen Klopp intends to rely heavily on Naby Keïta this season, and I fully expect him to start in Thiago’s place while Thiago recovers from his hamstring injury.
#17 – Curtis Jones (England) (DOB: 1/30/01 – age 21) (joined Liverpool youth academy at the Under-9 level)
The “other” scouser in the team, Curtis Jones is still only 21, but he’s going into his third season as a core member of Liverpool’s senior midfield. Another all-action guy, Jones spent much of his time in Liverpool’s youth academy system playing as a forward or attacking midfielder. However, Klopp and his staff have transformed Jones into a box-to-box midfielder in Liverpool’s 4-3-3 system. Last season, Jones usually played in the advanced left midfield position in the 4-3-3, although he also sometimes plays on the right side.
It’s unfortunate that Jones is already carrying a calf injury from preseason that will keep him out for about a month. I expect Jones to play a major role in Liverpool’s midfield this year, once he’s healthy.
#19 – Harvey Elliott (England) (DOB: 4/4/03 – age 19) (joined LFC in July 2019)
This team, as I’ve constantly told you, is full of world-class players who have world-class talent. Nonetheless, young Harvey Elliott may have as much talent as any of them. In 2020-21, Elliott played on loan with Blackburn Rovers in the Championship (the league just below the Premier League). He finished that season with seven goals and 11 assists, and was nominated to be Young Player of the Season in that league. For most of that season, he was 17 years old.
A left-footed player who prefers to play an “inverted” role on the right side, Elliott is a magical creator. Along with Thiago and Naby, Elliott is another candidate for the most “technically” skilled player in the team.
Elliott is capable of filling in at the wide right forward slot (Mo Salah’s position), but it is apparent that Klopp intends to use him primarily as a right-sided central midfielder. Last season Elliott started the first several matches in that position, and quickly developed a great partnership with Salah and Trent on that side. Then, he suffered a horrible compound fracture that kept him out until late January. Upon his return from injury last season, it was clear that he wasn’t quite fully back to his best.
During the preseason this summer, however, Elliott has appeared to be continuing his progress toward becoming a world football star. If he stays healthy this season, I expect him to play a huge role for Liverpool. And he will take your breath away at moments with his vision and skill.
#7 – James Milner (England) (DOB: 1/4/86 – age 36) (joined LFC in June 2015)
The old man at the club, James Milner is incredibly entering his 21st season in the Premier League. Wow. He debuted in the Premier League for his hometown club, Leeds United, in 2002-03 at age 16. In his first season he became the then-youngest player to score a goal in the Premier League, which happened before his 17th birthday.
Now, 20 years later, James Milner is co-captain for one of the biggest clubs in world football, and he continues to play a critical role for the team. In the locker room, there’s no doubt that Klopp and the team highly value Milner’s experience and leadership. And Klopp also still relies heavily on Milner’s on-pitch contributions, especially as a substitute and backup at several positions.
Milner has always considered himself a central midfielder, but throughout his career he has played in a huge variety of positions, including center forward, attacking mid, defensive mid, right wing, right back, and left back. For the current Liverpool squad, it’s fair to describe Milner as a central midfielder, the backup right back, and the third-string left back. In the 2016-17 season, Milner played as LFC’s first-choice left back for the entire season, even though he can’t stand the position.
Milner famously keeps himself in amazing condition, and regularly outperforms everyone else on the team on the annual preseason lactate test, which tests endurance.
Last season toward the end of the year I had written Milner off, and believed that he had seen the end of his time as a starting option in midfield. Since then, Milner’s strong performances in preseason and as a midfield sub against Fulham last week have convinced me otherwise. I don’t believe Milner will start a huge number of games in midfield this season, but I bet he gets at least five starts. And LOTS of substitute appearances.
At some point Milner will stop being effective and will have to retire. But it may be after his current, younger teammates have already stopped playing themselves.
#21 – Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain (England) (DOB: 8/15/93 – age 28) (joined LFC in August 2017)
Going into this summer, many observers believed that Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain would leave Liverpool in the summer transfer window. However, Oxlade-Chamberlain is yet another Liverpool player who has had bad luck with injuries, and he currently has a “bad” hamstring injury which has probably eliminated his chance of getting a transfer in the current window. Ox has never fully recovered from a cruciate ligament rupture in 2018. At the time of that injury, he was playing a key role for LFC and was in fantastic form. Since coming back, he has had a few sporadic good moments, interrupted by many minor injuries and long stretches where the manager just hasn’t picked him to play.
