Hysterical Overreactions Won't Help Liverpool – Already 40% a "New" Team

Bizarre and unwarranted scoreline is not a true reflection of where the team is at

This is the end for this Liverpool team. Really?

I thought the end for the team happened six weeks ago, after Brighton, when unlike recent games, the Reds created nothing and conceded a ton of chances.

The end, instead, comes after having the same shots, more xG and more big chances against a Real Madrid team, as reigning (lucky) European champions who scored two lucky goals and got away with a clear penalty foul at 3-2?

The shaky scoreboard journalism was everywhere last night and this morning.

No. Pay attention.

The end of the great Jürgen Klopp team has already happened. The new one is half in place.

What happened at Brighton was the end of that team, even if it was a team shorn of many top players, and too old in part due to circumstances.

What happened against Real Madrid was a freak result with some shortcomings partly of a new team developing, partly the last gasp of some of the soon-to-be-sidelined old team, and in part due to injuries to the other new guys. (The scoreline was shocking, but Madrid took all their chances, and two that weren’t even chances. Shit happens.)

Had the exceptional Ibrahima Konaté been fit to start last night, along with Luis Díaz, then the lineup could have had four or five "new" players.

That's half the outfield team, relatively brand new, all at great ages.

As it was, it was three new players with around 50 Liverpool games between them (and two of them have just 12 league games for the club between them).

And they all did pretty well, having been excellent in recent weeks.

When any team is rebuilt, it's not 11 new players at once (okay, maybe at Chelsea and Nottingham Forest, but that's chaotic, costly nonsense where further effects could be felt later down the line, as bloated squads start to get unhappy. For now, the more players Chelsea add, the worse results get, but equally, a team could be formed out of the 30+ players they have – but it still feels too chaotic.)

The overreaction to last night was even more astounding than the freakish result, especially as most people know that Fabinho and Jordan Henderson won't the first-choice midfielders next season.

Both did okay, especially in the first half, and both struggled in the second half. Fabinho was at fault for at least one goal, and his limited running ability has been exposed a lot this season. I don't think anyone expected his form to collapse so badly, but it has. That need not be anyone's fault, even his own. It can happen.

ADDITION: indeed, some players did even better than I thought. The pressing figures were the best-ever under Jürgen Klopp, which suggests a return to form and fitness for many, and adds to the sense that this was a freakish and unfair result (but that’s football and the randomness of goals).

🔥 Pressing data. (Two ‘new’ guys feature heavily with outstanding pressing figures.)

New Era

To say that last night was the end of an era misses the fact that we're already at the start of a new one; the old one ended just after the World Cup.

The team is being rebuilt, and is already several games into the start of its next cycle.

Isn't that clear?

I don't know how people are missing this, but a lot of pundits don't pay close attention to Liverpool; those who do should be aware of it.

Just this season, and in two cases pretty much just in the last few games, we've seen the positive introductions of Darwin Núñez (23), Cody Gakpo (23) and Stefan Bajcetic (18), while last season's super-positive new recruits, Ibrahima Konaté (23) and Luis Díaz (25), are currently injured.

That's five great players to build around; five 'new' players.

And 30% of the outfield team last night was 'new'. And it could have been at 50% but for injuries.

Díaz and Konaté were key to the 33-game run-in last season, where all kinds of records were broken, and the Reds got close to the all-time best season in football history. Díaz was sensational, Konaté a rock.

Núñez, despite some recent injuries and all the jibes, is improving all the time, clearly, with goals, assists and chances created.

He is a force of nature, who took a year to settle at Benfica, then exploded. He got six league goals in his first season in Portugal; 26 the next. I've never seen a player so relentlessly bullied online and by opposing fans, and yet he just gets better. Like Díaz, he's a warrior.

Gakpo, arriving midseason (which is rarely easy, especially when so many players are injured and the team is struggling) is settling in nicely, and improving with every game, as he beds into a new role in a new team in a new league.

In recent games, we've started to see the excellent linkup between Gakpo, Núñez and Salah, three strangers as of last summer, which will need more time to peak; as will the attack when Díaz is reintroduced. The early games for this new trio were clunky, but it's clicking now.

