[Free Read] Diagnosing Liverpool FC, and the Treatments and Cures: Parts One and Two

Part One: Diagnosing; Part Two, Prognosis and Treatment [Deep Dive]

In the last two weeks I chipped away at the following two in-depth articles, which were published earlier this week in two parts for paying subscribers.

Now I'm combining the two into one mega-post, and making it free to read and share (commenting on this remains only for paying subscribers).

It’s not a short read, clearly, so be warned. (You may need to bring supplies on this trip.)

As ever, after I publish something I'll think of things I missed (and in a couple of cases I’ve gone back in to add a little more detail), but this was my best effort at a full diagnosis of the Reds' struggles in 2022/23 and my generally optimistic take on how a lot of the issues can be cured relatively easily (while others require a bit of surgery).

Part One: Diagnosing

Disclaimer: despite some subscribers now referring to me as Dr Tomkins, I've thus far only operated without a medical licence, and also without any medical knowledge.

In 2020/21 I tried the impossible: diagnosing what was going wrong in a season falling apart, including a run of six home league defeats in a row.

I reverted to the Black Swan metaphor – random and unlikely events – and how many Black Swans had landed on Merseyside that season.

A problem I had then, and which I'm feeling now, was that it's hard to distil detailed analysis and diagnosis into a readable piece.

Try to explain in depth, but then it gets too cumbersome. Perhaps my previous piece suffered from this, albeit it was a decent attempt.

A List: My Pledges to Readers, Klopp, LFC, for the Rest of 2022/23 and into 2023/24

Yet try to condense things, and then you lose nuance, context and depth. Important points will always be omitted.

However, I'm going to attempt to get the balance right here: detailed but readable (if not short). Indeed, I turned the Black Swan piece into an early chapter in This Red Planet, my last book, as the starting point, before the team regained its mojo.

This piece, the Diagnosis, is more like a book chapter, as will be the Prognosis and Treatment, to follow (now added below).

This article will therefore likely be too long to arrive in full in your inbox, but the full version is here on the website.

As a quick note, I started writing this piece before the Arsenal game, which saw a record-breaking eight Big Chances created, and then wrote more before the Leeds game, which was a 6-1 away win, and have finished it after that victory.

That 6-1 win doesn't change the overall complexion of the season, but it showed further aspects of a new team taking shape.

(Some of the stats discussed are accurate up to just before the Arsenal game, some just before the Leeds game, others as of April 18th.)

Where appropriate, I'll also add links to issues I've covered in more depth before, rather than repeat the whole arguments.

Cough Cough

It struck me that there were various medical metaphors that would translate to this type of diagnosis, too.

After all, a team, like the body, is a complex system of interconnected parts that need to act in unison.

Declaration: please be aware that, even though I still hang around in hospitals in a white coat, asking people to open their mouths and say 'ahhhhhh' as I put a lolly-stick on their tongue, I have no actual medical qualifications. (The accusation that I once performed an appendectomy with some safety scissors has never been proven.)

I have, by contrast, had a chronic, multi-faceted illness for decades now, that makes me fully aware of how a body can fail you, and the knock-on effects of various symptoms that feed into one another.

As I get older, new ailments arise, and sometimes, in trying to solve them, a particular medication I'm prescribed makes a preexisting condition worse, or creates a new problem.

Similarly, in football, any problem you try to solve has unintended consequences; second and third order affects.

The old metaphor that Rafa Benítez liked to use was that the blanket is always too small: you pull it up, to make your shoulders warm, and then it leaves your toes cold.

Headaches

Before getting onto the bones of it (lots of medical puns ahead), this article is also a chance to remind people of the over-simplistic diagnoses we read and hear almost every days.

There's also more football analysis than ever; but a lot of it is dozen-word tweets; 2-minute 'analyses' on highlights shows; 15 minutes of shouting about various things on talkshows, or the half-time growls and scowls of someone who looks like they're on weekend release; and while there's some good football podcasts, many try to cover far too much ground (and give a mention to all the clubs, whose fans will otherwise moan) and you get about 30 seconds of "analysis" on each.

Plus, the most basic, un-nuanced ideas are most likely to go viral. They can be processed quickly and shared just as quickly.

No one says 'TL;DR' over a pithy, snarky tweet.

As such, all they ever are – those 'takes' (often hot to the point of hot-headed) – are the most obvious symptom.

"It's a headache, clearly."

"Take an ibuprofen, dummy."

It's always the most obvious thing.

Implement the most obvious solution, and that solution will work with 100% efficiency and cause zero side-effects.

Yet it's never going to be an accurate assessment, not least as most of the people making these calls are like GPs – generalists – whose job, beyond the basics, is to know the absolute minimum amount about a hell of a lot of things, and whose knowledge is often ten years out of date.

Football moves fast, as does medicine.

(Plus, you get 30 seconds with them, and they're not even paying attention.)

Of course, there's the extreme reaction I heard a 'generalist' journalist saying on a podcast this weekend (just prior to the 6-1 win at Leeds), where he stated that Klopp should possibly have gone by now, and the team should have been broken up "in 2020, 2019" (I'm not sure if this guest on the podcast was drugs-tested) – so presumably breaking up the side before winning the title, when the team was still young; and before almost winning the quadruple last season.

It's about the most radical take on football I've ever heard; up there with "Looking back, Man United should have sacked Alex Ferguson in 1992", which was recently uttered by an inpatient and a maximum security facility.

A couple of goals last season and the entire narrative would have shifted to "the greatest team ever", which is why I found the comments so dumb. (Including further statements like "Fabinho has been at the club too long, van Dijk has been at the club too long". What, four years at the start of the season, when Fabinho was 28? I've been super-critical of Fabinho this season, but who thought he'd have such a bad season? Since when has 4-5 years for players been too long?!)

This is total hindsight bias bullshit (or just uninformed guff), even if last summer's recruitment plans failed regarding the midfield.

Breaking up the team in 2019 or 2020 is the medical equivalent of saying, "the cure to your headache, clearly, is to chop off your head".

As such, I despair.

There are very few specialists, and unless they also focus solely on the Reds, no one who watches, reads, thinks, writes and analyses the club like I do. So sometimes I end up listening to intelligent journalists talking utter nonsense, until I turn it off.

(Which is why I don't go around writing articles or talking on podcasts about teams I know next-to-nothing about compared to those who pay proper attenion.)

I have a few specialties, like transfer spending analysis and the types of data I study when I delve into certain issues (and having played semi-professionally and been a season ticket holder at Anfield in my younger days, I think I 'get' the game in general), but my main attribute is as a Liverpool specialist who can knit some general ideas together, and attempt to make sense of things on various levels, and in depth, rather than just parrot the latest 30-second/25-word theory that's out there.

Even then, I'll beat myself up because I missed something, or didn't explain an idea quite as well as I should have. I’ll have blindspots, too. (Damn, what have I overlooked?!)

But anyway, I'll try, once more, to write a detailed analysis that explains as much as possible in a way that just stops shy of putting readers into a coma.

Previous Medical History

Looking back, 2020/21 – a time of plague, after all – was like a complex illness for the Reds, with dozens of symptoms, all interacting, while the general football writers said "it's just a headache".

The "headache" was that Virgil van Dijk was injured.

That's all it was.

Many ignored the subsequent loss of Joël Matip and Joe Gomez before the midway point of the season, but this was just one of a dozen issues I identified, most of which I felt could be rectified without giving up on the team or the squad.

(And remember, various other players suffered bad injuries that season, including Thiago and Diogo Jota, as well as Fabinho, the 4th-choice centre-back for the season, and Jordan Henderson, the 5th choice.)

Indeed, some of the issues could be solved by changes I identified, and indeed, they were; one being, the XI was way too short, especially with 6ft midfielders now playing as emergency centre-back, meaning smaller (and less effective) midfielders too.

But height had to be an issue. Liverpool hadn't scored a set-piece goal for five months with really short XIs (and subs), and had conceded several; both runs started as soon as Matip, as the last-standing regular centre-back, was injured, soon after a headed assist from a corner in a 7-0 win at Crystal Palace.

(In addition, there was the run of penalties being given against the Reds and not for the Reds, that surely had to change; ditto this season.)

After the difficulties of 2020/21, Liverpool, supposedly dead and buried (the illness was just a headache, but it meant the end of the Reds as a team, apparently), rose to finish with 92 points a season later, winning the FA Cup, the League Cup, and losing the Champions League final despite being the better team and having half the fans either shut out or gassed-out.

People seem to think that how a team is performing 'now' – even if 15 players are out injured – is the true level; that it’s how they will play in the future.

Equally, if it's always just a headache, then it's seen as a single first-order issue, with a simple one-stop solution.

So, take that ibuprofen.

Yet no one says that ibuprofen can make you feel nauseous and cause vomiting. Gastric distress is a known side-effect of the medication.

So you take stomach medication.

But amongst other things, stomach medication can cause ... headaches.

Solutions can cause problems. And problems can be obvious and first-order, but then the second- and- third-order affects; add Player X and you get Player X's qualities, but you have to remove Player Y (as you can't field 12), and while Player Y might be struggling, there may be something Player Y does that you need in the game when you don't have him.

(This could also be called The Coutinho Effect: how every game in which the Reds struggled to score following his departure was met with talk of how dumb it was to sell him, until people finally realised the team was better without him, and the £142m a godsend. Even then, however, as the team clearly improved, The Coutinho Effect would linger for the next year or so; last season it was The Wijnaldum Effect, even though the Reds were generally superb and broke all kinds of records, and this season the Mané Effect, even though Mané himself has struggled in 2022/23.)

Player X may have a bad game, and it may be because he didn't do what he'd been put in the XI to do; he may be slightly injured, fatigued, out of sorts, or just have an inexplicably bad match. Selections are often prejudged badly, and then afterwards, hindsight bias comes into play.

A team is a complicated, multifaceted series of potential issues, interacting with millions of movements for 90 minutes each game.

The opponent is also not static and submissive, but often fast and forceful and changing to counter your strengths and exploit your weaknesses (certainly more so in modern football, with all the analysis); a kind of pumped-up virus, there to make life harder for you.

And so, on to trying and make sense of Liverpool's relatively poor health this season, with some diagnoses, before Part Two, which is the Prognosis and Treatment.

Heart Issues

While not just a simple, one-player problem (this is no headache), Liverpool's biggest issues have clearly been at the heart of the team: the midfield.

It's not pumping like it used to, as we can all see.

Your legs could be totally fine: strong muscles, clear veins, no issues. But if you've just had a heart attack, you may not be able to use them. Or, a twisted nerve in your back may send pain running down otherwise perfectly healthy thighs.

Then, that all affects your mind.

(Indeed, all of the issues covered affect a team mentally. It's a constant battle to retain belief.)

You lose belief in your legs, in your ability to walk, to do simple tasks. You need to rebuild your confidence.

But if you're expected to run like the wind, and your legs don't work as they should, confidence gets further shaken. It becomes a negative feedback loop.

So, when I look at Liverpool, I see a team weakened across the heart of the side, and lacking confidence.

(To use heart in the other way, to mean effort, I've seen a lot of 'heart' in recent games, but at times, a clear lack of belief. Sometimes belief was low at the start, as against Arsenal and Leeds, but then it was found; other times this season, the Reds started with belief, but were soon chasing the game and looking bereft of confidence.)

Plus, the circulation has poor: players were not getting around the pitch as much.

Indeed, the midfield pressing stats have generally been terrible this season, bar some individual displays by Stefan Bajcetic (fresh blood), and Harvey Elliott, both of whom put in elite individual pressing performances in certain games, but both did so as teens, not yet at their physical peak.

(As an aside, Frank Lampard said of Chelsea after the defeat to Brighton that "when you're short [of fitness] you can't get there", at how his team weren't even making challenges. This struck me as an issue with Liverpool's midfield too often this season.)

However, against Leeds, Curtis Jones seemed to be everywhere – after a horrible year dogged by injury, and a weird army of haters.

And while not a midfielder, Diogo Jota is an elite presser (which is why, for the time being, he's keeping Darwin Núñez, who needs to work on that side of his game, out of the time); as is Cody Gakpo (albeit he's not yet as synchronised with the others), and as such, the team that beat Leeds 6-1 looked full of rampant pressing. That hasn't been possible for a lot of this season, including long-term injuries to Luis Díaz and Bobby Firmino.

There's also an iron deficiency, with no real midfield enforcer; Bajcetic made more tackles in his few games than some senior players have made all season.

Tackling is not everything, of course, and hard-men who give the ball away all game are pointless.

But a bit of iron in the veins is handy, and Bajcetic has that.

However, he was also as fresh as a daisy when he came into the side, not weighed down with the burden of blame from the bad first half of the season, and not worn down by the insane 2021/22.

Burnout/Fatigue

I addressed this in a specific piece a few months ago, and so I'll only add a few more snippets here.

Rebuilding Liverpool: Exhaustion, Fatigue, Resetting and Renewing (A Series)

I quoted interviews from British workhorses Declan Rice (talking about last season) and Micheal Brown (talking about the 2002/03 season) where they both spoke about the toll those long seasons took on them. Rice's data this season showed a massive drop off in his performances.

Both players talk of still being tired when they went onto the pitch. You'd also expect players to tire later on in games, when feeling like that.

As such, it's worth a look at Leicester City and West Ham, and how a long season carries over.

I covered these two clubs in a recent ZenDen piece (an additional no-commenting TTT Substack where I write contemplative pieces and look for positives), and I'll quote a bit from it here:

The Crazy, Intense Insanity of the 'Football Team' Pressure Cooker

The longer the previous season [and the shorter the summer break], the more a sense of mental and physical exhaustion is likely to carry over, and both of those can lead to more injuries, which in turn means more injuries, which in turn means more injuries (and more fatigue for those few who are fit), and so on.

Liverpool played a record number of must-win games last season, as part of a run of 63 in total; then were back in the swing in almost no time, when clearly not ready. They started the season off the pace.

West Ham played 56 games last season, reaching the Europa League semis. They refreshed their squad this season with a big spend on a few players to take them to the next level, but have suffered badly. As I've noted, Declan Rice said he was still fatigued when this season started, almost playing in a daze.

Last season, Leicester reached the UEFA Europa Conference League semis, playing 58 games in all competitions. After several good seasons they collapsed out of nowhere like a pack of cards this season. West Ham and Leicester also started the season badly, as did Liverpool.

Both those other clubs were pushing to improve on 7th and 8th-placed finishes, to make the next step; but collapsed.

The trajectory was all upward, with European semis allied to good league finishes, but the fallout is rarely envisaged.

It's almost like starting the season wtih a literal hangover.

After nine games, Liverpool were 10th and Leicester 19th. After seven games, West Ham were 18th, having lost five of those five seven matches.

The effects of the Reds' season could perhaps even be seen further afield.