I don’t expect Oxlade-Chamberlain to play much of a role for Liverpool this season, although the talent is still there and occasionally peeks through. His contract expires at the end of this season, and I think his time at Liverpool will as well.
#43 – Stefan Bajcetic (Spain) (DOB: 10/22/04 – age 17) (joined LFC youth academy in 2020)
Based on preseason, it appears that Klopp plans to use young Stefan Bajcetic as the third-choice defensive midfielder, at least to start this season. This is a serious responsibility, given that the third-choice DM is likely to start in the Premier League several times (if not more) this season. Whenever either of Fabinho or Henderson is hurt, the third-choice DM will need to rotate in every few games to give the other DM a rest. This will occur, and it could happen a lot if either Henderson or Fabinho get a long-term injury.
I can’t say a lot about Bajcetic, since I’ve only seen him play in preseason. There, he looked like a very good distributor. As a defensive shield, I was far less convinced.
I think that, for those clamoring for a midfield transfer, they should be looking for another defensive midfielder to share responsibilities with Fabinho. Nonetheless, if Jürgen Klopp believes Bajcetic can handle being the third-choice in this position, then so do I. Trust in Klopp.
Newcomer Fabio Carvalho is also likely to play as a central midfielder at various points during the season. However, at the moment it appears to me like Carvalho is going to get more time this season playing as a forward, so I’ll include him there.
Finally, I should note that 19-year-old Tyler Morton will probably also get some playing time in the domestic cups. Last season Morton played as an emergency defensive mid, but this season I think Klopp hopes to use him in the box-to-box role in one of the two “advanced” midfield spots. Morton will probably also be on the bench in some Premier League and Champions League games, but hopefully circumstances won’t require Klopp to start him in those competitions.
Forwards
Finally we get to the attackers – the folks whose primary responsibility is the most difficult and exciting part of football – putting the ball in the back of the net.
Liverpool’s attack is, by far, the most changed part of the team this season. The changes are both scary and exciting.
Liverpool have lost a club legend, who, along with Tottenham’s Heung-Min Son, was probably among the two top attackers in the league for the second half of last season. There’s no doubt that Liverpool are going to miss Sadio Mané, who has taken his talents to Munich to win league titles for Bayern (who ALWAYS win the league title, at least since Jürgen Klopp left Germany).
Meanwhile, Liverpool have brought in an exciting new kid, who looks like he may set the league on fire. Obviously, there’s a lot of uncertainty associated with any newcomer, especially when they are young. But early signs are very, very good.
Let’s get into it.
#11 – Mohamed Salah (Egypt) (DOB: 6/15/92 – age 30) (joined LFC in June 2017)
In his first season at Liverpool, Mo Salah scored 44 goals in all competitions, and he has never looked back.
In Salah’s five seasons at Liverpool, he has won or shared the “Golden Boot” (for scoring more goals than any other Premier League player) three times. In 2019-20, Salah finished “only” fifth in goal-scoring with 19 league goals, but also finished fourth in the league with 10 assists. In 2020-21, the season when injury disaster befell Liverpool, Salah still scored 22 league goals, just one behind Golden Boot winner Harry Kane. Last season, Salah scored 23 league goals, and shared the Golden Boot with Heung-Min Son. Salah also led the league last season with 13 assists.
The point is, year in and year out, Mo Salah is the best of the best – or very close to it. Alongside Robert Lewandowski and Karim Benzema, Mo Salah is one of the top three forwards in world football today. Unlike those other two, Mo plays as a wide forward, which is a more difficult position from which to score goals. The Egyptian King is a bad MF.
Salah scores his goals in a variety of ways from a variety of angles and positions. Last season, in October he scored what I thought was a unique goal against Manchester City. The following week, against Watford, he scored a nearly-identical goal. On both occasions, Salah got the ball near the upper-right corner of the penalty box. On both occasions, he was surrounded by at least three defenders. On both occasions, he managed to dribble through the three defenders to his right. And on both occasions, he maintained control and scored from a very wide angle past the goalkeeper. Breathtaking. And, apparently, not unique, at least for him.