(I still think Díaz will make an outstanding attacking midfielder, if required. To play him as a no.8 behind Núñez, Gakpo and Salah, would be thrilling – at least it is to me, in my head. What I like about Díaz is his insane energy and desire, as well as the skill, and so I think he could be used in a variety of ways. Again, it's easy to forget how good he is, and how he's a key part of the new-look Liverpool project.)

Clearly Roberto Firmino and Diogo Jota are well short of match fitness after months out.

A fit Jota, 26, is a big part of the future, but he looks well short of running right now, as you'd expect. With no proper reserve football, I guess he needs to play to get his match-legs. It's painful to watch, as he has no acceleration at the moment, but that will return.

Bajcetic is more than good enough at 18, but nowhere near how good he'll be at 19. Then 20, and so on. I've spent ages recently outlining how much faster, stronger and more stamina players develop as they move into their 20s, and how all physical attributes (pace, stamina, strength) are shown scientifically to peak at 25-30, unless some debilitating injury intervenes.

I recently listed a whole litany of world-class attacking players whose numbers were nowhere at 18, mild at 19, creeping along at 20, and then somewhere between 20 and 23, went stratospheric.

(Strikers are still the easiest to judge via numbers, if we take goalscoring as a proxy for all improvement; things like clean sheets are a team effort, after all. Goals remain the most visible of all metrics, albeit I recently showed how Trent Alexander-Arnold's underlying numbers – his expected assists – increased markedly year on year to the peak of last season, but detailed underlying data like that doesn't go back more than a few years.)

While I didn't include Vinícius Júnior, he went from three Madrid goals in 31 games aged 18, to five goals in a full season at age 19, to six goals in 49 games at age 20, as people began to write him off; to ...

... 40 goals in his last 18 months. Again, written off at 20, world-class at 22.

He had three full seasons of promise, development, adjustment, education, then exploded, as is such a common a pattern than people should have it imprinted in their psyches.

Should Madrid have dumped him two or three years ago, cashed out? If you remember, that was their own transitional phase, even if a couple of annoyingly brilliant old bastards keep them winning games.

Would Vinícius be as good as he is now if he hadn't played through the developmental years in the first team, with these very same players (and Madrid remain a team making a very gradual transition, retaining several older stalwarts. The shared experience of last night's team was exceptionally high.)

Put that same development onto Bajcetic, Elliott, Fabio Carvalho and others, and you will get very different players at ages 21/22; just as, as I keep noting, Salah, Sadio Mané, Firmino, Virgil van Dijk, Alisson, Fabinho, Andy Robertson and other key Liverpool league title and European champions were not rated and/or thriving at 21.

While Liverpool will have a few players who continue to age-out, they will have more who age-in.

Elliott is already better now at 19 than most players of his ilk, as most players of his ilk don't make big-club debuts until 20 or 21.

His numbers now are better than Martin Ødegaard's at the same age, but right now, the balance of the team doesn't suit a 19-year-old Elliott; in time, when he and the team further develops, it possibly can, just as Ødegaard and Arsenal have developed together over the past two seasons. (Ødegaard's numbers have skyrocketed between 22 and 24.)

The other point I've made a lot lately is just how many good young players Liverpool have, and that it will take time for them to become elite Premier League players, instead of elite youth players. Some have been beset by injuries and growing pains, but that's teenage life for you. Not all will make it, but from a dozen I picked out, I think four or five can, over time.

That's the process you go through, if you plan to integrate them. They are training together and with the first team, when fit, and they will be ready at different stages over the next 1-2 years.

You take the pain of mistakes and rookie errors, such as Bajcetic choosing not to kick Modric up in the air last night, as a sign of naivety, and that's cool. In time, Bajcetic will become more savvy; in time, he'll be faster and stronger and even better at anticipating, and maybe just get to the ball first, without having to resort to tactical fouls.

Again, Arsenal's younger players were fragile, and underdeveloped, until they grew together, aged together, and also added physicality (going from a small back four with Ben White at centre-back to bringing back the excellent giant William Saliba from loan, and then going with a tall right back in White), and becoming one of the biggest sides in the league, as well as being the fastest team in the league.