Even Sadio Mané, previously unbreakable – playing 34-36 league games in each of his final four seasons at Liverpool (and 44-51 in all competitions in his final five seasons, in addition to all the games for Senegal) – broke down physically at Bayern Munich and missed several months, which may not be a coincidence.

(Now he's broken down mentally, to the point of punching a team-mate. Interestingly, his teammates are also said to be unhappy at an apparent lack of effort, as he picks up £360,000-a-week.)

Speaking personally, with a chronic illness (M.E.) that limits what I can do each day, I know all about energy; especially as I can just about remember what it felt like to have loads of it, being a semi-professional footballer (even if I was starting to get ill in my 20s), and before that, a super-fit kid who played football every single day (sometimes morning break, lunchtime break and then until it got dark at night), also ran long distance races, despite having been born with asthma and other immune system issues.

(As an aside, still misunderstood despite all the data being out there from loads of studies, M.E. is marked by moderate exertion causing excessive fatigue, with tests on patients showing things like massive elevated blood lactate in the aftermath of simple exercises, and other chemical changes – including those seen in animals who semi-hibernate in times of food scarcity – that would not exist in a healthy person, as just some examples of the complicated physiological responses. I've spent 32 years frequently trying hundreds of ways to get fitter – the first eight years before I was diagnosed and still playing sport, as my condition very gradually started to appear, until I had to give up all sport aged 28; and every since, often hitting a wall very quickly from things as simple walking half a mile, despite knowing what is involved in elite fitness, and as someone who loved the pain of pushing myself. As with Long Covid, it seems related to the body continuing to fight a virus after the virus has gone. Long Covid has brought M.E. into focus, with M.E. research being used to help understand Long Covid, but also a return to the tiresome, outdated attacks on people being lazy and faking it.)

Anyway, anything is life is harder when you're struggling and lacking energy.

Energy is real, but also affected by mindset. That applies whether you are healthy, or have any illness. But that doesn't mean these exist only in the mind.

I always end up wiped out whenever I go to Anfield these days (one of the reasons I first began talking about my illness when I started writing about the club was all the criticism I got for no longer being a regular match-goer, as if my opinion was invalid); but the days of recovery feel less daunting after a great win than a bad defeat (but I still feel unwell).

Both the mind and the body can be positively and negatively impacted, and having issues with both can rebound from one to the other.

It's a truism of football that it's more tiring chasing the ball, and worse still chasing the ball if you're getting well-beaten.

Interestingly, Leeds ran more in a recent game than any Premier League team this season – and were massively outrunning Liverpool in the first half – but by 60 minutes against the Reds they looked exhausted. They weren't physically unfit, clearly; just demoralised, and that makes the body feel more lethargic, and the mind starts to dull. Mistakes creep in.

Liverpool, to be blunt, looked knackered at the start of this season. A phrase often used in football is 'undercooked', but that may be true, having been 'overcooked' – or even fried – after 2021/22.

The lack of a proper preseason did not help the deep conditioning, which all players say they need to be at their best, and which is hard to compensate for once the grind is play-recover-play-recover, which most people say doesn't really add deep stamina, albeit playing games helps you get 'match fit'. But it seems, as a layman, that the 'match fit' ceiling is lower if you haven't built up the ultra conditioning.

Ex-Chelsea midfielder Izzy Brown, who has just prematurely retired aged 26, said:

"I went to Leeds about seven months on from my injury and I was fit, but I wasn’t ‘Marcelo Bielsa fit’."

This season, players at Liverpool – bar the injured and those in the month or so after returning from injuries – are 'fit'; they're just not 'Klopp fit'.

A point of difference with Klopp was how hard the preseasons were, and how that fuelled the gas tanks for the season ahead. His was always the fittest team.

The issues are that, even if you then get more physical energy after a sluggish start to the season that has proved costly, it may never be quite enough' then you're also mentally drained by the league table, and the pressure of each game, and the negative pall that covers a club when things are going wrong.

Mistakes flow from tiredness, and pressure leads to mistakes, too (giving up goals at the back, misses chances up front).

Mix pressure and fatigue, and injuries also follow.

Plus, many of Liverpool's most energetic, peak-age players happened to be the ones who were injured.

Fresh Blood

What was clear was that the Reds' team was clearly too old; in part, due to the injuries to almost anyone aged between 21 and 29, which is the exact period where speed and stamina mix best.

I was critical of how old the team was earlier in the season, even if it wasn't all avoidable.

But then the average age was changed halfway through the season. A problem (but not all the problems) was 'solved'.

Along with new signing Cody Gakpo came Stefan Bajcetic, and the teenager was superb: a rookie with quality, tenacity, energy. But aged 18, and asked to do too much, he broke down with injury.

Outsiders – generalists – may not note this as even worthy of mention, as he didn't cost £100m, so his absence can go under the radar. He's not a big name, so it doesn't matter.

But Bajcetic was adding something unique that the team needed, even if he's only half the player he'll be in two years' time.

(To me, as I said earlier in the season before he even turned 18, he's the nearest thing I've seen to Steven Gerrard at the same age, and actually ahead of him in terms of development.)

So, Klopp tried to solve a problem, and to some degree, solved the problem. Then a new problem arose, as Bajcetic's season ended prematurely.

Harvey Elliott had a difficult first half of the season, but also put in some great displays; as a teenager, consistency is difficult to come by.

Meanwhile, Klopp has been trying to integrate two brand new attackers, given that two senior ones (Diogo Jota and the hitherto in-form Roberto Firmino) were out for 3-6 months, and another, Luis Díaz, was out for over six months.

Firmino's injury also came when he was having his most prolific scoring season per-90 at the club.

Díaz was arguably Liverpool's best player in the final third of last season, having arrived in good form, but also after a winter break. He’d started this season well, with four goals, including a beauty at the Palace game I attended, which showed an ability to score out of nothing, that only very special players have.

Firmino aside, the injuries were mostly to the new blood and the younger blood.

Let's say that Luis Díaz is the aorta. My dictionary says the aorta

"passes over the heart from the left ventricle and runs down in front of the backbone."

Well, that sounds like Díaz to me. That particularly iron-rich blood was missing.

As such, no Liverpool XI this season has included each of Díaz, Gakpo and Núñez, three fresh-blood players bought in the last 15 months.

Add the injuries to Jota, in his mid-20s, and Firmino, and it's been a team that often couldn't be balanced, with players settling in and others, who were settled, on crutches.

Ditto Ibrahima Konaté – fresh defensive blood, just turned 23 when the season started – missed most of the first half of the season. (I don’t like making criticisms of selections, but I wondered at the time why Matip was preferred for the final preseason games, with Konaté in the preseason B teams, when he then got injured. The age of the team for the first game, at Fulham, felt too old.)

Curtis Jones, who turned 22 recently, showed against Leeds what he could have offered, had he not missed most of the season; as well as indicating that his game might be starting to come together as he matures. At the very least, he’s young and can run.

Homeostasis

"Homeostasis is defined as a self-regulating process by which a living organism can maintain internal stability while adjusting to changing external conditions."

As I've noted before, Roberto Firmino joined Liverpool in 2015, and struggled initially, for various reasons. His signing was mocked as a case of Michael Edwards wasting money.

Sadio Mané joined in 2016, and was a revelation (as he could run fast, and take players on), albeit with a decent but unremarkable 13 league goals, and where the Reds were still an unremarkable team – scraping into the top four, but erratic.

Then, a year later, Mo Salah arrived at a point where Firmino and Mané were fully settled, and Salah hit the ground running.

However...

Even then, the team as a whole did not gel. At least, not consistently.

Liverpool were 9th in the table after nine games.

That 9th game was a 4-1 thrashing at Spurs, which left Klopp, after two years, stuck on the same win percentage as his predecessor, Brendan Rodgers (52%); leading to the frankly insane – as I said at the time – suggestions that he was no better. Bullshit, I called. Just look at the potential.

Still, Liverpool were running hot and cold. There was not the full level of synchronisation; the hypothalamus was faulty.

"Your hypothalamus, a structure deep in your brain, acts as your body's smart control coordinating centre. Its main function is to keep your body in a stable state called homeostasis."

But Liverpool were adjusting; the hypothalamus adapting.

The soon-to-be-famous famous front three – one of the best attacking triumvirates the game has ever seen – were only at the start of their time together as a trio.

They'd all scored in a 4-0 win over Arsenal and grabbed a few goals here and there, but for the team – as a whole – to kick into gear it took a little longer.

Salah ended up having a freakishly good first season, but each of the trio had far from their most remarkable individual seasons in 2019/20 when Liverpool became a winning machine, with shared knowledge, including pressing and passing routines.

At the time of Liverpool's peak success, Salah was making 100+ more sprints in a season than the next on the list in the league (who I think was Ben Chilwell). The Reds were gelled; there was homeostasis.

Mané – in 2023, in a new environment, where he's not been 'feeling the love' – is now struggling badly at Bayern, as already noted.

(Also, Emre Can left and soon became a mere sub at Juventus; Philippe Coutinho left, and became a mere sub at Barcelona, and now is a mere sub at Aston Villa; Gini Wijnaldum left and became a mere sub at PSG; and now Mané is a mere sub at Bayern. Maybe one day some of these players will think about how the environment – the sense of homeostasis that existed at Liverpool from 2017-2022 – was a key part of their success.)

This season has been different from Liverpool because their own sense of homeostasis has been lost.

But as I noted a few months ago, this can be like 2017/18 – rather than expect to just go right back to #1 in the world rankings (as Liverpool were last summer), the need to rebuild (but not totally overhaul), and to rebalance and rediscover homeostasis.

It can often be about tweaks and readjustments, rather than wholesale changes.

Indeed, I think Klopp is the master of homeostasis. He creates the perfect environment.

Players, once they settle, feel at home; he breeds a sense of unity; he manages egos and keeps the egosystem in check; he motivates with super-high standards that the players may struggle with when times are tough, but that's elite sport for you. You can't then have a manager who is only soft and cuddly, accepting failure.

(Carlo Ancelotti states of his own career that he is brought into clubs because he is laid back, then sacked because he is laid back. Klopp is a great mixture of very friendly and angry, depending on what the players deserve or need.)

It was also a period of exhaustion and burnout for many of the players, and there's a sense of drift from the 5-12 players who either know they're definitely leaving, or suspect they're definitely leaving.

That's a new thing at Liverpool under Klopp: to have various players seeing out their contracts.

(The solution is not to bring in a ton of new players, but more on that later.)

Stability is key, and this season there's been a decline in that at Liverpool, with unrest and upheavals; but things have settled down behind the scenes, and disillusioned players will be gone soon.

To change a manager (in the same summer where there will be a change of Director of Football), when a few new players are needed too, would be chaos.

“Clubs are striving for elite performance but fail to recognise that stability is one of the most important prerequisites of successful sports teams,' Richard Bevan, the chief executive of the LMA, recently said in a piece by Matt Dickinson. Dickinson added, "Most coaches across sport believe that it takes at least two years to instil a set of values and a playing style, but few in football are granted the time for it."

As well as a manager needing time to get his ideas across to the whole squad, new players can obviously take time, too. (Indeed, pressing patterns can take up to two years to perfect, and you need everyone on the same level, otherwise some press correctly and some do not, and then it falls down.)

Liverpool have had a lack of consistency in lineups all season, and several new players are still adjusting – even if the Reds didn't get the new midfielders they tried to procure last summer.

In 2020/21 I noted that Liverpool got into double-figures for league debuts handed out (there were no dead-rubber games so none were end of season handouts); and while that is not automatically bad, that suggests churn.

In 2019, Liverpool signed no one (bar 16-year-old Harvey Elliott and a reserve keeper) and had the best first 30 games in league history. (League debuts were handed out only once the title was one.)

In 2021, Liverpool signed just Konaté (adding Luis Díaz with just over a third of the league season to go), and almost had the best season any club had ever had in the entire history of football.

(Yeah, that Klopp fella was washed up in 2022, wasn't he?)

This season, league and Champions League debuts for Liverpool have been handed out to seven players, all in meaningful games. More might follow once the season is 'mathematically' over.

Expensive Procedures

A lot of the fine details – myriad internal interactions – cannot be seen from a distance. You can't always see how tightly-knit or divided a squad is.

The two clubs who made what I felt were stupid numbers of signings this season – saying as much at the time – and stuck with that assessment, were Chelsea and Nottingham Forest. Both had good spells, but both are well down on where they should be based on their spending. Both spent money to make themselves worse.

In both cases they bought players better than what they already had, but they lost clarity, cohesion and camaraderie.

Too many new players is a bad thing, as highlighted by the farce of Graham Potter needing to simultaneously hold an 11 vs 11 on one pitch and a 9 vs 9 on another. Oliver Kay wrote this week of "... a squad so bloated that some players had to sit on the floor during meetings and get changed in an adjoining area before training because there isn’t enough space in the dressing room."

Potter was mocked by unhappy fringe players, and that will happen if you have 20-30 disgruntled guys who are not part of the XI (and a dozen or more not even on the bench). It breeds toxic environments. Cliques can form.

There's probably a critical mass of about eight or nine senior squad players who can be kept happy, and beyond that, if they're senior pros, you'll have sulkers, disrupters and those just generally dispirited. A squad of 20 senior pros and the rest as talented kids seems ideal, if you can keep injuries at bay.

Mega-spending Man City get it just right, with a small squad, but where they spend big on up to 20 versatile players, where the reserves are not much of a drop-off from the first-teamers. So, they have John Stones who can play centre-back, full-back and in midfield. They have midfielders who can play as attackers.

Also, senior players can find themselves out of the team for ages, and angle for moves, but Pep Guardiola has the ultimate power, and anyone can be sold if they don't toe the line, such is their wealth. Equally, many seem to get brought back into the fold just in time.

Liverpool's plan is not much different, but with less money to spend, the first team and the backups are less likely to be as elite; and the wages on offer are not as big, so it's slightly harder to keep more in reserve.

Man City's £XI (all league lineups adjusted to current-year TPI inflation, that I co-created with Graeme Riley in 2010, and which Andrew Beasley helps keep updated) is £691m, over £200m more than Liverpool's at £484m.

City have over £600m of talent that on average isn't used each week; Liverpool again fall short, with a further £425m that hasn't been used each week, but have obviously had a lot more injuries that have kept players out for long periods (Firmino, Díaz, Jota and Konaté at over £200m combined in 2023 money), rather than them being rested or rotated.

(The most expensive squad is the £1.3bn of Man United, with Chelsea's third at £1.1bn. The Reds rank 4th, at £910m.)

If the Reds were to spend more on their XI, to get an XI closer to City's – as happened when the two teams went head to head – then it just leaves more of a gap on the bench for the Reds.

If you put a lot of your money into Virgil van Dijk and Alisson, for the XI, you can't then put the same amount into the squad; your subs have to be even cheaper.