Salah is critical to everything Liverpool do in attack. His presence draws a host of defenders, who must swarm just to slow him down. As they say, “you can’t stop him. You can only hope to contain him.” This defensive attention given Salah opens up lots of spaces for Liverpool’s remaining attackers, who are all pretty good themselves.
Salah is strong, he’s fast, he is smart, and he is incredibly skilled. He’s not particularly known for his defense or pressing, but he certainly does a lot of work on that side of the ball as well. But Liverpool understandably want Mo to stay in the attacking half of the pitch as much as possible, so he only goes back to defend his own box on rare occasions.
Last season Salah started incredibly hot, and he was easily the best player in world football for the first half of the season. Then, in January he played a grueling schedule for Egypt in the African Cup of Nations, playing 120 minutes (because of extra time) in four consecutive matches over a two-week period. That exhausting effort ended with Salah and Egypt losing a penalty shootout to Senegal and Mo’s teammate Sadio Mané. The combination of physical and mental efforts with Egypt took a toll on Salah, as did ongoing speculation about his contract, which had been set to expire at the end of the 2022-23 season. As a result, Salah was far less effective for Liverpool in the second half of the season last year.
Over the summer, Salah rested with his family and signed a new contract with Liverpool, which will keep him a Red until at least the end of the 2024-25 season. I look forward to seeing a rested and relaxed Mo Salah play for Liverpool again. I’m also looking forward to Salah coming back rested after the World Cup in December, given that Egypt didn’t qualify and Salah will get a mid-season break this year for the first time ever.
One can argue about whether Virgil van Dijk or Mohamed Salah are Liverpool’s best or most important players. I think Mo edges it.
Nonetheless, having said all of that, there’s a decent chance Salah won’t be Liverpool’s top scorer this season. Let’s talk next about the guy who might take that status away from him.
#27 – Darwin Núñez (Uruguay) (DOB: 6/24/99 – age 23) (joined LFC in June 2022)
The exciting new guy is off to an exciting start. Darwin Núñez is a different type of forward for Klopp’s Liverpool. As I described in Primer, Part III (in the section called “The Season’s New Twist”), since Klopp have been at Liverpool, Bobby Firmino has played as the primary center forward, but he has done so by fulfilling a so-called “false nine” role. This is just fancy football-speak for a striker (often referred to as a “number nine”) who drops into the midfield and plays more like an attacking midfielder. Firmino has done that beautifully, knitting play with Mané and Salah to make those three one of the most effective forward lines in football. But Darwin Núñez will bring a whole new attacking dimension.
Núñez is tall, strong, and very, very fast.
The highest speed recorded in the whole 21/22 PL season was 36.7KPH by Antonio Rudiger
Darwin Núñez was recorded at 36.5KPH vs Fulham in GW1 already … pic.twitter.com/yWKwUcIAlP
— – (@PassLikeThiago) August 9, 2022
Questions still abound about whether Darwin’s skills will be a good fit for Liverpool, but the early evidence is outstanding. During preseason, in his first 195 minutes on the pitch, he took 17 shots, scored five goals, and racked up an xG total of 4.2. All of that is absurd. If you extrapolated those numbers across a Premier League season, and we assumed that Núñez plays 32 league matches and averages 70 minutes per appearance, Núñez would score 57 Premier League goals this season. Of course, he won’t do that. Those numbers were preseason numbers, and they were a very small sample size. But last week’s match gives us more evidence to look at.
In Núñez’s 40 minutes against Fulham last weekend, he wreaked similar havoc. Up until Núñez was subbed on, LFC had managed to accumulate only 0.1 xG – pathetic. By the end of the match – just 40 minutes later – Liverpool had 2.35 xG, and Núñez himself had both a goal and an assist.
As I described in Part III, Núñez allows Liverpool to stretch the pitch vertically in a way that they have not been able to do previously under Klopp. Defenses will have a very difficult time sorting out how to defend against Darwin running behind their defense, without giving far too much space for Liverpool’s other attackers to carve them apart.
I especially look forward to Darwin combining on the pitch with Diogo Jota, who also has a remarkable ability to find spaces in otherwise-crowded areas. Both Darwin and Jota have a knack for being at the right place at the right time. Perhaps most importantly, the movement of those two players will be very difficult for defenders to anticipate, especially if they are playing together. They are both Agents of Chaos. I want to see Chaos Squared.