Interlude

On player and team development, if you want to read more, the series in which I cover this is a trio of in-depth reads, including some examples of rebuilds where the rebuild was less drastic than people expected, as it normally is (i.e. you don't throw the baby out with the bath water).

Part One - Rebuilding Liverpool: Exhaustion, Fatigue, Resetting and Renewing

Part Two: How Young Footballers Reach Peak Strength, Pace and Maturity

Part Three: Reds’s ‘Magic Dozen’ – Elite Generation of Kids, Bellingham and More

Like this, all are free reads, but subscribing helps TTT going, into its 14th year:

I'll find it difficult to converse with people who haven't read it, as they won't be seeing the same things as me; just as I learned more in the process of researching and writing the pieces, as I have when writing umpteen books and thousands of articles over almost 25 years.

If you study these things in depth, as I often do, it gets hard to have superficial discussions with people who I know don't know as much, whether or not they go to the games. You need to see it, to then notice it; just being there isn't enough, if you're not looking properly. I can't coach tactics, but I can spot patterns.

Quality + Time

Right now, Luka Modric is better than Stefan Bajcetic, and Karim Benzema is better than Darwin Núñez.

But next season? Hmm, it will be closer.

The year after? Only two winners.

Two years ago, almost everyone was better than Vinícius Júnior, but Madrid stuck with Vinícius as he was the future.

Right now, I'd take Bajcetic and Núñez over Modric and Benzema, as only two of those represent the future; just as Madrid stuck with Vinícius and Rodrygo (whose numbers also went up massively aged 20/21) over Eden Hazard, for whom they'd paid £150m in 2019. They gave up on Hazard, wisely.

You need to work with players' futures, not their pasts. (And let's not forget, Madrid can still afford to have £150m substitutes; the Spanish league is getting weaker, but its two biggest clubs have insanely huge squads.)

Then there's pace machine Federico Valverde, 24, who already has 12 goals for Madrid this season; after 1, 2 and 3 the previous seasons. He's got a goal every three games this season, from one in 46 last season. From not a goalscorer, to a goalscoring phenomenon from midfield. Things can change quickly; players can click, go up a level; go up two or three levels.

Age and Height

Also, Liverpool have had far better results on average this season with taller XIs, and also with younger XIs. A lot of the taller players are the faster players, too.

The difficulty has been getting the balance of the two; with the difficulty all season in getting any kind of balance due to a long list of rotating injuries.

Again, Liverpool had been averaging over 29 years old in some games this season. That team had to go.

I said it had to go. We had that debate in early January, and then things changed. So I'm confused as to why people haven't followed?

Once Bajcetic and Gakpo were introduced, I felt it was onto the next project, and rather than the dying of the old team, it would be the growing pains of a new team developing (with some older players used as there's no one else fit).

I'm okay with the latter. If Konaté and Díaz were fit, then there'd be even fewer older players on the pitch. The new team would be clearer: as I said, maybe 50% 'new' players already.

The team of recent weeks averages 27, and is in development. Put Konaté and Díaz into the team, and it could be a great average age of between 25 and 26.

(Then, buying two young-but-ready midfielders will help massively; as will Tyler Morton as a squad option.)

And that's without Elliott and all the other youngsters who will improve with time and age, including Morton, who has developed massively at Blackburn in the ultra-physical slog of the Championship, and will be even stronger next season.

I also think that we've seen signs that Mo Salah can be as sharp as ever, as long as the team is set up to support him. The last three games have seen him register several goals and assists, and show some lovely all-round play.

And with the right partner (Konaté), and a midfielder who can match runners from deep, Virgil van Dijk can play on for years.

If Alisson sorts out his sloppy passing, he otherwise remains as good as ever.

Beyond those three, anyone over 30 has to become a squad player unless they really turn back the clock, and as long as the rest of the team can compensate for any of their slowing down.

Bad luck will also always play an unwelcome role at times, just as good luck does. Joe Gomez, 25, used to be truly excellent, but then his already knackered knee popped. He was outstanding in the title-winning team of 2020, aged 22. As good as it gets.

Since returning he's been hit and miss, and his nervousness infects the side, just as Dejan Lovren's used to – but then Lovren had his uses as 4th choice. Gomez was really positive in the previous two games, but his very aggressive and positive attempt to beat Vinícius to the ball was a fraction too late, and then he didn't react quickly enough to the set-piece, frozen with anxiety.