City, with their creative accounting, will also spend bigger on overall wage-transfer-agent packages, as seen with Erling Haaland, a bargain if you ignore the £35m to his agent/father, and wages with bonuses getting close to £1m per week. (He still looks well worth the money, mind, but City as a team are not necessarily any better – but could prove to be, in time, especially if they win this season’s Champions League and pip Arsenal for the title; do neither, and short-term at least, they’ll have fallen below last season’s achievements.)

Part of the problem is that Klopp, with far less money to spend than City, distorted expectations.

He blew the model out of the water.

Over a five-year period, Liverpool smashed the glass ceiling to smithereens. Three Champions League finals, three finishes in the league with 92-99 points; a 38-game spell of 110 league points from 114 available (spread across two seasons) that may never be broken; various other cups won, along with the league title and becoming European champions.

All while having the 3rd/4th most expensive team/squad in England, well short of the top two; and starting out in 2015 with the 5th-most expensive team, where a mixture of clever purchases and his management helped create a virtuous circle of success increasing income, which then increased the wage bill.

The law of averages suggests that's not sustainable; just as the previous club to produce that kind of multi-season overachievement (but without quite landing the trophies) was Mauricio Pochettino's Spurs, who on the 6th-biggest budget, a huge distance behind the top teams, finished 2nd, 3rd and reached a Champions League final. He did a superb job, that far eclipsed winning a handful of games, perhaps against minor opposition, to lift a League Cup.

I always found it insane that a "winner" like Jose Mourinho would apparently make that same team win, as he was only likely to make it worse.

However, stability can lead to staleness. Change can be too chaotic; no change can lead to inertia. But the balance is hard to strike.

Changing the manager can sometimes be ideal for a short-term boost (blimey, it even works for the dull Roy Hodgson), to break the sense of negativity that may be surrounding a struggling boss – and you can't just sack 25 players if you need to change the dynamics – but otherwise you retain stability with your world-class manager and let him rebuild.

I also saw weird recent comparisons with Klopp and what happened at Arsenal with Arsène Wenger, but Wenger was on a downward spiral for almost ten years; and from his peak in 2004, it was FOURTEEN YEARS of gradual decline (even if he was still a very good manager and the context had changed; but he was almost in his 70s by the end, not his mid-50s).

Klopp's Liverpool, meanwhile, came within two goals of the quadruple last season. Wenger faced tough challenges, but so does Klopp.

But it was 14 years before he left that Wenger had the no.1 ranked team in Europe (which often means the world, too) on the Elo Index:

Arsenal: "Best: 1st, 20 days in total, last on Oct 24th, 2004"

Liverpool: "Best: 1st, 3,206 days in total, last on Aug 7th, 2022."

Again, the insane short-termism of football is that Klopp has been at Liverpool too long, apparently, eight months after his team were ranked the best in the world.

DNA

It is fair to say that Klopp has never really rebuilt a side – and sold many of his favourite players – as they just used to get taken from him at Dortmund by Bayern Munich.

But upon listening to him after the Brighton defeat in January, it was clear that he knew he had to be ruthless. (Plus, he has built at least two great sides in his career from low starting points.)

He couldn't go around publicly pointing out everything that's wrong with his team or his players, as that's counterproductive. But he clearly knows what needs doing.

The stability can come from his continued management, and there will be greater 'stability' from all the players who were new to the club in 2022/23.

It's also a case of finding the right players at the right prices, and to keep the team's identity and its DNA, which will be further strengthened by youth team graduates.

Integrating new players next season won't necessarily be smooth, but the midfield has struggled so badly this season that I have compared it to bringing in Alisson for Simon Mignolet/Loris Karius, and Virgil van Dijk for Dejan Lovren.

The team may not be quite at the same stage as it was in 2018 (albeit I still think it could be when everyone is fit), but newness need not be such a problem if the new players are for seriously underperforming areas: as you're not losing too much in the transition, and have much more to gain.

Alisson replaced Mignolet, not peak-Pepe Reina or Ray Clemence. This is not about marginal gains, but quantum leaps.

And van Dijk replaced Lovren, not peak-age Alan Hansen or Sami Hyypia.

Remember, Liverpool are not losing key players this summer on free transfers, and having to find – say – replacements for Alisson, Mo Salah, Andy Robertson and Trent Alexander-Arnold.

The Reds are having to replace a midfield that, at times, simply hasn't even been there – due to injuries, fatigue and in some cases, ageing out.

To go back to the heart metaphor – if the heart is the main issue, then a transplant or a pacemaker or medication, and everything can flow from there.

And so, to repeat: wholesale changes are not needed, even if new blood is.

Prior to the Arsenal game, Chris Sutton showed what's wrong with punditry:

"I think Liverpool's top-four hopes are over now, and everyone is looking ahead to the summer, when a major overhaul of their squad is needed.

"I just don't see a switch being flicked with their current group where, all of a sudden, they respond next season - their problems have gone on for too long."

You'd have said flicking a switch is what it feels like Arsenal have done in 2022/23, mind, in that no one saw that coming. (No one ever expects the Spanish Inquisition.)

Of course, Sutton – never the most articulate of men, but perhaps a thinking fan's Tony Cascarino – may have meant that only having the current squad next season would be a problem, and you can’t just flick a switch for them, which makes more sense as an argument ... but it won't be all the same players next season anyway.

However, a lot of the players written off this season will also thrive once new ones arrive.

And a lot of players are better than they've been able to show this season (as Jota and Jones highlighted against Leeds, as both finally reach match sharpness).

Just as, in any single season, maybe at least a third of all players who are excelling probably did not excel the season before – either because they were too young, or new to the league, or injured, or off form, or in an unsuitable system.

Then, those who hadn't just almost randomly or unexpectedly matured or gone up a level or two – such as Ollie Watkins, aged almost 28, or Solly March, 28, or Miguel Almirón, 29, who I doubt anyone would have said would be even half as good as they've been this season, and each is nearly 30 now.

Granit Xhaka, 30, was having best best season for Arsenal, before he reverted to type and angered Anfield with an elbow last week. Aleksandar Mitrović, before he lost the plot, was having his first really prolific Premier League season (1-in-2 ratio of goals to games), aged 28, at the 5th attempt. İlkay Gündoğan only went into top gear at City aged 29/30, in his fifth season.

Also, people said the same about Liverpool in the summer of 2021 – the team was finished – and the Reds, just by adding Konaté (who barely played early on) and then Luis Díaz (who only played the final third of the season) got 92 points, unluckily lost the Champions League final, and won the FA Cup and League Cup.

For some reason, people seem to take struggles for form and a team shorn of injuries as permanent states, not as something potentially temporary. Darwin Núñez is locked in neutral’s minds as a guy who misses too many chances, and they haven’t noticed the improvements in aspects of his game, as he settles in. Yet at the same age, Ollie Watkins was in the 2nd tier with Brentford.

And is one season of struggles for a team and many of its players really “too long”? Is there any context in that analysis?

Aka, “Liverpool have a headache”.

Liver (pool)

At home the Reds have generally thrived. But the away form has been poor.

In 2020/21, the Reds lost six home league games in a row, which was unthinkable after no home defeats in four years.

Such swings can be a mental issue, but so many times I see poor home and/or away from switch from season to season.

Sometimes the home crowd gets too anxious too early, and it transmits to the players; and so going on the road is a relief.

Other times it's the opposite way around, and you get bullied away from home. (Which I think happened with Liverpool when undercooked, under-strength and lacking heft.)

When you're at your best, you can win home and away.

Clearly, if Liverpool had had a fit squad before 17th April – the first time when pretty much everyone was available (bar two teenagers and player so often injured he's due to leave anyway) – then going away to win would have been easier.

Bringing on Luis Díaz, Darwin Núñez, Bobby Firmino and Thiago at Leeds was a sign that, finally, squad availability was deep again. Some very good players didn't even make the bench, instead of the bench including raw kids.

It came too late in 2022/23, but the aim is to work out a way that it doesn't happen again in 2023/24.

Remember, when a player misses a lot of a season, people say he will be 'like a new signing'. Liverpool have half a dozen of those.

And so, while the Reds have generally been dominant in Liverpool, there's a very good chance the away form will improve in 2023/24.

Muscles, Tendons and Kneecaps

As I've noted many times, the 2020/21 struggles were far down to far more complex than just the centre-back issues, but even a frustrating, simplistic recent article stated that at least in 2020/21 the Reds had the excuse of injuries at centre-back, which they don't have now.

Yet this season has been the worst under Klopp for number of games missed per injury, at almost double that of last season, and just above 2020/21.

This season, the injuries have been to lots of midfielders and lots of attackers (with the attacking injury crisis coinciding with the January transfer window, hence why it made sense to bring forward the move for Cody Gakpo, and Gakpo, to my eyes, is a future superstar regardless of when he arrived; I think this fairly young player will be sensational by the time he's 25/26).

So many excellent players have missed so much of 2022/23, and the constant enforced changes to the lineups have added to the lack of consistency.

This season, Liverpool have – as in 2020/21 – been running mostly at 6-12 injuries per game, which as Andrew Beasley has showed, correlates with worse results.

Now, the medical staff need to sort this issue, with the need, it seems, for a review of training methods, physiotherapy, conditioning, recovery, etc., to at least figure why so many picked up injuries, especially after using a new injury-prediction algorithm to good effect last season during the mammoth campaign. I'm not a medical expert, despite often impersonating surgeons.

Again, it could be largely connected to last season, in that players were still fatigued; and that a truncated preseason was a similar issue in 2020/21.

In addition, lots of players have played at Euros, AFCON and World Cup finals in less than two years. By the start of this year, Liverpool had played 100 games in the previous season and a half, more than any other club in Europe.

Plus, injuries beget injuries; a lack of injuries helps you ward off injuries. The more you can rotate, the more you keep players out of the red zone. The more injuries you have, the less you can rotate.

While changes to the XI can also be tactical, injuries take their toll; you cannot name consistent lineups with tons of injuries.

Most changes this season

• Chelsea 3.7

• Liverpool 3.1

• Southampton 2.7

• Nottingham Forest 2.6

Fewest changes this season

• Brighton 1.4

• Newcastle 1.3

• Arsenal 0.9

Note that the three 'overachievers' with consistently selected XIs were not in Europe or, in Arsenal's case, were in Europe, but often fielding weakened sides in the lesser Europa League.

Before the two sides met last week, Andrew Beasley noted that, "Klopp has made 13 changes to his starting XI across the last three games. Arteta has made 13 across the last 14 league games."

Fewer injuries can give you stability. Then there's time at a club, which is a different kind of stability:

Average number of years at the club per XI selected - Most

• Liverpool 4.5

• Tottenham Hotspur 4.5

• Brighton 4.1

• Manchester City 3.8

Average number of years at the club per XI selected - least

• Leeds United 2.0

• Nottingham Forest 1.4

Brighton get a lot of praise for their new players (and rightly so), but they also have had a team together almost as long as Liverpool.

Southampton, below the midpoint of years together at 2.6, provide an excellent example of getting so many of the profile metrics wrong for a squad, even if they get them right as individual signings.

On average: they have fielded the 2nd shortest XIs in the league; at 24.8, are by far the youngest side; and they make lots of changes to the XI, by choice or due to injuries.

Irrespective of how many good players a club seems to sign, if the overall balance is out – too short, too young, too new, too old – then there can be trouble.

Arsenal were too young last season, but building; albeit I didn’t see them going up 2-3 levels.

They were also too short, I felt, but added a big centre-back (William Saliba) and moved a small centre-back (6'1" is small these days), Ben White, out to full-back, and are now the 4th tallest team in the top division. (This to me was vital given that their keeper was small and a bit crazy, but a good shot-stopper. It needed more heft at the back to get away with Aaron Ramsdale in goal.)

And from being young, their average is now an Goldilocks zone '25.8', which means they’ll end the season at around 26.

(I heard Arsenal described as "the youngest team in the Premier League" on three separate podcasts in the wake of their draw at West Ham, but unless 25.8 is lower than Southampton's 24.8 and Leeds United's 25.4, then I don't know maths. It's also another example of generalists making mistakes, albeit Arsenal are still a fairly young side – just not especially young anymore, at nearly 26, and are a full year older than the youngest side this season – with Southampton the sole outlier. Southampton are too young; Arsenal are not.)

From having a healthier shared time at the club, Arsenal added a few players in January, and that could perhaps have disturbed their cohesion; it also raised their average age a little.

The lack of excessive injuries, however, has helped power some overachievement, along with their 'luck' in outshooting their xG, unless they just have a ton of elite finishers who can maintain this, but their previous data suggests possibly not (unless they are improving, as may be the case with the younger attackers, instead of just on a hot streak).

Gabriel Martinelli and Bukayo Saka were well ahead of their previous career xG performance, but Saka missed a penalty at the weekend, as perhaps a sign of pressure. (Plus, with such little rotation, teams can overachieve until the spring, then begin to tire. But if they hadn’t had such a settled side for so much of the season, they might be fresher now, but maybe 5th in the table.)

Liverpool have had far more injuries to deal with, and far less stable selections. Go back to 2020/21, when Liverpool were written off, and then to the start of next season.

Only Ibrahima Konaté was bought, but he didn't go right into the team. However, back came Virgil van Dijk, Joël Matip, Joe Gomez, Jordan Henderson, Naby Keita and Diogo Jota, as all played less than half the league minutes available, and you had half a team returning.

(Keïta could never be relied upon, but he played 23 league games last season, after 10 in 2020/21 and eight this season.)

As such, below are six players who almost certainly (and in some places definitely) won't play even half the league minutes this season, listed with their league appearances (prior to the Arsenal game) so far:

• Thiago Alcantara 14

• Diogo Jota 12

• Stefan Bajcetic 11

• Cody Gakpo 11

• Ibrahima Konaté 10

• Luis Diaz 8

Plus:

Fabio Carvalho 12 (not a disaster for a 20-year-old at a new club, but obviously he's not started many games, as he adjusts, and has played just 340 league minutes).

And, Calvin Ramsay 0 and Arthur Melo 0 were beset with injury problems this year, even if Melo won't be here next year; ditto Keïta's eight games this season, even if he'll be gone.

Then there's four more players, who have missed 1,000-1,200 minutes of league football this season, for various reasons:

• Harvey Elliott: 1,497

• Darwin Núñez: 1,446

• Jordan Henderson: 1,441

• Joe Gomez: 1,376

Henderson and Gomez are not quite what they were, but Elliott and Núñez are are building up.

If he can be kept fit, with high-energy runners and physically robust players around him, Thiago remains an elite talent who could maybe mirror someone like Luka Modrić for longevity given his intelligence – but only in the right environment.

In the final 15 games of 2021/22, Keïta and Thiago's pressing numbers were exceptional, but neither has made much of an impact in 2022/23.