Fingers crossed.
#23 – Luis Díaz (Colombia) (DOB: 1/13/97 – age 25) (joined LFC in January 2022)
It’s easy to think of Núñez as Sadio Mané’s replacement, since he arrived in the same transfer window in which Mané departed. The reality, however, is that Luis Díaz is replacing Sadio’s role in Liverpool’s team. Like Mané, Díaz is a lightning-quick right-footed player who likes to start on the left edge of the pitch and cut inside. Both players are excellent dribblers, although Díaz’s dribbling technique is far more unusual (and, in my opinion, at least a bit more effective). Both are good passers and connect well with their teammates in and around the penalty area.
But Díaz differs from Mané in important ways, especially at this early stage of his development as a Liverpool wide forward. Sadio has never been selfish, but he is a shoot-first forward who is constantly looking to get near the goal and score. Díaz has the skill set to behave in exactly the same way, but that is not his natural tendency. Instead, Díaz prefers to stay wider and deeper, connecting play with the midfielders. This helps LFC keep the ball, but does less to generate scoring opportunities compared to Sadio’s movement inside the box.
I expect that Díaz will gradually develop his movement patterns to end up in the box more often. I also think that there may be less room in the box over the next few seasons, because Darwin Núñez will be taking up space there far more often than Roberto Firmino ever has.
Díaz has a great strike — I love seeing the curl on his right-footed shot from the left side of the penalty area. I hope and expect Luis to up his scoring output this season.
His intensity and relentlessness have already endeared him to the Liverpool faithful, and I expect that relationship to grow stronger over time. Díaz is constantly working for his team, both with and without the ball. Díaz’s dynamic pressing, flashy dribbling, and flair for the dramatic will keep him a crowd favorite.
#20 – Diogo Jota (Portugal) (DOB: 12/4/96 – age 25) (joined LFC in September 2020)
For opposition defenders, Diogo Jota is a menace. Though he lacks the pure speed of someone like Darwin Núñez, his instincts, anticipation, and ability to find space are fantastic, as are his finishing skills. Like most players who succeed under Jürgen Klopp, Jota is also a tireless worker whose passion for the game fires up not only him, but everyone around him.
Jota’s goal-scoring record with Liverpool is impressive — in two seasons he has scored 34 goals in only 85 appearances. The xG totals he has accumulated impress even more — last season he was second in the league in xG/90 minutes (0.61, behind only Mo Salah’s 0.71). His non-penalty xG/90 was first in the Premier League.
I believe playing alongside Darwin Núñez will make Jota even better. It’s possible that they won’t mesh, that they will get in each other’s way, or that some other problem will arise. But I predict that, because they both have excellent instincts for finding space, and they both create huge difficulties for defenders, together they will improve each other.
Jota is likely to spend more time playing as the left-sided forward with Núñez in the team, but he has played there often, both for LFC and Wolverhampton.
Jota suffered a hamstring injury while playing for Portugal this summer, then aggravated the injury during his first day of preseason work with Liverpool. Various media reports indicate that he may be close to returning to training. Let’s hope that’s true.
Like Salah, Jota also recently signed a contract extension with Liverpool, which hopefully will keep him relaxed and firing.
#9 – Roberto FIrmino (Brazil) (DOB: 10/2/91 – age 30) (joined LFC in June 2015)
One of the few players still here from the time of Klopp’s arrival at Liverpool, Bobby Firmino has been central to every Klopp team. Blessed with a magical first touch and awareness, when he’s at his best Firmino makes everyone around him a bigger threat. Occasionally, however, defenses manage to limit Firmino’s effectiveness by sagging a bit and cutting off his passing angles. Although Firmino is capable of shooting from distance, he doesn’t do so often. Instead, if the forward pass is unavailable, Firmino is more likely to recycle possession by passing sideways or backward to midfielders. Of course, as a “false nine,” Firmino himself generally functions as a fourth midfielder from a slightly-advanced position.
Firmino has struggled more often with injuries in recent seasons, and his contributions have also been overshadowed by the goal-scoring exploits of Diogo Jota. Nonetheless, his skills provide Liverpool with a tremendous asset, and his smile routinely lights up Anfield and TV screens across the world. His contract also expires at the end of this season, and I hope he gets another one.