Then the ball deflected in off him for the 4th goal, and he's having too many games full of little errors (as is Joël Matip lately), but a more protective and dominant midfield can help both the defence and the attack. Konaté would be the man partnering van Dijk, but Gomez can get stronger and faster again, as it can take two years to fully recover from the horrific injury he had. (And the peak age for centre-backs, based on minutes played, remains 27 and tails off at 31, albeit exceptional ones go on longer.)

Indeed, the only thing that really needs rebuilding right now is the Liverpool midfield.

That doesn't mean signings can't be made for other positions, but as things stand, the midfield remains the issue.

If everyone is fit, the defence is good enough, and the attack has a new Mané and a new Firmino bedding in this season (as the old Firmino returns to fitness). With 12 goals, if Núñez is like the Mané that arrived in 2016, he's actually on course to do better; with more assists, too.

Bajcetic is the first sign of the midfield rebuild, but as I keep saying, is already ahead of where Steven Gerrard was at the same age (and again, Gerrard, a box-to-box midfielder, took 50 games to score his second Liverpool goal, and really took off as he approached his 20th birthday). Gerrard made his debut in 1998, aged 18, and started to become elite in early 2000. At the age when Gerrard was still waiting for his debut, Bajcetic was man of the match in a Mersey derby.

Trent Alexander-Arnold, 24, has been back to his hard-running, chance-creating best, but the team balance (i.e. midfield) needs to be better for him to be able to attack more; just as it will then have the knock-on effect of helping Salah, with that side much better in recent weeks when the team has been on top in games (less so when under the cosh).

When Liverpool push teams back they're as good as ever; but when it breaks down, it all breaks down.

Despite being the best Liverpool left-back I've seen, I still think Andy Robertson is generally poor on the ball, unless he's whipping in an early cross (that got him so many assists), but nearing 29, still has amazing energy and a relentless drive, and defends well.

Unlike Fabinho, he doesn't look cooked, albeit I do think Robertson's lack of guile in the final third kills attacks that are not breakaways.

He's been particularly poor on the ball lately, but does the occasional superb head-down-and-run burst forward. You could find a better technician who makes more of the space in the final third (I like the look of young Rayan Aït-Nouri of Wolves), but his spirit is hard to replicate.

The issue remains that the team has literally no midfielders who have the pace to track a runner, so when someone like Fabinho loses the ball, he cannot get back.

Ditto Thiago, Naby Keïta, James Milner and Henderson, with Bajcetic likely to get there in a year or two, as the best recovery runner already by the looks of it, but who clearly tires in games, because he's just a kid.

To be progressive, midfielders have to get forward; but this lot cannot get back.

After about 500 injuries, Keïta has lost his energy of old, and from being a great athlete is now a shadow of what he was, and is due to leave in the summer; a bust, after so much promise. The only really fast midfielder is Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain, another who lost his place due to injury, but he's more of an attacker, and is also leaving.

All of Liverpool's midfielders are below the midway point for the club's players' top speeds clocked in recent seasons (the fastest are attackers and defenders), and that's a huge problem. (Alisson has been clocked as faster than some of the midfielders.)

The Reds have added big, strong, tall and fast attackers this season (and Konaté and Díaz last season), but not found the correct midfielders ... yet. And it's not for want of trying.

An old adage of Jürgen Klopp's was that if you can't run forward and then get back, don't run forward.

But the team, especially in the ultra-fast and exciting 2023 football (with fewer old-school dinosaurs), needs to get up and support the attack, especially once chasing the game. You can't be a success with two banks of four and a stranded forward or two.

It's a gamble, one that will be less of problem once two new midfielders arrive.

Alternatively, you sit deep so as to protect the defence, and play longer passes, but that's a risk against teams who then just sit back themselves – which can end up being most teams Liverpool face. They'll take a draw, gladly.

World-Class Breaking

As a huge positive, Liverpool have been exceptional on the break in the past few weeks, with the front three clicking in their movements, and that was a bit like the way Salah, Mané and Firmino were in 2017, before the team went to the next level.