Ultimately, a point I keep making regarding injuries is that if you ignore players who will return, you won’t be assessing a squad or a team properly.

Spine

One thing I noticed in 2020/21 and also in 2022/23 is that the lack of height in the Reds team coincides with poorer results.

This was also a failing of the diminutive squad that Klopp inherited, containing Joe Allen, Alberto Moreno, Philippe Coutinho, Nathaniel Clyne, Kolo Touré, Adam Lallana, Danny Ings and Lucas Leiva; with maybe half those players not good enough to compensate for a lack of height, and very vulnerable, as a team, to set-pieces.

You need a big, strong and supple spine.

No giants for the sake of giants, who are not supple and lithe. No Marouane Fellainis.

But big guys who are elite footballers, which is how Liverpool went up several levels once Virgil van Dijk arrived to parter Joël Matip, and Fabinho and Alisson were added as rocks in front and behind.

Elite small players are great in isolation; but too many and you'll concede too many set-piece goals and score too few. Remember, I’ve never moaned about Mo Salah being too short.

In midfield, you'll lose battles; often size also equates to strength, albeit not always.

But a hefty tall midfielder will also take more weight into a tackle, and be harder to knock from under the flight of a ball; just as a heavyweight fighter packs a bigger punch than a middleweight.

Liverpool have added height in attack, in Darwin Núñez, 6'2", and Cody Gakpo, 6'4", although the latter doesn't yet use his height as aggressively as I think he will once he adjusts to the league and as he gets older.

I think imports take a while to get used to how much better you have to be in the air in England, as seen with Ozan Kabak arriving from Germany with an 80% aerial duel success rate, and then having a mere 55% with Liverpool and 44% with Norwich. It's just more demanding (and being 6'1" doesn't help as much in England).

Older players tend to just generally use their bodies better, from years of experience; while strength, like stamina, peaks later than pace.

(Peter Crouch never got any stronger, as he remained ultra-lean, but he got better in the air due to using his 6'7" frame more wisely. Other players gain strength throughout their 20s, that make them more forceful in challenges and increase their leaping power, albeit a taller player who can leap high, like van Dijk, is always the ideal.)

Van Dijk has consistently been the best aerial player in the Premier League since he joined Southampton, at around a 75% win rate every single season; but this season, while he's still top 10, it's only just, at 71.8%.

Top? 6'6" Harry Souttar of Leicester (87.8%), after arriving in January, albeit his all-round game may not be great, judging by their struggles.

Konaté at 68.8% is just outside the top 10, but like van Dijk, Joe Gomez and Joël Matip, he's down on last season's figures.

If feeling fatigued or heavy-legged, leaping won't be as springy. All four of the Reds' rocks have been below-par by their usual standards in the air, which may indicate underling fitness issues.

Núñez has worked on an excellent leaping technique, and has scored a good number of headed goals, but can still get better in general play in winning aerials.

And in time I think he can add a bit more heft and a bit more canniness, to score more headed goals. (He's strong and super-fast, but could add a bit more upper-body strength.)

When I checked a few games ago, the Reds' actual goal difference and the expected goal difference were always worst when the team was shorter, and when the team was older.

Younger and taller combinations were always better, but of course, it depends on the individuals within those sample sizes, and how they skew things. (Plus, the quality of the opposition, albeit that was an even mix on quality between young vs old, and smaller vs taller.)

Plus, a lot of the taller players were younger players and also faster players. The lack of pace in the team in the first half of the season was abundantly clear, and has been less of an issue of late.

But to me, for small technicians to thrive, you ideally need tall technicians alongside them. (Unless you’re talking Xavi, Iniesta and Messi.)

Being too short has been an issue at times this season, and I would like to see Liverpool add some technically gifted big units, but also not ignore anyone smaller if they are truly elite; in other words, no Joe Allens, who can be very nice players, but not enough overall.

Disease of Me

I also think there's been a bit of what Pat Riley dubbed 'the disease of me' at Liverpool this season – a kind of inevitable mental parasite that eats away at team success.

Pat Riley, the famous coach and manager who led the Los Angeles Lakers and Miami Heat to multiple championships, says that great teams tend to follow a trajectory. When they start — before they have won — a team is innocent. If the conditions are right, they come together, they watch out for each other and work together toward their collective goal. This stage, he calls the “innocent climb.”

After a team starts to win and media attention begins, the simple bonds that joined the individuals together begin to fray. Players calculate their own importance. Chests swell. Frustrations emerge. Egos appear. The innocent climb, Pat Riley says, is almost always followed by the “disease of me.” It can “strike any winning team in any year and at any moment,” and does so with alarming regularity.

Once we’ve “made it,” our tendency is to switch to a mindset of “getting what’s mine.” Now, all of a sudden awards and recognition matter — even though they weren’t what got us here. We need that money, that title, that media attention — not for the team or the cause, but for ourselves. Because we’ve earned it.

I think some of this was going on with Liverpool last season, and last summer, and it bled into this season.

The sense of crushing disappointment at the end of 2021/22 cannot have helped; as if the players had just climbed Everest, got to within two feet of the summit, then had to get ready to try again before they’d had a chance to recover.

One of the points noted in the Disease of Me is:

“Chronic feelings of under-appreciation. You do not feel you are getting enough credit or attention for the team’s success.”

Mo Salah was in a prolonged and irritating saga in the hopes of a new contract or the threat of moving away. He felt he wasn't getting what he deserved. (Once he got it, he seemed to ease off the gas for a bit, but may have just been worn down by the efforts of 2021/22 and losing the final of AFCON, the Champions League and the league title.)

Sadio Mané had felt under-appreciated (or I'd say, badly advised), and was elated before the Champions League final – not for Liverpool, but because he knew he was joining Bayern Munich.

We've seen senior players turn on one another on the pitch (starting with James Milner and Virgil van Dijk in Naples, I think), and there have been dressing room confrontations, albeit this is par for the course when strong personalities are involved.

Then there is this:

A leadership vacuum resulting from the formation of cliques and rivalries. Organisations suffering from The Disease Of Me are fractured organisations. Rather than a leader or leadership team, the organisation has splintered into a series of groups with personal agendas. In these environments, your organisation has become a group of internally-competing autonomous zones.

I think this started to happen at Liverpool, behind the scenes and in the dressing room.

Last summer was marked by conflict about transfer stratagy, and there has been a turnover of both Directors of Football (two leaving within a short period of time), and Head of Research. Mike Gordon, the key FSG conduit, had stepped back from his role with the club.

Klopp and Pep Lijnders had more transfer say, and last summer ended up full of mistakes; unable to sign super-in-demand players, and unable to agree on who to compromise with, then scrambling for a loanee.

That failure led to the retention of several players who would then see out their contracts (as no one would buy them, and as they were around, they might as well be part of the season's plans), and that bred a sense of drift.

Add all the injuries, and you end up with just too many disenfranchised players, either looking to leave, fearing they'll be sold, or just feeling depressed.

The better news is that Klopp and co. realise the mistakes of last summer. Gordon is back, and Will Spearman has been promoted from within to Head of Research.

And the plan is to get back to doing the right things: buying highly-driven, talented younger or undervalued players who are ready now, and trying to get the deals sorted before the season even finishes.

Eyesight

One other issue this season has been the Reds failing to turn their attacking xG into goals.

In other words, a sense of accuracy has been missing; too little sharp-eyed finishing.

The two best finishers at the club, in terms of exceeding their xG, are Cody Gakpo (one of the very best in Europe over the past five years), and Luis Díaz.

Both are new, and neither has played much this season.

By contrast, Mo Salah and Darwin Núñez have had single seasons of massive xG over-performance, but in general tend to rank as average: they'll score a lot of goals, but at roughly the rate of the xG; the issue this season is that, with Núñez new and nervous at times, and Salah missing penalties and other big chances, the pair are below their usual level.

(Still, despite "having a bad season", Salah is still on course to match his 31 goals from last season and 31 from the season before; and his 19 consecutive penalties scored, including one that essentially won the Champions League, shows that it's just another strange blip of this season.)

Diogo Jota, meanwhile, is a misser of big chances, but someone who has hot and cold spells overall. So far, since returning from injury last season and this season, it's been cold; albeit his creativity stats are super-high, and one of his certain-goals was elbowed off the line, and Salah missed the penalty.

Of course, since drafting that paragraph a couple of days ago, Jota scored not once but twice.

Then add players like Andy Robertson with no goals despite some big chances (and Trent Alexander-Arnold having worse actual goals than xG), as well as the midfielders all failing to convert much at all (if they even got forward to do so, which they often haven’t), and it all adds up to a failure to put teams to the sword, which then leaves the Reds open to counter.

Liverpool also can't help the bad eyesight of referees either. (Albeit they got a bit of overdue luck against Leeds, which hasn't been there almost all this season.)

Clinical Blindness

In an Athletic article about where referees are from and who they support, a comment underneath is typical: "they all support Liverpool".

At Leeds, the home fans sang "the referee's a Scouser" – a common refrain.

As I near the end of the Diagnosing section (before the Prognosis and Treatment), I'll discuss the officiating briefly again, as the numbers continue to show that Liverpool – in the Klopp era, at least – can be shown with years of detailed data to get almost nothing from officials.

And this season is worse than ever.

Prior to the Arsenal game, Paul Tierney had given Liverpool just one single big decision (with a big decision being a penalty, red card, 2nd yellow) in almost 25 games: a yellow card initially, that only the VAR then made him turn into a red. (He is also the only ref who thinks Salah commits as many fouls as he makes.)

Incredible Mo Salah Stats That Suggest Something Is Very, Very Wrong

Tierney, not long after his assistant had elbowed Andy Robertson, finally gave Liverpool a penalty, and at the Kop-end too.

It was clear, as Rob Holding clattered into Jota's shins from behind; yet the same ref and assistants could not see Jota clotheslined more violently at Spurs the season before, or Harry Kane's "leg-breaker" on Robertson, but could see Robertson's petulant but less dangerous kick out later.

A long overdue penalty shot the Reds up to joint 13th for most penalties won this season, on two. (From 12th upwards it's 3-8 penalties.)

Of course, that Mo Salah missed them both, when it could have turned deficits into wins (each time it was to equalise with plenty of time left), meant a potential five points lost.

Maybe Brentford, West Ham (?!) and Manchester City 'deserve' four times as many penalties as Liverpool this season; and Fulham, Spurs, Brighton and Newcastle United deserve 2-3x as many. Maybe Southampton and Nottingham Forest deserve more than the Reds.

It still feels odd, though. A penalty is worth almost 1.0 goal (about 0.80) and a goal is worth more-or-less one point.

So eight penalties a season could mean an average of 6-7 more points per season, depending on when they arrive; more if at vital moments, less if when games are already won or lost.

As such, if Liverpool got a normal distribution of penalties, and converted them at their usual rate, they could be in the top four right now.

Liverpool's opponents are also almost never the recipient of a second yellow card; the law of averages suggest the Reds should've benefitted from six since 2015/16 (including a vital one at Man City this month), not one, according to Andrew Beasley's crunching of the numbers.

It also makes me laugh when people say the big clubs get all the decisions, as Crystal Palace, West Ham, Aston Villa and Bournemouth lead the way on opponents sent off for second yellows, with Watford up there too.

And consistently it's the mid-table clubs who are up near the top for penalties won over the past decade-or-so.

(Plus the Manchester clubs, who have won by far the most penalties during Klopp's time in England; albeit City clearly should be winning the most given their dominance. Based on attacking xG over the past seven seasons, City get about as many penalties as they should; Liverpool get far fewer than they should.)

Again, as I've said before, the Reds rank 10th in Klopp's tenure for league penalties won per season, and this season is one of the worst.

Liverpool also get the fewest penalties of any Premier League club over the Klopp era when compared to the number of goals scored. (And as the number of goals scored includes fewer penalties, it’s even worse!)

Again, only City have been a better attacking side during this period based on averaging out the xG over all that time, with Liverpool miles ahead of the next-best sides.

That mid-table teams get so many big decisions – which is contrary to perceptions and thus why data is so vital – suggests refs don't like interfering with the top teams (especially Liverpool, as can be statistically shown).

Relegation fodder should naturally get fewer penalties anyway, as the worst teams; but also, the worst team where the decisions – as at the top – are more consequential (and refs are massively driven by the consequences of decisions, as seen with how a clear foul outside the box is not a foul inside the box due simply to the greater impact; that's human, but it's also a kind of bias).

A more logical distribution of penalties – in line with the logical distribution of expected penalties (and second yellows for opponents) – would improve Liverpool's chances, and they would normally be converted, by Salah.

(The Reds had to wait over a year for one at Anfield, to show another trend I keep highlighting.)

Again, if you're a neutral, you might think 'my heart bleeds' (and, like, whatever), but if you're a Liverpool fan, you need to know this stuff, to know how your own team's manager is doing.

Just compare things against how many penalties the Reds got before Klopp took charge.

(And how the Reds always win more with British managers, perhaps because they field more British players, and as I've shown, British players are treated statistically significantly better in both boxes – on a many-year sample of 600+ penalties – than foreign players, based on minutes played. I also think British managers may be more matey with the refs.)

People say these things even themselves out, but the whole point of me mining the data for years and analysing it with the help of leading data analysts and academics has been to show that, actually, it doesn't.

Then there was the title possibly being lost last season with Paul Tierney failing to give the most obvious last-gasp handball against Man City from which Everton could have equalised. Again, consequences made him too scared to act.

Now we have officials elbowing Liverpool players, but as the assistant works with Paul Tierney, that may now be a blessing, if all of them are kept away.

Plus, Liverpool get Tierney far too frequently, which is another issue.

He's done almost a quarter of the Reds' games this season – which is ludicrous – without including his games as the VAR (and to date, as a VAR since that was introduced, he has never given the Reds a positive subjective call: just offsides; but he has called fouls against Reds as the VAR).

You can combine several better, more experienced refs and, between them, they've barely done Liverpool at all. This suggests an integrity issue for the league.

If a ref doesn't like your team, your manager, or is from the area (and under pressure to try too hard to look unbiased), you have problems. Clearly there's a longstanding issue between Klopp and Tierney, so … the Reds keep getting given Tierney.

Irrespective of who a ref supports, if he dislikes a team or a manager, that can affect his decision-making, even if on a subconscious level.

Ditto if you keep getting a ref who doesn't tend to give big decisions, with some refs giving big decisions at 3x the rates of others.

As such, refs have radically different styles, and that's a problem for consistency.

However, if you argue that it's also human to have that inconsistency, you can still get stuck with a dud, or an "I didn't see anything" guy who fails to give the opposition one penalty but also fails to give your team three over a period of 10-20 games, if you're the dominant team in those games.

As such, all officials should be spread as evenly across all teams as possible, for maximum integrity, given that each has such a different approach.