#28 – Fabio Carvalho (Portugal) (DOB: 8/30/2002 – age 19) (joined LFC in July 2022)
Last but not least is new kid Fabio Carvalho. Carvalho is a quick-footed, tricky-dribbling attacking midfielder/forward. Last season for Fulham in the Championship, Carvalho scored 11 goals and provided eight assists, which earned him the Young Player of the Year Award in that league. His combination of dribbling, passing, and shooting remind me of former Liverpool magician Philippe Coutinho (though he’s got a long way to go before he shows he’s at that level).
This year I expect Carvalho to play both in midfield and the forward line, but the early indications show that he’s most likely to get playing time as a left wide forward, behind Luis Díaz (and probably also behind Diogo Jota, who is likely to play both on the left wing and as a center forward).
Welcome to Liverpool, Fabio! I hope your career continues the same exciting path on which it has begun.
Last point on the forwards: In the domestic cup competitions, we should expect to see youngster Kaide Gordon (17), whose speed and energy from the right wing lit up the preseason last year, when he was only 16. Unfortunately, Gordon was injured throughout this preseason, which is a very bad thing for a young academy player hoping to progress into the senior team.
Season Preview – 2022-23
Deep breath. We’re finally at the spot where I lay out some thoughts on where Liverpool’s season is likely to head. Thanks for hanging with me.
Challenges New and Old
This season poses both new challenges and some very familiar ones. Most obviously, to win the Premier League, Liverpool will again need to earn more points than a ridiculously-good Manchester City squad. Under Pep Guardiola, that team has won the Premier League four out of the last five seasons, interrupted only by Liverpool’s runaway league title win in 2019-20. Twice, however, Liverpool have finished only one point behind Guardiola’s title-winning squad, including last season. Indeed, since Pep’s arrival in England in 2016-17, Manchester City and Liverpool have combined to record six out of the eight highest points totals in Premier League history: 1) Manchester City 2017-18 (100); 2) Liverpool 2019-20 (99); 3) Man City 2018-19 (98); 4) Liverpool 2018-19 (97); 5) Chelsea 2004-05 (93); 6) Man City 2021-22 (93); 7) Chelsea 2016-17 (93); and 8) Liverpool 2021-22 (92).
Manchester City have reloaded, they are favorites to win again, and the challenge Liverpool faces to beat them remains huge.
As we have discussed above, Liverpool also face a new challenge on the pitch, as they try to integrate Darwin Núñez and begin playing a slightly-different style to accommodate him.
Finally, Liverpool and every other club around the world face a completely new challenge from the scheduling of the World Cup. For the first time, the World Cup will take place in November and December — in the middle of club football season. This change came about because the host country is Qatar, which is much too hot for football matches in the summer. One might reasonably ask why FIFA picked Qatar as the host country. But FIFA is not so well-known for making reasonable, transparent, or ethical decisions.
In any event, the resulting mid-season break in club competition creates a new landscape and a new challenge for football clubs, including Liverpool. How will the break affect team fitness? Should training schedules and routines be adjusted? What do clubs do with players who will not be going to the World Cup? Will they be given time off, will they continue to report for regular training every day, or will they go elsewhere for a second “preseason training camp”? All of the above? Should team rotation account for whether individual players will be in the World Cup?
The other challenges posed by the break for the World Cup relate to packing in the full number of club fixtures into a significantly shorter period of time. This, in turn, causes additional sports science concerns, because the players will be playing more often, and therefore will be more vulnerable to injuries.
The Unfortunately Lengthy Injury List
Meanwhile, Liverpool have begun the season with a lengthy list of injuries already. At the moment, that list includes:
Joël Matip – groin (day-to-day); Ibrahima Konaté – knee (out at least several weeks); Thiago Alcântara – hamstring (out six weeks); Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain – hamstring (out at least two months); Diogo Jota – hamstring (back in 1-2 weeks); Curtis Jones – calf (out 1 month); and Caiomhin Kelleher – groin (out another 2 weeks).
This leaves Klopp with only five healthy senior midfielders: Fabinho, Henderson, Keïta (who missed the Fulham game due to illness but is now available); Milner, and Elliott. However, early in the season the Reds are playing only one game per week, which means the healthy players should not be pushed too hard.