(The difference then was that the midfield was derided as being 'unimaginative', but full of running. Thiago changed the model, and at times it doesn't seem to work; yet last season, after Gini Wijnaldum left, was almost the best for any team in the history of world football, so it's not like he came in and ruined everything.)

More pace, power and strength in midfield is not a new need. Aurélien Tchouaméni and Jude Bellingham were bid for last summer, as was Moises Caicedo. Big guys, fast guys, skilful guys.

Put any two of those in this midfield, give it a bit of time, and you'd be talking about a brand new engine. And that's what Liverpool need most: a new engine.

The rest is more than fine; with Núñez, Gakpo and Bajcetic improving all the time, and nowhere near their peaks in terms of physical development, game intelligence and adjustment to the relentless pace of the Premier League.

Deals could not be agreed in the summer for the aforementioned midfielders, for different reasons. Alternatives could not be agreed upon. So it's not a secret.

The January window changed things, in that by then, Liverpool had run out of fit attackers, and the price for midfielders started to suddenly get ridiculous, thanks to Chelsea's irresponsible spending – contorting the market based on what they think they'll earn deep into the future.

Gakpo, a summer target, was brought forward, just like Díaz a year earlier. A no-brainer, at £37m.

I admit, in my ignorance I found it baffling that Klopp played him as a centre-forward and Núñez as a winger, but then it was explained in a press conference that Gakpo presses and links more, and actually – once you see it, you can't un-see it – you could see how similar he was to Roberto Firmino (on the wane but a handy option to keep, if desired) in dropping deep to link play.

Gakpo also has this lovely skill of turning a defender or midfielder 40 yards from goal, and sprinting forward (in the way the then-new Oxlade-Chamberlain used to do from midfield), which he does every game, albeit often he just gets wrestled to the ground. Still, that's a great asset to build around, to gain yardage as it were.

Then, as seen in recent games, that dropping deep allows Núñez and Salah to do what Mané and Salah did for years – to be more narrow and cut inside into the box and score (or create), as the width comes from the full-backs.

Indeed, my worry was that Núñez wouldn't score as many from wide, but he's started getting goals again since playing there.

In the last three games we've seen a massive uptick in attacking play, at least while games were "live". (Less so once the game went "dead" at 2-0 up vs 10 men at Newcastle, and less so once Madrid were 4-2 up and keeping the ball, especially once the leggy Jota and Firmino came on for the faster, younger players who are in form – but where Núñez was carrying a bad shoulder injury anyway.)

Against Everton, Núñez set up a tremendous goal with an insane sprint down the length of the pitch; Salah scored it, but Gakpo made the first real burst of excellent off-the-ball pace in the attack, moving from midfield to be ready as the recipient of the cross, before Salah sped in with a later burst of pace, to cleverly and correctly steal the chance once Jordan Pickford had gone walkabouts.

Then a great hard-sprinting goal, with a rare bit of good infield play by Andy Robertson, which led to Trent Alexander-Arnold speeding down the line like a bullet train, for Salah to lay him in. The pace in these two goal was elite Liverpool, fresh and fast.

The cross was perfection (I still can't see the deflection?) and Gakpo arrived cleverly at the back post, despite being nominally the false nine. Again, movement and rotation, with both he and Núñez comfortable in each other's positions.

Robertson's relentless sprint had also taken him into the six-yard box, and if only he could do more once in those positions, he'd be getting a lot more goals and different kinds of assists. But in this case, he was a good decoy.

Then, at Newcastle, two more great goals, that showed the burgeoning understanding between the front three, as well as the return to form of the creative right-back.

Núñez, moving infield to find space, burst forward onto a lovely Alexander-Arnold pass and thumped it home. Then a move that went through Alisson and all over the pitch ended with Gakpo making a clever run after laying off the ball, for Salah to then play him in with an inch-perfect lob that needed a perfect touch to control, and an expert swivel to despatch.

Another quick break led to the game being over, as Nick Pope was panicked into being sent off, to stop Salah scoring.

Last night, more great attacking play for the first 30 minutes. Yes, it was eventually undermined by mistakes at the back (and fatigue, and game-state chasing shadows), but this was the clear blossoming of a new Liverpool attack.