I appreciate that I may seem extreme on this issue, but seven years of studying up to 20 years' (and millions of points) of data on this shows some alarming patterns.

If I were judging Liverpool's struggles this season, I'd point to the penalty issue, as one factor, as I did in 2020/21 (when the Reds also conceded more than they won, certainly during the peak period of struggles at Anfield).

Indeed, Michael Oliver had a rare bad game for the Reds in the Arsenal away fixture in October, giving the Gunners a penalty for virtually no contact, from which they scored the winner, and not giving a clear handball penalty to Liverpool earlier; a far clearer handball than we've seen given in recent games, such as for Arsenal at West Ham this weekend.

Even so, Oliver is still the best, but Liverpool keep getting Tierney instead.

(That said, the PGMOL sent Oliver to ref in Saudi Arabia this week, which is hard to figure out 💰💰💰; the Saudis, who own Newcastle, specifically requested Oliver according to the Times, who rabidly supports Newcastle, according to the Athletic. At least there’s no danger of anything that might look iffy creeping into the game…)

Still, if Tierney is tied to his linesman at the hip, as part of a team that is designed to be on the same wavelength (but could also just mean being more pally and ignoring each other's mistakes) then maybe the Reds will have better luck next season; or rather, better officials.

Or, if Tierney still does Liverpool games, it should be two or three per season, max – the same as for the other refs; instead of Tierney doing half a dozen or more. Irrespective of how good or not a ref is for your team, you shouldn’t keep getting the same ones.

Then, if they get them, it's up to Liverpool to convert their penalties; indeed, after the cup successes of last season – based on the fine margins of tight penalty shootouts, with so many brilliantly converted – this season has been about winning very few penalties, and then missing them.

Mind (Tactics)

Tactics are clearly important in football, but I just find it hard to isolate them for analysis; often they are reduced to something overly simplified, or exalted to some magical power that, if you get them right, means scissors always cuts paper.

The problem is, the opponent may pull stone.

Judgement calls can often fail, just as most shots in football don't result in goals. You base assessments on good ratios, not perfection.

And any instructions are only as good as the players are able to produce on the day. You can ask the players to press, but what if they don't have the energy?

You can try and keep possession, but what if the players keep giving the ball away?

I generally don't tend to praise tactical genius, great substitutions; or criticise tactical failings or bad substitutions. It's all a game of guessing, reacting and at times, pot luck.

I believe in tactics in terms of how a team sets up, what it's aims and its identity are, but the best ideas can always go wrong on the day. Tactics are only ever part of the picture.

Tactics are also so fast-evolving in the digital video/player-tracking age that you can find something that works and then weeks later, someone has found a way to exploit a weakness in what you are doing.

As such, it can be about trying to force your qualities onto the opposition whilst accepting you expose weaknesses, as just as cricketers (as the other sport I watch, albeit more casually) are constantly having their every little technical fault tested due to deep analysis, and almost no sportsperson and no team has zero weaknesses.

It would be nice if Trent Alexander-Arnold could attack like normal and not leave gaps, but that may be a minor drawback to what is an overall positive, if the team is on top.

Certainly in 2022/23, it hasn't always worked that way, and the team has lost the midfield battles (with such a low volume of successful presses and tackles), and the Reds' no.66 has been exposed.

But in the last two games, Liverpool have had great success with Alexander-Arnold drifting infield with Konaté (faster and stronger, and able to sprint over long distances at top speed) covering the wing.

Yet it might be a tactic that soon gets sussed out, or one that works half the time, or one that works most of the time. Or it could be one to ditch for a few games, then bring back to take an opponent by surprise.

Equally, the same tactics, with better and/or fitter players, should prove more successful, on balance. Liverpool having midfielders who can really run will be better than those who, right now, cannot.

That said, I generally don't like it when managers change system and formation eight times in a game, unless it's to counter something that needs countering. At times can clearly confuse players more than the issues posed by the opposition.

"Too clever" is often used as an insult for anyone who tries to at least think about things, but you can also overcomplicate matters; but a lot depends on what the players can handle. If you don’t get the time to work on the training ground, you can’t expect players to know what to do when trying something new.

I think Liverpool have a good balance between motivational and tactical in Jürgen Klopp and his staff.

Managers who are too cold and tactical tend to alienate their players and not get what they intend from them; managers who are just cheerleaders can't react during games, or set up a side to win.

Guessing how tactics need to evolve is beyond my comfort zone, as teams are getting smarter all the time. I'm not an expert, so I can only go on what I do understand, and what others explain.

Overall, there seem to be far more fast inverted wingers these days, and in some ways, the gegenpressing, the inverted wingers and the various other points of difference (throw-in coach, for example) from when Klopp arrived are now less unique.

People have copied Liverpool, just as Liverpool borrowed from teams that went before them; and Liverpool need to borrow again, perhaps, to find the latest ways to gain an advantage, without sacrificing what already works, and making sure it suits the personnel. (Such as, an inverted full-back.)

Equally, the team evolved to a 4-3-3 shape with the influence of Pep Lijnders, and everything was at a supremely high level between most of 2018-2022.

At times the football felt old and tired and stale, but since the January low – of an ageing side being totally outplayed by Brighton – the team has got younger, and while consistency has not yet arrived, there has been the 7-0 win over Man United and the xG overload against Arsenal, which saw the Reds create the kind of xG that usually ends with 6-8 goals scored; and now a 6-1 win at Leeds.

As I said a while back, it's like in 2017/18: big wins (there were some 7-0s that season), great attacking moments, but not quite a cohesive team, with new players and ideas yet to find their full flow, and some defensive mistakes.

But any tactics will be limited by the personnel, and Liverpool clearly have personnel issues, particularly in midfield.

Yet, of course, that is something that will be addressed by the club (whether with or without Jude Bellingham).

Half-Time!

And Breathe…

Prognosis and Treatment.

Obviously reading that piece first will help this one make more sense. (Both pieces will be made free later in the week.)

So, strap yourself in with a coffee and a barium enema, and here are my conclusions.

Transplants, Transfusions and Surgeries

Liverpool need new blood: a transfusion. The Reds need transplants and surgeries, but not a whole new body.

Some solutions, meanwhile, simply need time: not medication, not surgery, just to wait and also to rest.

Transfers are important (and it's all good fun speculating, and everyone looks forward to new arrivals unless they've decided they hate the players already), but people who obsess about them, and act like there are only a few god-like, perfect players, are living in a fantasy world.

The constant living in the future saps us of the present moment. Caring more about winning the transfer window than the actual football is a form of insanity; like wishing your perfectly lovely partner were Taylor Swift or Harry Styles (and then not realising how difficult life would be with a megastar and all their crazy fans).

Liverpool won the Champions League, Premier League, and every-bloody-thing else under Jürgen Klopp in the dim, distant past between 2019 and 2022 – not by buying superstars but by buying players in the mid-range: massive potential to become superstars.

Elite coaching and the stable, dickhead-free environment, helped everyone flourish.

It didn't happen overnight, but a great team was built across a few seasons.

Solutions From Within

It feels to me that people are too busy writing off what the Reds; ignoring what they have had missing due to injury this season, and also, missing how a new team has been taking shape, certainly since January.

Now, it feels like the past two years have seen a lot of the pieces for the next Liverpool put in place, either being bought in that time or emerging as first-teamers in that time:

• Luis Díaz

• Darwin Núñez

• Cody Gakpo

• Ibrahima Konaté

• Stefan Bajcetic

• Harvey Elliott

• Curtis Jones

• (Calvin Ramsay)

Then, there are these peak-age or younger players:

• Trent Alexander-Arnold

• Diogo Jota

• Joe Gomez

And edging towards their 30s

• Andrew Robertson

• Fabinho

Add the other emerging players, the elite first XI players who I suspect will remain key players:

• Alisson

• Virgil van Dijk

• Thiago

• Mo Salah

... and with some new additions, that's a lot to work with.

Díaz, with four goals before his early-season injury, and with his dribbling skills and energy, has been badly missed.

Elliott aside, we're talking really physical players amongst the first seven listed above, with great technique, too.

(Díaz is skinny, but a tough street-fighter type with strangely broad shoulders, and may have worked on bulking up a bit during his six months out. Jones is tall and getting stronger. Calvin Ramsay is now a really big young man, and it’s easy to overlook how good he is after a season of injuries.)

I've included Jones after his best game in a Reds' shirt, at Leeds; at the very least he can be a squad player, but at 22, can still be improving rapidly, especially if no longer held back by injury. His energy and pressing levels were excellent, and he has great technique; the key is decision-making and when the pass the ball.

You might argue about Darwin Núñez's first touch, which can be erratic, but as well as 15 non-penalty goals in all competitions, he ranks exceptionally high in the league on creativity.

Indeed, after the Leeds game, he's 5th in the entire Premier League for xA, or expect assists.

And those up with him tend to also take free-kicks and corners. And despite often playing on the wing, he has 1.0 per 90 for combined xG and xA (minus penalties), ahead of Erling Haaland on 0.88, whose penalties distort his tally.

Núñez has the most shots in total per 90, and the most shots on target per 90, in the Premier League this season.

He's just not as dead-eyed as Haaland, clearly; but who is?

Still, Núñez is starting to convert more of his big chances, as he relaxes, with five goals since February, in difficult games (this season he's scored against Man City, Arsenal, Ajax, Napoli, Newcastle, Real Madrid and twice against Man United, which suggests he no flat-track bully).

A late 'icing' goal at Leeds was not indicative of the value of his goal contributions, albeit as one of four late strikes as a sub, some of which earned points; but often he scores earlier in games, with an average scoring time of 37 minutes in games he's started (seven of them before half-time), and obviously the four goals as sub were scored after relatively few minutes on the pitch; including the one on Monday.

Núñez is also not starting as many matches lately, with Diogo Jota – missed for so much of this season – an elite pressing machine well versed in the Kloppian principles; Núñez, who has the energy and pace, hasn't mastered that side of the game (yet), but that comes with time and experience.

Jota also has a superb assist rate, and until this season, had an excellent goalscoring rate for the Reds (having been patchy at Wolves). He bagged a brace at Leeds, to see a change in fortune.

Núñez's xA is over twice that of Harry Kane's current season, and over twice that of Harry Kane's career average. And yet Kane is seen as the ultimate assisting forward.

The issue is, just as Núñez hasn't converted all his xG (he's a bit below par, but improving), others haven't converted the chances he's laid on a plate, often for Mo Salah, but also Konaté against Arsenal.

Jota – naturally sluggish initially after months out – was a symbol of a revitalised pressing side at Elland Road.

With much the same squad (just Gakpo added), having players back from injury or just recovering some energy, has seen improvements.

The pressing has generally seemed to be getting back to the levels of old.

In his Substack, Andrew Beasley noted:

Ruthless Reds proved Jürgen Klopp right

"We can also compare the Reds’ pressing at Elland Road against all 288 league games they have played under Klopp. To do this, we must consult Understat’s PPDA (passes allowed per defensive action in the opposition half) metric. By this measure, Liverpool’s figure of 4.28 is their 16th best since October 2015."

A few weeks ago, Elliott put in the entire league's best pressing display of the season according to Opta, and while small, he's very strong for his age (only just having turned 20 this month). The scope for Elliott to be elite by the age of 22/23 is clear, even if he’s not quite there yet. He ranks very highly on some creative metrics, and is adding to his game all the time (with five goals a handy return).

The team's pressing against Real Madrid at Anfield was exceptional, and somehow didn't turn a 2-0 lead into a victory. Madrid rode their luck, as they so often do, with the belief they’ll get something out of the game regardless.

Before his injury, Bajcetic was pressing brilliantly. Jones is becoming a very strong presser.

Cody Gakpo presses in massive volume, but the new players need to learn the timings and triggers and groupings, and again, that comes with time.

The problem has been, in general, the terrible pressing numbers from midfield this season.

But Elliott, Bajcetic and Jones have the youth and energy, and the new summer signings will certainly be able to press (in a way that Jordan Henderson used to), as that's a key attribute that will be sought.

The younger players will all get stronger, fitter, faster and maybe bigger. And the newer ones will adapt and get better.

Growing Pains

Fabio Carvalho, Calvin Ramsay, Kaide Gordon and others are all excellent for their age, but in some cases, struggling with growing pains.

(Meanwhile, Curtis Jones missed about a year with an unusual injury that kept recurring, with pain in his shin and ankle.)

Ramsay and Gordon essentially missed the whole season, as elite age-group players who were good enough for Premier League minutes.

Carvalho needs to bulk up a bit, or continue to improve in order to be a lightweight 'buzzer' – someone like compatriot Bernardo Silva, for example.

At the same age, Silva had played one single game for Benfica (but a full season in Segunda Liga for their B team), and gone on loan at Monaco, in a league and a team that was weaker than what faced Carvalho this year.

So Carvalho needs to either bulk up and become a physically stronger player, or, as Silva did over time, become so good and so intense (and his case, so fucking annoying) that being lightweight was not an issue. Carvalho may not become that elite, but at 20, he's got plenty of time to get there.

I also still can't believe it's only a year ago that I first watched videos of Ben Doak at Celtic and for Scotland U18s, after he joined the Reds last spring; and that it was in the autumn I watched every U18s game I could as he tore defences apart, then aged 16.

By the time next season starts he'll be closer to 18. So far he's been outstanding in the U18s and now the U21s on the right, as an old-fashioned winger who can destroy full-backs in about ten different ways, but never to showboat.

He's strong for his age, super-quick, and can finish. He cuts inside, goes outside, and does all kinds of simple-but-effective tricks to leave defenders in his wake, in part due to speed off the mark. He is joyously direct. I think I've called him a heatseeking missile, in that his aim is to get towards goal, even if he's in his own half.

But the question is: if not loaned out, will he be used as a backup on the right, given he goes on the outside more than Salah, or used on the left, to cut inside, as the Reds tend to favour? Liverpool have Núñez, Díaz, Gakpo and Jota who can play on the left, but I love the idea of Doak just running at defenders late on, on either flank. But for now, he seems more comfortable on the right.

It's also rare for a player to be equally happy going either outside and inside the full-back, and not being predictable, even if he’s right-footed.

Nine months ago he could terrorise U18s players; now he's doing it to U21s, for club and country. But it could take a year or two to do that to established full-backs, who will be bigger, stronger, wiser and faster, on average. But that's why players aged 17 get better at 18, and better still at 19, and then explode from 20-23. They get bigger, stronger, wiser and faster too.

But what he can do next season, if he isn't loaned out, could be interesting.

Obviously a summer break will help everyone at Liverpool. But there's also the big gains that can be made without us even realising.

Almost clubs have excellent young players the U18s, U21s or out on loan. But Liverpool's 'Magic Dozen', as I dub them, are about to age-in.

Some will have to go on loan next season, as there's not room for them all.