The internet doomsayers believe Liverpool’s “injury crisis” provides greater reason for LFC to buy a midfielder in the transfer market right now. However, by October most or all of Liverpool’s existing midfielders are likely to be fully fit again. Klopp and the LFC brass both abhor the concept of “panic buying” players to fill short-term needs. Once the short-term problem evaporates, what happens then? The situation nearly inevitably leads to misery for either the new player, the existing players, or both.
Liverpool will buy a midfielder (or two or three) when the time is right, the money is right, and most importantly, the player is right. At the moment, Klopp believes he is unlikely to improve significantly on what he’s already got. I trust in Klopp. Plus, I really like our players and I’m excited to see young guys like Harvey Elliott and Curtis Jones get more opportunities to play.
What’s the Outlook?
Despite the stinker laid last Saturday, I find it highly unlikely that Liverpool will not finish this season again in either first or second place in the Premier League. The distance between the top two teams and third place last season was enormous. Man City finished with 93 points and Liverpool were one point (sigh!) behind them. Next came Chelsea, which finished 18 points behind Liverpool with 74. Man City had a goal difference of +73, Liverpool’s was +68, and again Chelsea was next-best with +43.
The advanced stats tell a similar story. According to theAnalyst.com, Man City edged Liverpool in total xG (open play and set plays xG combined) (91.73 to 91.38). Defensively, City finished comfortably better than Liverpool, giving up a total of 25.39 xG allowed, compared with Liverpool’s 37.88. Chelsea was again a distant third in attacking xG (65.06), although their xG allowed was slightly better than Liverpool’s (35.06 compared to Liverpool’s 37.88).
My point is this — the other Premier League clubs have a long way to go in one season if they expect to catch either or both of the top two clubs from last year.
Liverpool could be either better or worse than they were last year, but it’s highly unlikely that the Reds will finish with more than 10 points fewer than their 2021-22 total. The same is true for Manchester City. That means that, in order for another team to finish in the top two, those upstarts will need to improve significantly while also crossing their fingers that one or both of the City and Liverpool dip. This could happen. It’s just not likely.
I think Antonio Conte will improve Spurs significantly, and the early signs indicate that Mikel Arteta also has Arsenal on a major upswing. Chelsea still have a very strong team, even if they currently appear somewhat unhappy. But I believe the gap of more than 20 points in the table will prove a bridge too far for any of these teams to make up in a single year.
How will Liverpool’s personnel changes affect them?
Liverpool brought in three players and had four players leave this summer:
Outgoing: Sadio Mané (wide forward) (to Bayern Munich), Divock Origi (center forward) (to AC Milan), Takumi Minamino (attacking mid) (to AS Monaco), and Neco Williams (right back) (to Nottingham Forest).
Incoming: Darwin Núñez (center forward) (from Benfica), Fabio Carvalho (wide forward/attacking mid) (from Fulham), and Calvin Ramsay (right back) (from Aberdeen).
From a positional standpoint, nothing much changed for LFC this summer.
Based on personnel, there’s no reason to believe that Liverpool’s defense will be either better or worse than it was last season. Other than swapping backup right backs, none of Liverpool’s summer changes affected the defense. Liverpool should roll out the same defenders who played for them last year. Obviously, injuries could change that — but the same could be said about every team in every season. Injuries can always change the outlook. Matip and Van Dijk are both a year older, and possibly on the down side of their careers. But neither has noticeably declined so far. On the flip side, Konaté is still learning and developing, so one would expect him to be improving significantly. Gomez rarely played last season, so decent (or better) performances from him could also improve the team’s overall defense.
The same is true in midfield — Liverpool have not made any big personnel moves. We should expect the younger guys to get more minutes, but otherwise there’s no reason to expect significant change.
But, as we’ve already discussed, Liverpool have made two huge personnel changes on the attacking side of things, which will also lead to significant tactical changes in Liverpool’s attacking style.
First, we lost Sadio. What a player. He’s an incredible man and a fantastic footballer. We will miss everything he brought — his goals, his energy, his pressing, his enthusiasm, his smile, his feistiness (and even occasional nastiness), and his wonderful celebrations, imitating whatever his teammates are doing. This is a major loss, and there’s no doubt that somewhere down the road, there will be games where Sadio would have earned us some points that we won’t get. Indeed, perhaps he would have done so in the Fulham game last week.
