Lively Younger Liverpool Show the Future Can Be Bright Again

Youthful energy and compact shape leads to refreshing win

Well, that was more like it!

Energy. Pressing. Movement. Interplay. Invention. And a nice compact shape, designed to soak up pressure and control the game; made all the easier after the early goal.

Without creating lots of chances (given the absence of five main goalscorers, with only one fit for the bench), Liverpool played extremely well with a young, largely inexperienced side.

A 1-0 win at Wolves with maybe only three first-team shoo-ins is a sign of the potential these younger players have.

The average age was 25.4, some 3.3 years younger than the team that surrendered so alarmingly at Brighton. James Milner alone raised the average age last night by 1.1 years, but he played like he was 24 again.

The team that started the season, at Fulham, was a horrific 29.4, which should have been a red flag. (Again, I don't criticise Jürgen Klopp much, and rarely over selections as I never have all the information a manager can have, but as I said at the time, Ibrahima Konaté surely should have been ahead of the excellent but ageing and slower Joël Matip in preseason, and not picking up a kick to his knee in the "B" team. A lot of the time the team has had to be on the old side, due to the skew of injuries hitting mostly those aged 27 and younger.)

It wasn’t the most balanced of teams in terms of age, physicality and goal-threat last night, but it had some legs in midfield and two quick centre-backs.

The trick will be adding the more established players to add back the goal-threat and the creativity without losing the energy.

Yet Darwin Núñez, Luis Díaz (who I've said since last season could be retooled as an attacking midfielder if necessary) and Diogo Jota will do that, hopefully within 4-6 weeks for the latter two; while Roberto Firmino will provide an option if more possession and less pace is required.

For some of the younger players, it's still a year or two before they'll be established, and maybe a year or two more before they'll be dominant forces, but every game they play now is part of a very public education.

Some have had mixed seasons and had difficult games, but each, at their best, has shown more than a few glimpses of what they can offer.

The next stage, as it is for all kids, is getting bigger, stronger, faster, wiser and more experienced (as often happens in stages between 18 and 22), but in a generally injury-ravaged campaign, they've gained priceless experience.

As I've said since first spying him in the U18s two years ago, Stefan Bajcetic is an absolute gem, and you just need to see him put a bit of meat onto those skinny legs (which look brittle with the low socks and shin-pads), and develop the stamina and power that comes with age. The more I see him, the more he reminds me of a young Steven Gerrard; indeed, he’s better at the same age, albeit Gerrard went into overdrive aged 20.

Stefan Bajcetic is the New Steven Gerrard (Possibly)

Bajcetic reads the game extremely well, is quick and brave, and superb technically, including when turning himself or the ball quickly around corners. We’ve yet to see much of his long-range passing, but he can do that, too.

That he had cramp after 70 (admittedly hard-working) minutes is a reminder that he only recently turned 18, just as Ben Doak, a high-octane substitute, recently turned 17. (More good news is that Kaide Gordon, still only 18, is stepping up his training after a year of growth-related issues; he’s an absolute gem too, but now its Calvin Ramsay whose suffering growing pains, and Curtis Jones’ progress, at 21, has been slowed by injuries. It’s a reminder that staying fit is always partly down to luck.)

Harvey Elliott and Fabio Carvalho, like Gordon, Doak and Bajcetic, while a little older, remain elite age-group players – but probably not quick enough to flourish in the attacking positions regularly (and Carvalho, like Bajcetic, needs to fill out a bit, to stop being bounced out of possession – again, give it a year or two, and you’ll likely see a big leap in his game). But their busyness helped the team brim with youthful energy.

Elliott looked more comfortable running forward without having Mo Salah to pass to, and aside from the superb goal, made contributions in all areas of the pitch, including a last-minute headed clearance. His confidence was clearly low of late, but that changed with the wonderful strike to win the game.

I haven't liked some of the criticism he's had this season, as a lad of 19 who doesn't have blistering pace or a 6ft frame to help him out. He's busy, clever, and learning in the spotlight. He's got a great personality, real character. At the moment there's no natural, ideal position for him in a 4-3-3, but that could change as he improves.

(I keep reminding people that, at the exact same age, Paul Scholes – a small, clever, busy player lacking blistering pace – had yet to play a single professional game; Elliott is learning on display, and has 100-or-so games to his name now. Again, when he's 22 he could be so much more dominant, and perhaps adapt more to the midfield role. I also keep reminding people that it took Steven Gerrard 50 games to score his second Liverpool goal, and I see so many similarities between him and Bajcetic, as I wrote on my separate ZenDen Substack which requires its own subscription, at the same age; indeed, Bajcetic is still younger than the skinny Gerrard who made his Liverpool debut.)

The second half of my article and some thoughts from our other scribes follow below, including some revealing analysis on the team's pressing.