They will already be bedded-in; into the team, and into the club – as the bonus of homegrown players is how they are already settled, aware of the pressure, speak the language, know the city, and understand the systems. Usually they then play with a freedom.

I don't know if people realise how good Conor Bradley is, for example.

He reminded me of a teenage Gareth Bale when I first saw him: skinny, but 6ft and super-fast. Bale was pretty good until he was 20; but never sensational.

I don't know much about Ian Danter as I don't listen to any talk radio, but after the recent EFL Trophy final he noted:

"Cup finals aren’t usually meant to be as one sided as I saw today at Wembley. Credit to Bolton, who raced into a 2-goal lead before Plymouth had barely blinked. Conor Bradley will be in the Liverpool first team next season I reckon."

As well as various cup games, he’s started 38 of Bolton’s 42 league games and never seems to get subbed off. And he’s still a teen, turning 20 this summer. It suggests he’s got great stamina, as well as great pace, and he’ll get better with age, barring injury.

Tyler Morton, already 20, has had some ups and downs with Blackburn, but overall it's been a superb achievement for a lad aged 19/20 in his first full season, to play 50+ games out on loan. He has a future at Liverpool, but it may be as an excellent squad player.

Jarell Quansah is a 6'6", fast, ball-playing leader at the heart of the defence who excelled for title-winning England age-groups, and has won plaudits and Bristol Rovers, in 10 league games in League One. He just turned 20, that's still very young for a centre-back.

There are others too, with Keyrol Figueroa the latest to impress me, with the physique at 16 to be taken seriously already, after starring for the Reds' U18s, and for USA's U17 team in a recent tournament (CONCACAF U17) where he was top scorer.

Like so many at the club's Academy, he is the son of a footballer.

I always look for players who look physically ready to handle 'mens' football, and this lad has thighs that would make Stuart Pearce feel shy and underdeveloped. While talented players may develop physically later, the first to break through normally need pace and some level of physical power, or the leap to the increasingly muscle-bound Premier League is too much.

Figueroa is fast, can score goals, create goals, and has that lower body strength that can help him protect the ball.

It could be that others emerge from nowhere, just as he seemed to do at the CONCACAF. Plenty will show promise but ultimately not make the grade, as so few academy players at the big clubs will end up in the team; but it just needs one or two each season to make the squad, and maybe one real breakout star.

Figueroa's father played in the Premier League for Wigan, and then there's Jayden Danns, Bobby Clark and Lewis Koumas, fellow sons of footballers. Kaide Gordon has a much older brother who is a professional.

But it feels like Liverpool have quite a few aged 16-20 who stand a better chance than at any time I recall. Elijah Gift is also 16, and has insane pace, with skill too. (It’s too early to say that any or all of these will make the grade; but a few of them have a hell of a lot of promise.)

I'd picked out Bajcetic well before his debut, and he was showing that – despite still needing to bulk up, like a lot of teens – he was ready mentally, and in time he'll only get better physically, tactically and technically if he gets game-time, and turns from a 'boy' into a 'man', and then into that phase that a lot of players hit only after 22: a super-robust athlete.

Erling Haaland, when I saw him in the flesh for Salzburg at Anfield when was 19, was tall, but only reasonably well-built – not exactly skinny, but not a ‘monster’. Now nearly 23, he’s got a clearly bigger physique, that has helped him go to the next level. I also always think of the limitations of a skinny teenage Gareth Bale, who was talented and fast, but weak, and almost sold by Spurs aged 19/20; and how he exploded in his very early 20s, once he bulked up.

The development of young players into young men, and how the body can rapidly develop (the science and data on strength, pace, stamina), is something I covered in depth in the article below:

Rebuilding Liverpool, Part II: How Young Footballers Reach Peak Strength, Pace and Maturity

Heart Issues: Transplant and/or New Blood?

I'll save this – some thoughts on who the Reds might sign – for towards the end of the article.

Burnout/Fatigue – Rest and Recuperation

One of the first truths of medicine, as I see it, is that rest can be a cure, or certainly part of the cure.

Resting alone won't cure cancer, or repair a serious injury, or solve a mental health crisis.

But any time you rest, you contribute to restoring homeostasis. The body, where possible, repairs.

(I need a lot of rest to manage my illness, but rest doesn't cure me. It does make life more manageable.)

While this season ends later than usual (due to the World Cup), there should at least be a proper off-season and then a proper pre-season, with no international tournaments either. (And the Reds should not be galavanting around the world to promote the club overseas this summer, but focussing on getting the best preseason possible for the campaign ahead.)

Everyone needs a break after five years of constant grind, to reset.

Even the rest during the pandemic was a kind of anxious break; and perhaps worse for Liverpool, given that the title was 90% won but not secured – the worst possible time to stop playing – and some clubs, like West Ham, were trying to get the league null-and-voided. It was a stressful time in general.

As such, some players who look finished right now – unless simply too old – may just be temporarily burnt out.

Maybe Fabinho will get better after a summer break, if he isn't sold. (I'd still be tempted to sell him as he'll be 30 next season, but I'm all for trusting that the management staff know players far better, and know their issues and their physical capabilities; as well as their hunger. Plus, the less churn the better, but if new midfielders arrive, Fabinho may have to become a sub at best.)

Virgil van Dijk and Mo Salah have played way too much football in the past two years, and ideally they'd retire from internationals.

But if not, they need a proper rest, as they'll soon be 32 and 31 respectively.

James Milner got it right by bowing out aged 30, and while not as important for his country as the other two are for theirs, they can look at him still playing at 37. (Ryan Giggs, Paul Scholes and many others did the same.)

One of the delusions of modern life is that you can have it all; you can do it all. No. Whatever you do in one area costs you in others. We all have to be honest with ourselves, and make compromises.

Simple Solution?

But actually, while many people see it as a catastrophe, one of the saving graces in terms of rebuilding could be the lack of Champions League football, in terms of getting straight back into the top four with a new-look team, as many of the side recover from several gruelling, high-pressure seasons.

Indeed, with the right signings, Liverpool could even be outsiders for the title if managed properly, and the new signings settle; just as Liverpool in 2013/14, Leicester in 2015/16 and Arsenal in 2022/23 led title charges based on no Champions League participation.

Now, I don't value or enjoy the Europa League much, and the Europa Conference League sounds awful, unless you're not used to European competition. (These competitions are great for smaller clubs, like a form of kindergarten Europe.)

But the former at least allows a route back into the Champions League if you win it, and as such, it can be taken seriously in the later rounds.

But both of these competitions can be great for blooding younger players, giving minutes to squad players, and game-time to returning stars in need of minutes.

Indeed, use these competitions as high-grade training sessions, and they become helpful, not hindrances; especially with reserve football now just U21 football, which is mostly played by U18s, as the 19/20/21-year-olds of most clubs are all out on loan.

The two Europas can help to integrate new players into the patterns of play that are hard to replicate in training.

Assuming the Reds finished between 5th and 7th, I'd be temped to have Pep Lijnders (or even someone more junior) manage all the away games in Europe, as the downside of Thursday night football is the lack of training and preparation time for league matches at the weekend. (Or, have Klopp go to manage a shadow side, to get to know them, and Lijnders take training back on Merseyside.)

So, essentially – certainly in the first half of the season – have the assistant manager or the U21 coach take a 'reserve' squad to Latvia or Moldova or Cyprus (especially if in the Conference), and have the main players preparing at the AXA training ground for the league, unless they need match minutes.

Liverpool have done this in the League Cup before due to circumstances like being at the Club World Cup, and I think it's the most sensible plan for 2023/24. Another option is to play five of the stars for 60 minutes, then bring them all off.

Perhaps go stronger against stronger opposition, but you can do what Arsenal have done this season and drop the big names in and out.

Indeed, Man City have used the domestic cups in this way for years: often playing strong XIs, but where they have so much quality in depth they just swaps three or four in and out, to keep everyone sharp, and to stop anyone from being overloaded.

If the Reds finish 8th or below, then just use next season with full weeks to focus on the league, and do the above with the domestic cups.

There will also be a chance to work more on set-pieces. The Reds have a lot of height, as I’ll get onto, but there hasn’t been much training time.

Spine

If Liverpool buy one or two tall midfielders to go with the newer taller attackers, the team can become more dominant in both boxes at set-pieces, having fallen away a bit this season.

What hasn't helped is that the delivery from set-pieces has been below par, despite using neurological technology to help the players get into the zone in training. It hasn't worked.

From a team under pressure or struggling for confidence, a corner tends not to be whipped in but safely lofted, to make sure of accuracy – but it becomes catching practice for the keeper.

It's like players lacking confidence taking extra time to play a pass, to make sure, when all they do is make it harder to play a pass – the more time you take, the less time you have left.

So, set-piece delivery can surely improve next season; the players have the quality, but need to be more willing to whip rather than float.

The Reds have also risen from below average on height ranking in the Premier League before the World Cup break to the third tallest team in the top flight; and indeed, can now field the tallest XI, taller even than Newcastle and Spurs.

The issue is, Gakpo and Núñez aren't yet quite Premier League-ready for aerial duels, as I noted in the Diagnosis piece.

Along with height you need to add time, experience and heft, where possible.

The Athletic had a good piece on how Victor Osimhen of Napoli gets incredible height from his jumps.

But while players can work on their technique and their leaps, aerial duels are still mostly about height.

(In 2015 I divided all players into one-inch bands of height from 5'9" to 6'5"+, and for each extra inch in height there was, on average, and increased aerial duel win rate. You get outliers, of course, but unless someone has a freakishly good jump like Osimhenm, then I'd still take height seriously; and he's 6'1", not 5'9".)

Trent Alexander-Arnold, previously so poor in the air despite having grown to what looks like 6ft – and more recently beefed up as players often do aged 20-24 – is up at 63.6%, albeit as a full-back (where it's often easier to win aerials as wingers tend to be shorter), and from just 22 aerial duels so far.

But he used to be far worse, from a range of 22-45 aerial duels per season, as can be seen over his career:

• 2017/18 –– 22.7%

• 2018/19 –– 28.1%

• 2019/20 –– 33.3%

• 2020/21 –– 25.8%

• 2021/22 –– 53.6%

• 2022/23 –– 63.6%

It seems a good indication of how time, experience, training, plus adding upper body strength, can improve an aspect of someone's game that still doesn't feel 'natural.

(I'm not sure when he grew to be 6ft, but it must have been around the time he turned 20, as you don't get much growth after that. He’s still listed in some places as 5’9”, but he’s as tall as the 6ft guys in the team. However, he's also filled out gradually over time, from a fairly skinny start, which is not atypical at 18. By contrast, the Reds nearly landed Evan Ferguson two years ago, and few at 18 are built like him; a shame he chose Brighton as it looked easier to get into the XI, which was probably true.)

Alexander-Arnold also won't be contesting aerials in many of the Reds' own set-pieces (either taking them or hanging back as cover), and at opposition set-pieces he won't be like a full-back like Newcastle's Dan Burn, who, despite his position in open play, will be the main set-piece beacon. (Someone like Burn at full-back stops a lot of the long diagonals that can get in behind teams.)

Caveats aside, it's a startling progression by Alexander-Arnold all the same, with a mixture of gaining height and gaining weight and gaining experience.

Joël Matip took a few years to rise to a peak aerial success rate of a whopping 90% in 2019/20, needing to adapt, bulk-up a bit, and just get more aggressive.

The issue may now be that Matip is past his physical peak, and thus is on the decline in all aspects. His aerial win-rate is not great this season by his standards. Also, a lack of confidence can lead to being a fraction slow on all actions, including going up for headers.

Rhys Williams, 6'5", 19 and skinny two years ago, simply headed the ball away, winning 90% of his 40+ aerial duels, as sheer height made a difference in that run-in.

(I get plenty wrong, especially when I'm trying to make sense of complex issues, but towards the end of 2020/21 I think I'd given a pretty good complex diagnosis, including the lack of height in the team being an issue. Of course, even all the data, info, analysis I read and I produce, and with the few sources I occasionally speak to, I'll never know the full facts, and that's where managers' decisions need to be respected – such as the recent example of all the people criticising Jürgen Klopp for not even putting Curtis Jones on the bench, then it's revealed that Jones has to sit out training or games every 4th or 5th day due to a stress injury to his shin. Or all the dumb fans saying Jones is shit – especially to him on social media – when Jones is unable to properly train all week. We all jump to the wrong conclusions, in the vacuum of knowledge. Someone having a terrible game may be playing on through injury or illness.)

The same upward trajectory as seen by Alexander-Arnold and Matip on aerials needs to be seen from Gakpo, Núñez and any totemic midfielders the Reds sign.

The more tall players you have, the more targets who can get free at set-pieces, and the more you can defend your own goal.

Even tall players who can't jump that well can still win headers, and those tall ones who can jump high will be amongst the elite.

Again, you don't fill the team with giants for the sake of it, but you want that aerial and physical dominance allied to technique, and it doesn't hurt to look intimidating (something that, at 5'10", bald and with glasses these days, I've never managed).

Curing the ‘Disease of Me’

The refreshing of the squad – new players, younger players, hungry players – should help cure any residual strains of the 'disease of me', as discussed in Part One.

If the current squad perhaps felt like it had peaked last season, then a shake-up can bring a new sense of shared ambition, without throwing out all the wisdom and experience gained from success, and the leadership of those who know the standards required.

Pat Riley, who coined the phrase, wrote:

“The most difficult thing for individuals to do when they’re part of the team is to sacrifice. It’s so easy to become selfish in a team environment … Willing sacrifice is the great paradox. You must give up something in the immediate present – comfort, ease, recognition, quick rewards – to attract something even better in the future; a full heart and sense that you did something which counted. Without sacrifice, you’ll never know your team’s potential, or your own.”

Eyesight

In Luis Díaz and Cody Gakpo, Liverpool have two players who over-score their xG; as does Mason Mount, if he joins.

Below is a graphic created by Rob Radburn based on data I collated (a couple of weeks ago) from FBRef, which looks at 100 of the very best strikers and attackers across Europe's main leagues in the past six years, for which time +/- data is available for their actual goals vs their expected goals.

"xG +/- performance" is on the crucial horizontal axis, so the further to the right, the better the 'finisher'. As you can see, Gakpo ranks 8th out of 100.

Some elite goalscorers are not exceptional finishers, but score lots via quantity of chances or the distance of their shots. (Note: league data only.)

Erling Haaland and Lionel Messi are elite finishers.

Cristiano Ronaldo was just a Shot Monster – and one who did increasingly less work for the team, too; he also took the most shots per-90 out of any player in the study, at over five per game, and had almost the lowest percentage on target, at just 28.2%, and was one of the 25% who scored less than their xG suggested, as these are supposed to be the elite.