Salah's cross from a fast move was diverted home by Núñez, who made a great run from wide into the central position, and while the second goal was a gift, Salah still had to take it first-time. (Unlike Vinícius, who wasn't even looking when he scored from Alisson's mistake.)

The big chance that Salah dragged wide in the first half – driven by Gakpo – and the mad scramble on the Madrid line, were examples of Liverpool clicking as an attacking unit. Again, two of these guys are 23 and new to English football. Núñez was also stopped from heading at goal when being pushed in the back while under the flight of the ball, which is 100% a foul.

So, it comes back to the midfield. Which, to me, could solve all the problems, assuming new problems don't arise (and in sport, as in life, new problems can arise at any moment). As I said, the team has it all, bar the engine right now.

No midfielder could be procured, but as I've noted before, with both van Dijk and Konaté, Liverpool chose to wait six months rather than be stuck with the wrong player for six years.

That is always a gamble, too. But so too is buying a new player as a compromise. Even buying a first-choice target can backfire. Or bringing in loan players, rather than nobody at all, hasn't really worked with Ozan Kabak, Ben Davies and Arthur Melo.

Also, don't forget the summer break ahead. I think that could be as important as any deals, for a team that has had a harder schedule than anyone else.

That will refresh the most hard-worked team in European football since the start of last season (and remember how emotionally and physically draining last season was; see Part One of my recent trilogy for examples of how much fatigue can be carried over into the following season).

After last night, the tally shared before the game by The Times now reads:

• Liverpool, 98 games

• Chelsea, 95 games

• Man City, 94 games

• Real Madrid, 93 games

• West Ham, 90 games

And that's four teams in the brutally hard Premier League – all conspicuously well below their best this season – and Madrid, in the more sedate, tactical La Liga, where almost all of the other clubs have no money at all (plus a jolly to the Club World Cup, to play dross).

The best players no longer go to La Liga clubs outside of Barca and Madrid, but to clubs like Brentford, Brighton and other examples of what were previously very small English clubs. The Premier League is improving, on the back of the billions it raises, and on half the clubs getting smarter; and all the clubs getting richer. It’s getting better, faster, tougher.

Set-Piece Hell

All that said, a weirder area where Liverpool have dropped off badly is set-pieces at both ends. Set-pieces at both ends have been abysmal, but that can be changed.

The lack of a single league penalty all season is also bizarre and unhelpful, and 3-5 would probably mean 3-5 more points, given that a goal (and Salah scores almost all penalties) is roughly worth a point.

A penalty last night would have likely made it 3-3. The narrative then shifts.

Trent Alexander-Arnold is no longer scoring from free-kicks outside the box, either. The Neuro11 stuff was interesting, but doesn't seem to have worked thus far. Obviously van Dijk remains key in both boxes, and he missed quite a few games recently, and has been cleverly bypassed by opposition set-pieces in the last three games (the Reds conceded only woodwork-efforts since his return, before last night).

I would imagine that all of these issues can be rectified with training ground time, whenever that is possible. It may have to be next season now, starting in the summer, but being out of the cups could help in this regard; just as Liverpool went five months without a set-piece goal in early 2021, but then got six in the final four games, in part due to adding two big rookie centre-backs (and with Alisson scoring!), but also maybe having more time to work on them.

Set-pieces make such a huge difference in football, and this season, Liverpool can improve in that area with the same players.

And for the league to reschedule the postponed Chelsea away game three days after the Man City away game and four days before the Arsenal home game, all within the first nine days of April (more fool us), is absolutely bonkers – but being out of the Champions League, as looks certain, would at least make that less of a breaking point in the aim to return to the top four.

The positive, after 98 games since the start of last season, would mean: time to work on set-pieces; won’t have as many tired older legs with fewer games; more time for Bajcetic, Núñez and Gakpo to grow into the team and work on tactics in training; and with Díaz and Konaté back, hopefully finally see the strongest XI, with the strongest bench, and the injury crisis broken by not having games every three days until May.

TL;DR

So I'd sum up by saying that it's vital to see this as the start of a new team, bedding in, rather than end of the old one. It is, as all teams have to have at some point, a transitional season.

And that it doesn't need a full dismantling, just an engine retune. And that patience is required, regardless.

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