But, a lot of what Sadio would have done on the pitch will be replaced by what Luis Díaz will do instead. Díaz probably won’t score as many goals, and that’s a big deal. But he’s likely to link play just as well as Mané, and perhaps better. Díaz probably also will contribute just as much as Sadio defensively — which is a lot.
Meanwhile, Liverpool have replaced Divock Origi and Taki Minamino with Darwin Núñez and Fabio Carvalho.
Minamino played a huge role in the domestic cups last season — scoring big goals in big moments. Liverpool would probably not have won either cup without him. But, Minamino rarely played in the two “big” competitions — the Premier League and the Champions League. I expect Fabio Carvalho will play more and contribute more than Minamino did in those major competitions, even if Carvalho won’t score as many goals as Taki did in the domestic cups.
Divock Origi will always be a Liverpool legend, because he scored so many big goals at critical times. Three of my ten top moments as a Liverpool fan were Origi goals, including the moment after which this blog is named. But, Divock Origi rarely played last season. He still managed to score a big, game-winning goal at Wolverhampton. But, for the most part, Origi’s contributions last year were not significant.
And that brings us to Darwin Núñez. I believe the new big man will more than make up for the goals that Liverpool have lost with Sadio leaving. That could easily be wrong. Darwin could really struggle adjusting to Liverpool and the Premier League. It’s happened many times before, with many players who have had equally shiny resumés as Darwin. But, as we’ve already talked about, the early evidence strongly suggests that Núñez will score a bunch of goals this season, and will create a lot of havoc for defenses that will also lead to goals by other Liverpool attackers. In fact, in just 40 minutes against Fulham last week, both of those events occurred — Darwin scored, and Darwin created a goal for Salah.
These Reds, and Jürgen Klopp in particular, have a long history of following up big disappointments with big success. In May 2018, Real Madrid defeated Liverpool in a Champions League Final. The next season, Liverpool lifted the Champions League trophy. In 2019, Liverpool finished one point behind Manchester City in the Premier League, and the next season Liverpool ran away with the Premier League title.
Now, Liverpool are dealing with two nearly-identical disappointments. Last year, just as in 2018, Liverpool lost the Champions League Final to Real Madrid. Last year, just as in 2019, Liverpool lost the league by one point to Manchester City.
Meanwhile, Klopp has experience bouncing back from disappointments that goes back much further than his time at Liverpool. As a young manager at Mainz 05 in the league below the Bundesliga, for two seasons in a row he watched his team go into the last day of the season with a chance to earn promotion, and both times they failed. Klopp promised the fans and the players that they would come back stronger in the following season. Just as Klopp promised, that next year Mainz won promotion, and then stayed in the Bundesliga for several seasons after.
This team and its manager are exceptionally resilient.
Of course, they also face two very difficult mountains to climb. The odds of any team winning the Champions League in a particular season are not very good. Europe is filled with excellent teams, and beating all of them in a cup competition takes not only skill, resilience, and hard work, but almost always a healthy dose of luck as well.
In the Premier League, Liverpool must outperform Man City across 37 games, after spotting City a two-point lead last week. Man City are magnificent. Although they lost some major contributors in Raheem Sterling, Gabriel Jesus, and Fernandinho, they reloaded by bringing in Erling Haaland. Haaland is just like Darwin Núñez — except he’s better. Haaland has proven over several seasons in the Bundesliga (and before that in Austria), that he is one of the best finishers in world football. Meanwhile, everything I said about Núñez’s movement, speed, and size is also true of Haaland.
Beating City in the league is a huge ask.
But I believe the Reds stand ready to answer. Last week, for whatever reason, they weren’t up to the task. But I’m betting that they turn it around quickly, starting tomorrow at Anfield against Crystal Palace.
As I wrote in the preview for last season (and that turned out pretty damned well, didn’t it?), this is a Golden Era in Liverpool FC’s glittering history:
This is the Golden Era. And we are in the middle of it, not at its end. More miraculous moments await us. Our job is to savor them. Treasure them. Plant them in our memory garden, where we can harvest, enjoy, and replant them over the coming years. This is the Golden Era. The time is still now, and we have the privilege of experiencing it.
Up the Mighty Reds! And for goodness sake, enjoy the ride.