Gakpo scores a lot of goals with excellent shots from a reasonable distance or angle (as seen against Man United), albeit he's added a couple of tap-ins for Liverpool too. In Holland, and for Holland, and now for Liverpool, he consistently outscores his xG. (Five seasons with PSV, half a season with Liverpool, and at the World Cup with his nation.)

That suggests it's not just a good run or hot-streak, as it's from over 250 shots, and he's getting better with age, as you might expect. The issue is more about getting him into finishing positions, as he doesn't quite have the lightning pace that Darwin Núñez, a Shot Monster, has.

Núñez did not do that well in his first season at Benfica, but went stratospheric vs xG in his second (+6.8) .

If he can do that at Liverpool (he’s currently -2.2), that will be a huge bonus; as noted earlier, he's starting to convert a better percentage of chances, and even if he's not a Gakpo, to be a Salah or a Robert Lewandowski would do: both of those mid-ranking in the list, as 'unremarkable' in that they also waste a lot of xG compared to the elite finishers.

Meanwhile, Núñez currently ranks one place above Karim Benzema, another Shot Monster who only marginally outscores his xG, but gets in the right positions to have lots of efforts.

Diogo Jota is streaky, but his goal-draught ending will help him relax. Prior to his two goals against Leeds, which won't have changed much, he ranked down in 95th place, but still above Tammy Abraham, Lorenzo Insigne, Rodrygo and Edin Džeko. His seasons tend to be very hot or very cold, but he’s more than a finisher, unlike some in the sample.

More ruthless finishing from the whole Liverpool team will help (including the full-backs, both of whom are on minus scores this season), and to have goals from midfield would be another new dimension.

Clinical Blindness

On the other aspect of eyesight, maybe Liverpool will get more decisions, too; albeit it's maybe more about Liverpool getting better referees, if they exist, than the refs having bad eyesight.

Maybe the PGMOL can help solve a problem that they may have inadvertently created.

Something else just struck me, further to my research on this subject.

When I looked at referees from 2015-2021, and all 'major decisions' – so, penalties, red cards and second-yellows – made for and against Liverpool, Man City, Man United, Spurs, Chelsea and, because they'd won the league in that time, Leicester (regularly penalty winners) instead of Arsenal, I found many alarming stats.

(I also updated a couple of refs in 2023 for their Liverpool games.)

In all the games done in that period by refs who reffed each club at least five times (17 refs in total), there were 211 big decisions against and 326 for, at a balance of +115.

This makes sense, as these were the best teams over that period (the excluded Arsenal aside). Man City had the best xG balance/expected goal difference in that time, with Liverpool second, and everyone else quite a way behind.

Looking at the data again now, perhaps the main concern – amongst many – is how many referees have a balance of more than +1 for big decisions for the big clubs they officiate.

Shockingly, the Reds had 10 of the 17 referees who actually had minus figures in their games, from -1 to -5.

So, almost two-thirds of officials punished Liverpool more than rewarded them, which went against both the trend and logic of a team that, for a lot of the period covered, was one of the best English football has ever seen (and in some seasons, merely a good top-four side).

Look at these for the number of referees who had a balance of two-or-more Big Decisions for each team in that time:

• Man United 10

• Man City 9

• Leicester 8

• Chelsea 7

• Spurs 6

• Liverpool 4

It suggests that, aside from Michael Oliver, Andre Marriner, Kevin Friend (now retired) and Bobby Madley ('sacked' in 2018 and only back in the top league in 2023, and yet to do Liverpool again I believe), the Reds will, on average, get 'nothing' (or worse) from referees.

Several of the worst offenders – Martin Atkinson, Lee Mason, Mike Dean, Roger East and Jonathan Moss (the worst of the worst at -5 big decisions for the Reds) – have retired. They were largely a sorry bunch of officials, old and out of shape for much of the period covered (many were in their 50s last season), before they were put out to pasture.

Mason became a VAR, but did so badly he didn’t last long.

Yet still the Reds have a negative penalty decision balance this season (two won, three conceded, which goes against the attacking/defending balance), and no one gets a second yellow against the Reds; the last one being Sadio Mané, for Southampton, in Klopp's first home game, it was that long ago.

My aim is not to pressurise or intimidate referees into giving beneficial decisions to the Reds – that's genuinely not what I want – but for the PGMOL to question why Liverpool get relatively few big calls in the Klopp era, and what 'biases' the officials might have.

(And no, getting a fairly lucky handball decision go the Reds' way at Leeds does not undo many years of data.)

It's not that I think refs are Man United or Everton fans. Or are ‘out to get’ Liverpool.

Yet it can be seen from the reaction to stories about referees – and who they support – being that fans think "all refs support Liverpool" needs to be addressed, as modern life is often about showing how unbiased you are in the face of constant, sometimes hysterical accusations of bias, and that might be what referees do.

Indeed, I've shown that, the closer to Liverpool a referee is born, the less generous he will on average be to the Reds. Which suggests bending-over-backwards-to-not-look-biased-bias.

Ditto the lack of big decisions at Anfield, when everyone thinks Liverpool get big decisions all the time. A fallacy believed to be true – "refs are biased towards Liverpool and give Liverpool lots of decisions" – will be countered, but if it's already untrue it just makes it worse. Refs will be scared to give big decisions if they think Liverpool are always getting big decisions.

(Confirmation bias also means that Liverpool's first Anfield league penalty in over a year saw people say "oh look, another Liverpool penalty at Anfield!". Unfortunately, people like this drive reactions on social media, under news items and on phone-ins. Facts be damned. It's still only one penalty in over a year. That’s how data works.)

Refs will be accused of bias if they give Liverpool a decision at Anfield. I see it all the time. That has to be factored in to officials' performances.

There should not be a perfectly nice and round number of decisions in football, as it can be a random sport. I’m not asking for the weird new idea of equity, where everything has to be exactly equal or something is amiss. There will always be variance. Sport, like life, is not perfectly neat and symmetrical.

But over larger sample sizes, thing should revert somewhere towards the mean; especially when you’ve been an elite attacking team for 5-6 years now.

The alarming lack of penalties and the alarming lack of second yellows (both often more subjective than a straight red card), and the low percentage of home penalties for the Reds (as part of a low number overall), works against Liverpool.

As I’ve said before, even if you just judge Jürgen Klopp against previous Liverpool managers, then you’ll see that, Rafa Benítez aside, he’s been treated more harshly. Meanwhile, the three British managers the Reds have had since 2004 have all finished higher in the penalty rankings than the league table; for the two foreign managers, who often finished in the top four in the league, the penalty rank is always way below that.

To have just a few more penalties – not even all the penalties the Reds should have based on the data and the law of averages – could be the difference between success and failure.

I can’t solve these issues, but holes and anomalies that big and weird in the data need explaining. That's all I ever ask, including why Mo Salah – as the best attacker in the league at the time, with the most sprints, the most shots, the most touches in the box – went years winning a free-kick only every 120 minutes, while certain England internationals won them every 20 minutes. All I can do is point out any weird data.

And again, the data that showed refs favour English players in box boxes, given more penalties per player per game for English player and given fewer penalties against them per player per game. Liverpool’s attackers and Liverpool’s centre-backs tend to be foreign.

I don't know if foreign refs are the solution, but someone has to start delving deeply into officials' data, just as we do for players.

Not to show corruption, but to weed out the fearful, myopic and misled, and those who may feel certain pressures to conform (or have personal grudges), which might not be visible each game but where patterns might start to emerge.

(Refs used to feel the pressure to bow to the fans in the ground; now they bow to social media and other kinds of outrage, and it's always "refs support Liverpool", or as shown to be wrong in Part One, “refs favour the big clubs”.)

That said, one solution would be to have fewer refs from Greater Manchester, biased or not.

(That said, I also used data to show that Mancunian Anthony Taylor is generally pretty decent for the Reds, a couple of very high-profile mistakes aside – but then all refs make errors. The point is to see anything that looks odd in the data, and I don’t mind mistakes; just not a total abdication of duty.)

And as noted in Part One, not to keep giving the same refs to the same teams; especially Paul Tierney to Liverpool.

Heart (and Lungs)

I remember in 2016 when Dirk Kuyt, who had the lungs of a blue whale, said that Gini Wijnaldum "had the lungs of a horse".

This ties in with heart and energy, but stamina and the ability to cover ground; to almost be in two places at once, and do so with speed, for 90 minutes.

One issue for Liverpool's midfield this season has been that if any or all of Thiago, Henderson, Keïta, Fabinho or Elliott pressed high up, they were out of the game.

Of those, the ones who had some energy didn't have much pace.

And old Klopp saying was that if you can't get back, don't run forward. But these days you need to press from midfield. You need to make daring runs off the ball. The team wouldn't function if the midfield just sat back.

However, the season has been marked by midfielders, once bypassed, having zero chance of impacting the game.

I shared a clip a while ago of Darwin Núñez sprinting back past the midfielders to win a tackle in his own box, having started his run from his centre-forward position. He blitzed past teammates in no time.

It highlighted just how slow the midfield was, and that midfielders who could run even 90% that fast and hard could allow some extra protection, to get across and cover behind the full-backs; to match the sprints of runners from deep; and to get back and help the centre-backs when there's a break on.

As noted before, given that the midfield pressing has largely been so absent (bar a few recent games and before that, a few big games, like Man City at home), any new or emerging midfielders who can do that can make a huge difference: as Curtis Jones showed the other night.

Homeostasis

New players arriving in the past 18 months will be more settled next season.

The players replacing Sadio Mané on the left include Darwin Núñez, with 15 non-penalty goals despite playing around half the available minutes; and an insane expected assist rate, as explained.

Núñez has been hit and miss in front of goal, and isn't as good a dribbler as Mané. But he is just settling in, learning how to press, learning where to move, and unlike Mané, hadn't had two years in England to adapt first.

While not guaranteed, there's a good chance that Núñez to follow similar totals in first seasons at Almeria and Benfica (16 and 14 goals respectively, with 15 for the Reds so far) with an explosion to 34 in his second in Portugal.

If he takes over on penalties for the Reds (and his career record is 11 from 11), he could easily be in the 20s, if it's not another two-penalty season.

Aspects of his game are a bit raw, but in every game he impresses me with different things: his longer-range passing, even if he can be clunky in tighter spaces. His finishing in Portugal was varied and skilful, so he needs to integrate more, and relax in front of goal. That's starting to happen, and he's reading the longer passes of Alexander-Arnold, and he's linking increasingly well with Mo Salah.

Synchronicity takes time: repeated practice, seasons of improving understanding. (Which is why singings like Robertson, Fabinho, Konaté and others were gradually phased in during their first season.)

You occasionally get someone who arrives on the same wavelength as his new teammates (Fernando Torres with Steven Gerrard, Mo Salah with the rest of the team), but in general, training and playing together is what teaches players where they should run, how their colleagues will move, and when and where they'll pass the ball.

Gakpo, Núñez and Díaz have yet to even be on the same pitch together, and Jota has missed most of this season.

Again, none is at peak-age yet; Jota just getting there.

Gakpo is still learning the false 9 role, but looks a natural. Tall, fast (if not lightning-quick) and with great stamina, he presses in high volume and finishes well above his xG, as noted.

I also like that, while not as quick as some smaller players, he seems to not lose pace in an 70-yard sprint due to a longer stride and strong fitness, where shorter players can often seem to tire.

Watching him closely on breakaways, Gakpo makes up a lot of ground. And when he turns 40 yards from goal he can burst forward with excellent speed off the mark and close control, often before being rugby-tackled as the only way to stop him.

A keen student of the game who works with his own analytical coaches, that's vital to understanding movement and space, and linking a team together. Like centre-backs and holding midfielders, the false 9 takes more time to perfect, as it’s about positioning as much as anything else.

If they all stay fit (along with Salah), then next season there should be more synchronicity, not less; and certainly far better options than in 2022/23, where three attackers each missed 3-6 months.

And what the new midfielders will lack in synchronicity, they can more than make up for with energy, skill, aerial domination and anything that was missing in 2022/23. (It may need just one new one at the start of next season, to play with Bajcetic, if fit, and maybe Thiago; and any others get added over time.)

Then there's developing Alexander-Arnold into either a midfielder (with Bradley and Ramsay as right-back options next season), or having him continue this hitherto brief and successful experiment of playing infield and letting Konaté cover the big spaces.

(The new Konaté role is also something Joe Gomez will be suited to, as someone used to defending the flank. Gomez should be fitter next season, with it taking up to two years to fully recover from a badly exploded knee, to use the medical term. Gomez is still only 25, with 27 the age central defenders start to peak, so don't write him off, but he does need to clear his head of the yips, and hope that his body holds up, and he can find the pace of old.)

For now, the tactic is working, but as I noted in Part One, teams will look to find ways to counter it.

There are vulnerabilities in every system, but the Reds can now flit between approaches, to stay less predictable, with the new way of playing a new string to the bow.

(And even using a flyer like Bradley from the bench at right-back or Doak at right-wing would provide yet more different options on that flank.)

It's been out of whack this season, but a sense of a body in perfect balance – in homeostasis – can be possible once more.

Heart Issues: Transplant and/or New Blood?

With low blood pressure and weakness in 2022/23, the Reds need vitality; for the pressure to be intense, not insipid.

Not quite a full heart transplant, but not far off.

Again, the heart of the team.

The spine is otherwise excellent: Alisson, van Dijk, Konaté, and the central forward options of the versatile quartet of Gakpo, Núñez, Jota and Salah.

Bajcetic started to lead the way with midfield gusto, before injury. He should be stronger and better next season.

Thiago, Jones and Elliott offer lots of qualities, and in the latter to cases, should continue to improve. (Tyler Morton should become a handy squad option.)

Now the transfer market needs to do the rest.

How the club solves this depends on who is available, what they will cost, what their wage demands are, and how likely they will be to settle.

Ryan Gravenberch has interested me for a while, as he has played right in between Virgil van Dijk and Gakpo for Holland.

Not making into the Bayern Munich side at the age of 20 might be a concern to some, but it's clearly because they play a system with two elite, established and high-mutual-understanding 28-year-olds.

Plus, pressing machine Konrad Laimer is joining them from RB Leipzig on a free, and they have two outstanding 17-year-olds emerging.

Gravenberch’s fee would be reasonably modest, if Bayern sell; and Liverpool have dealt with Bayern with mutual respect over the moves and fees for Thiago to Liverpool and Sadio Mané to Germany.

Talks are said to be advanced, albeit also denied. Such is the media back-and-forth, with true rumours and fake rumours; true denials and fake denials. (Maybe Bayern are trying to create an auction, or just really do want to keep him. Or they want to keep the deal private until the season is over.)

Here is a 6'3" midfielder with superb technical skills, who has not yet reached his physical peak; a player with good defensive numbers and excellent 'driving' numbers: progressive carries, successful take-ons, progressive passes and progressive passes received.

He has great creative figures, and can score goals. He's someone who can play as a no.10, a no.8 and a no.6, and that kind of versatility brings to mind a fellow Dutch midfielder, Gini Wijnaldum. (I don't know his pressing/running data, but I assume it passes muster.)

Like many Liverpool first-team players and many Liverpool academy players, he's got football in the blood: his brother Danzell is ten years older, and has had a good career.

The mentorship of having an ex-professional as a parent, or a current professional as an older sibling, is so helpful to show how much hard work is required; which is why Stefan Bajcetic has the perfect attitude. I think so many young players fail as think the hard works stops once they make it. Instead, you have to work even harder.

So, Gravenberch makes sense, but having been almost totally frozen out by Julian Nagelsmann, he's back in the fold under Thomas Tuchel. That said, Tuchel is still not playing him, and did not bring him on as one of five subs in the home draw with City.

As with any mooted deal, I often don't know much more than the general fan, bar an occasional bit of info here and there.

I do know that Liverpool were very confident over Jude Bellingham, but obviously Chelsea distorted the market on midfielders in January; less than £100m a year ago became about £130m+, it seems. Things change; sometimes things change quickly. The interest was very real, the deal worked hard on, but you have to be prepared to change plans if the situation evolves.

In the last few weeks, Liverpool, in addition to going out to Real Madrid, likely lost the riches of Champions League qualification, albeit existing players will lose their bonuses to soften that blow. But it's still a new factor.

Then, it seems that the Reds may want to spread the spending further. While not a total overhaul, the squad needs more than one player.

I don't think there's a right or wrong way, without knowing the budget; other than, just buying Bellingham and no one else would surely not be sufficient (unless Bajcetic, Doak, Bradley and others absolutely explode next season, which seems too soon to be likely.)

I've written about who the Reds might sign, but I'm not a scout. I watch some footage, I dabble in some numbers, but I'm not a professional scout.

I enjoy speculating, but don't take it too seriously, and trust – given that the Reds have elite scouts, elite analytics folk, and an elite manager – that they'll know what to look for; not least as they'll know what they want.

If it's someone like Andy 'Really?' Robertson from relegated Hull, I'm onboard with that, and I try to then look at what they'll offer, not reject them based on not being a big enough star.

My job is often noting the kinds of players needed, and the connections that might see a move make sense. I don't pretend to have insider info, just some insights.

For Gravenberch, as it would have been for Jude Bellingham, there are the connections at Liverpool would make life easier to settle in off the field, and also on the field.

Existing relationships aid swifter integration. Compatriots and ex-colleagues are helpful, as a big part of football is feeling at home: that you belong at the club, in the city, at that level. The simpler your life is, the more you can focus on your football.

Also, compatriot Cody Gakpo is already essentially a summer 2023 signing – brought forward to get a bargain, and any time he plays now is a bonus, as he learns from Roberto Firmino and adjusts to the league, and gains confidence.

The trouble with bringing in someone early is that people then think you haven't spent enough that summer; so, Díaz arriving with Núñez last summer, as originally planned, would have changed the complexion and perceptions. Yet Díaz added a lot in 2021/22, even if his debut was as late as February.

I genuinely think Gakpo will prove to be an elite player, and has shown lots of glimpses so far. But as noted, the whole forward line is getting to know one another right now, but in certain games it's really starting to click (certainly on the break).

(I’m less sure about Núñez, other than I think he’ll be great fun and I love watching him. I think he can get better, as previously noted, and I think he can become ultra-elite; but he’s also still raw, and unpredictable, and not yet good enough at pressing or concentrating for 90 minutes. Where Gakpo is cool, calm and collected, and skilful, Núñez is like a warehouse full of exploding fireworks. If he can control his boundless energy and drive in a more focused way, he can fulfil his immense potential.)

I also don't know the budget: income will drop with the lack of Champions League football, but so will wages, due to clauses. Guessing at budgets is a big of a shot in the dark.

You could sell a player for £50m but it doesn't mean you'll have £50m to spend on transfer fees, if you've then given a new contract to an existing player that costs an extra £25m.

People play at knowing the budget, when only the club knows what it can afford, and how it can structure deals. But we can assume Liverpool will spend north of £100m this summer, whether that includes about £80m that could be raised from sales or not.

I obviously hope the budget is hefty, but the club will continue to spend what it earns, and not get into debt over transfers (as it's such a volatile form of investment, unlike borrowing money to invest in infrastructure). And Chelsea and Forest have shown the madness of buying players who cannot then be integrated into an actual football team.

Which brings me onto another apparent target. (No, not Jonjo Shelvey.)

Mason Mount is another who knows many in the Liverpool squad well.

I always assumed he'd remain at Chelsea for his whole career, but they've bought so many new players for almost £600m in total that he surely can't even know the names of half of them, and he's down to a year left on his contract.

He's been offered a pretty mediocre new contract, and Chelsea's owners want to sell anyone who enters the final two years of their deals (hence why they've been giving out nine-year contracts, along with amortisation rules), and Mount is down to one.

Here is a hard-pressing, goalscoring midfielder who outshoots his xG (he ranks 57th on the 100 I looked at, and is therefore above some big-name strikers), with 44 league goals in his career to date; scoring 11 at 0.42 per game last season, before the club imploded.

I've seen it said that, for a player who might command £80m-£90m on the open market – given his age (just turned 24) and his English status – that £70m is too much for Liverpool to pay based on him being a free agent next summer.

Yes, but ... he won't be free next summer, as he'll be sold this summer. So that's a false dichotomy (if that's the right term for it).

And you can either take the relative – but not ultra – bargain, or miss out.

The key would be: is he a £70m footballer to Liverpool?

I think so, but I don't know the ins an outs of it; just that even Frank Lampard, who loves him, isn't even really playing him right now, as if told not to do so.

Would Mount help improve Liverpool, and is there anyone better, who would adapt to the playing style and maybe the league, for less?

You can maybe find an £8m Bolivian bargain, as Brighton tend to do, but as we noted when Daniel Rhodes helped look through Big Six signings over the past few years on the site last week, these obscure talents can go to clubs like Brighton and get game-time, but they won't go straight into Big Six sides – the pressure for instant success is often too great – and then they'll often just get lost.

(Unless they are for the academy, and then it can take years anyway. Almost no Big Six club has key players who cost under £10m, and certainly not once adjusted to 2023 TPI money.)

Chelsea have to sell a lot of players to meet FFP and accounting requirements before the end of June; and even more players if they want to spend yet more money on even more new players. And Liverpool want to do their business early, like usual, but where they failed last summer.

Liverpool could get all of Mount, Gravenberch and someone like Gabri Veiga or Ibrahim Sangaré (both apparently with c.£35m release clauses) for the price of Bellingham.

Note: Veiga scouted on our separate TTT Substack by Mizgan Masani, and reports for other players linked with the Reds can be found on that site.

Gabri Veiga - In-Depth Scouting Report of Young Spanish Dynamo

Now, those three may not be the correct balance of players; or they may be just what's required. That's not my call to make.

None is quite as good as Bellingham on an individual level, so you lose a few percentage points from the XI strength in that one selection alone; but with three players instead of one, you can spread the workload and talent, and solve more issues, to improve the team and squad.

The individual wages of Mount, Gravenberch, Veiga, Sangaré or various other players wouldn't be close to what Bellingham would likely be paid, with it rarely a good idea to bring in a new player on higher wages than the existing hierarchy – one possible downside of getting Bellingham.

The combined wages of three players would likely exceed that of one superstar wage-packet, but not by an enormous amount.

And three players would mean less reliance on one, who could be injured, out of form, or burdened by a £130m price tag.

(Not that I think Liverpool wouldn't try and revive the deal if they could, but as great as Bellingham is, and as happy as I would be to see him at Liverpool, he would have to live up to a big fee and being the new Steven Gerrard, as well as potentially disrupting the pay structure, with a closely-ranked pay structure a good way to keep a team unified, rather than having haves and have-nots.)

Veiga, meanwhile, plays for his hometown club Celta Vigo, where the main hometown sensation this season – the city following his every move, and everyone talking about him – was actually Stefan Bajcetic, amazing his hometown club when starring for Liverpool before injury.

Bajcetic's father still has connections to Celta. Celta is also where Iago Aspas is a legend, scoring 133 La Liga goals for them since returning there a couple of years after joining Liverpool (having started out there).

So if a young player was at Celta now, as 20-year-old Veiga is, you can see the allure of Liverpool, to join Bajcetic and Thiago (both of whom could benefit from better players around them, and there would be far stronger rotation options than in 2022/23).

Veiga also looks big, fast and strong, and that helps in the Premier League (again, unless you are really elite).

Then there's Gavi, the sensational teen who everyone would want from Barcelona on a free transfer, but where a wage auction could go sky-high, or he could demand Champions League football; and he may end up staying in Catalonia. I don't think he'd object to Liverpool as a destination (I think few players would), but I also think other clubs have more to lure him in right now.

Moisés Caicedo was sought last summer but the deal got too complicated due to his many agents at the time, changing the terms. He might be back on the list, but a lot of clubs are in for him and Alexis Mac Allister. A lot of these guys fit the bill as excellent, technical and energetic players, but it will be a case of which ones are the most gettable, and gettable before preseason starts, to integrate them properly.

Then, a super-fast, attacking left-back option, if more is needed. I personally like the look of Rayan Aït-Nouri, as I've said before, who is out of favour at Wolves as they use a more solid player instead. I don't know anything about his attitude, and if it's suitable, but he has caught my eye as a potential 'flyer' to change games if required.

Again, to me, it's more about me, as a fan, wanting to see that kind of outlet: someone who can play like a winger when chasing games, with Andy Robertson turning 30 next season and needing managing. (Kostas Tsimikas has been a decent signing, but hasn't really pushed on this season.) It may be that Liverpool are happy with what they have.

Wolves' Matheus Nunes, an attacking midfielder, is another heavily linked with the Reds. He looks a fine talent, as do so many of these players.

Then there was talk of the free signing of Ibrahima Konaté's partner in a lot of French international age-group teams from U16 up, Evan Ndicka.

Then again, there are also reports that the Reds have zero interest. So who knows?

But if Joël Matip goes, that kind of signing would make sense, if the player is deemed good enough (if not, then don't waste time, even with a free transfer; especially if Jarell Quansah is seen as being ready next season, which may be too soon, but he appears to be heading for the top).

A lot depends on what these players are advised. Too many young players are badly led, chasing big money at clubs that won't care for them, and where they're just one of about 35 senior players.

Go to the right club, that's the best fit, and that pays a healthy wage: don't ask for more. Go and enjoy your football, get game-time, be part of a great dressing room.

Trying to maximally exploit current value or demand at the expense of career progression is counterproductive.

(I always think any agent's job is to protect a career and a reputation, and have the client be happy and contented, and sufficiently monetarily rewarded; not to just get them the biggest pile of cash.)

Then, are the selling clubs gonna piss Liverpool about? If so, walk away. Perhaps dealing with clubs like Bayern Munich and Wolves on various occasions has fostered better avenues for negotiations, but you can't just focus on clubs you've done recent business with, or you have a very narrow pool to choose from.

Klopp also remains a big lure for players. Even without the Champions League, as looks highly likely now, Klopp can convince players to join.

He was already an elite manager when he arrived and began setting up his first great Liverpool team, but since then he's won every single trophy going, making Liverpool the most exciting and highest-ranked team in the world in 2020 and 2022, and reaching three Champions League finals between 2018 and 2022, as well as three 92-99-point league seasons.

Some may see him on a slump, but he actually achieved more last season than some big-name managers have achieved in the last five years.

How many big-name managers have won 90+ league points when reaching the Champions League final, while winning two trophies at the same time? Some managers haven’t even done that over the five-year period, let alone in a single season.

That level of consistency across a season is almost unheard of; and the quadruple, which the Reds had a chance of winning with just two games left in a 63-game season, has never been done. No one has got closer.

(Yet I've heard various numpties calling him a busted flush; two games – two goals, even – away from the best ever season in the history of the sport.)

He will also only look for players ready to push this new train; not those who just want to jump onboard a runaway locomotive.

As I've said before, a new heart (or as I put it last month, a new engine) for this Liverpool side will help create more for the forwards and help protect the defence, either with more energy and aggression to cover, or by keeping the ball further up the pitch.

Recovery pace will be a new thing, too. Someone who can match the runs of opponents and cover for defenders could make a huge difference.

And while adding new players means you can lose the qualities of the replaced players, the existing heart has been so weak this season that it won't be a case of losing anything.

Finally...

3-5, 3-5, 3-5

No, not funky formations, but the kinds of numbers that could be needed to turn Liverpool around.

Instead of a total overhaul:

• 3-5 new signings;

• 3-5 youngsters emerging as serious contenders, certainly for the matchday 20;

• 3-5 players coming back from long-term injury or who couldn't really affect the current season.

(To replace the 10-or-so who might leave, with several out of contract, and perhaps the need to sell someone like Caoimhín Kelleher to gain £20m and insist on a buyback clause, and other fringe players raising a few million here and there.)

As I keep repeating, people frequently overestimate how much of an overhaul is required, because they write off players who will be back from injury and they don't foresee improvements and youngsters emerging.

(I gave examples of Liverpool in 1981, after a bad league campaign – Ian Rush and Ronnie Whelan coming up from the reserves and being game-changers – and Man United in 2006, when the team apparently needed to be torn up, but after adding just Michael Carrick they won the league, as several existing players went up a level or two. Plus, before the season they sold Ruud van Nistelrooy, their star player, and up to that point, their only source of 20+ goals a season. That a team that apparently needed breaking up, and instead, they sold their best player and bought a midfielder from Spurs who was 25 and had just four England caps. But there are loads more examples, including – as bears repeating – Liverpool in 2021/22, when adding only Konaté in the summer and Díaz in the winter of 2022, and going close to the quadruple with a team that was previously written off.)

Age-wise, I'd only really worry about Mo Salah (but who remains in excellent shape) and Virgil van Dijk, but there's a lot more to gain from various players aged 18-25 who can go up one, two or three levels, and help those around them.

(Thiago should age well, if his minutes are managed, and anyone else over 30 gets moved to the edge of the squad or sold/released.)

Indeed, even players aged 28, as noted in Part One, can suddenly start excelling.

Add the right new signings, and I see nothing to fear; just a summer to get refreshed, restocked and rejuvenated, and to look forward to another season of hopefully prime Kloppian football, with a few new stars to cheer, but also the development and improvement of younger players, and more of an impact from those like Díaz, Gakpo, Konaté, Núñez and Jota, most of whom will only play half (or less) of the league minutes in 2022/23 for the Reds.

But all this is just my take, written in fake scrubs whist abusing the medicine cabinet and injecting steroids into my eyes.

Right – pop your clothes on the table. Now, where did I leave my rubber gloves?