My Pledge To Arne Slot, In Transitional Season

This is a superb young squad, with lots of players capable of pushing on this season

First, my pledge to Arne Slot is to be patient, and to allow him the freedom to experience ups and downs – as I’ve done with pretty much every Liverpool manager bar Roy Hodgson (who seriously alarmed me very early on, with a horrible defeatist attitude clear from preseason; while Brendan Rodgers seemed to also invite some early issues, but he still deserved some time and patience).

This is a transitional season, beyond all doubt. It doesn’t mean having no expectations, but it does mean leeway is essential.

So, what is a transitional season?

Usually it means a new manager. Or it can mean a young team. Sometimes it can mean a new director of football, and a change of approach across the club.

Right now, it’s all these things. Plus, replacing a legendary manager, who no one in football could replace in terms of like-for-like.

Another way it could be a transitional season is to buy 20 new players, Chelsea-style, but Liverpool won’t be doing that. Obviously signings will be made, but anyone wanting guaranteed game-time will be disappointed.

On the plus side, to my mind, this is the best squad Liverpool have ever had, and nowhere near its peak. Klopp left a mass of elite potential, and we knew that; we knew the team wasn’t the finished article, and that the young players were ahead of the curve, but still improving.

Equally, it’s the hardest to pick a best XI from, albeit that depends on what Arne Slot is looking to do, and how the system and the coaching will suit and improve some players.

Not a lot has changed with the personnel, except they’re almost all “one year better”.

There are probably fewer “world-class” players than four or five years ago, but also, more players with the potential to become world-class. Slot is the kind of manager/coach who can help with that.

I don’t think people realise how good this Liverpool squad is, as they don’t factor in the typical upward trend of younger players.

I carry an idea around in my head, after parsing so much data for 25 years and seeing so many graphs.

With this in mind, I decided to look at a few bits of data to show what I mean. If you think a young player is fast, they are (barring injuries) not at their fastest before 23.

These are just three examples from random datasets I’ve collated, of improvements up to the age of 23 or 24. (The scales and metrics are different for each, so I’ve removed them; the general trajectory is what counts.)

While different for different positions (and there are always outliers), I’d say that there are basically six stages to a footballer’s career, with no two taking an identical path, but the general trends as follows:

1. True Rookie (teens)

2. Boy-To-Man (19-23)

3. Young and Proven (23-25)

4. Imperial Phase (25-30)

5. Melt Zone (30-34)

6. Late Melt Age (34+)

For goalkeepers and centre-backs, and possibly defensive midfielders, you can add a couple of years to the ages; ditto bigger centre-forwards who lack blistering pace, with blistering pace often the asset that hastens promotion to a first team.

I saw a lot of Michael Owen live in his first year in the team, home, and away, and aged 17 he would often get outsmarted by wily, big old centre-backs, who used experience and positioning to negate his threat – but if he ever got past them, which he only needed to do a few times per game (and usually did so), they were toast.

Excluding young reserves who have only played a handful of games, the following players are all far from peaking:

Conor Bradley, Ryan Gravenberch, Dominic Szoboszlai, Stefan Bajcetic, Ben Doak, Caoimhín Kelleher, Jarell Quansah, Sepp van den Berg, Tyler Morton, Fabio Carvalho, Harvey Elliott, James McConnell, Bobby Clark and Curtis Jones.

(Trey Nyoni looks the best of the next wave, and after two years out, Kaide Gordon is a wildcard at this point. Nyoni looks good enough already, but not necessarily physically robust enough yet. And in Rio Ngumoha, Liverpool are signing the best 15-year-old in the country, who was already playing for Chelsea’s U21s and training with their first team.)

That’s FOURTEEN players aged 23 or under (and 25 for the keeper). Some will go on loan; some sold, with definite buybacks.

Go back a year, and think of what you expected of Quansah in 2023/24, maybe Bradley if you hadn’t followed him at Bolton, or assumed him winning every player of the year was because it was third their. I didn’t name them, but did you even know much about Jayden Danns and Lewis Koumas?

Look at a suite of Elliott’s ‘progressive actions’ data, and it’s better than the elite playmakers of the Premier League. Bajcetic, if fully fit, is still on course to be a world-class midfielder. If it clicks for Gravenberch, he can do it all, while Szoboszlai was electric and energetic until a mid-season injury.

While improvement is not a given, I’d say that almost all of the above listed were better, or achieving more, than Mo Salah, Virgil van Dijk, Fabinho, Alisson, Sadio Mané, Roberto Firmino and Andy Robertson at the same age. None of those were world-class at 23, let alone 21 or 19 or 17.

Of Jürgen Klopp’s all-conquering 2018-2020 XI, only Trent Alexander-Arnold, Jordan Henderson, James Milner, Joe Gomez, Joel Matip and Gini Wijnaldum were proven at high levels as teenagers or in their early 20s, and even then, they too generally got better, injuries aside.

At 18, Steven Gerrard had potential. By 20, I put him in my all-time Liverpool midfield, in an early published piece, I felt he was that good. As I’ve said before, he scored one goal in his first 50 games, and about 200 after.

Of the Fab Fourteen, I’ve not included Owen Beck, who also excelled on loan, as did Luke Chambers, while Calum Scanlon is an exciting attacking full-back.

(Calvin Ramsay can still be elite, but has had a terrible two years with injuries, and needs a season on loan at Preston to just get functioning again. Plus, Bradley has usurped him.)

Then there are the teenagers who got goals in the cups last season. I really don’t know what to expect of Danns, other than he’s got it all for a lad of 18, but I can’t say how “ready” he is.

Jones and Elliott have already hinted that the new style will suit them better, albeit they may also be trying to talk their way into the XI.

Players (pretty much all aged 25) who are still young enough to improve a lot, and including those newer to the team/league:

Trent Alexander-Arnold, Cody Gakpo, Ibrahima Konaté, Alexis Mac Allister and Darwin Núñez.

These can all now enter their Imperial Phase in the next year or two – a stage which currently only includes Diogo Jota and Luis Díaz, Joe Gomez and for a keeper, Alisson Becker, before he slips into the Melt Zone.

(Kostas Tsimikas is in the peak years but I’m not sure he’ll ever be more than a decent backup.)

Not all of the squad will suit Arne Slot’s style; perhaps Konaté is not quite adept enough on the ball, and may remain unable to play back-to-back games (but the new fitness regime could help such players).

Not everyone can succeed out of 30-odd players. At any point, if someone is doing incredibly well, it closes the door (for the time being) on someone else. Some great players will get injured.

Equally, Slot may get more out of certain players than Jürgen Klopp did, and some of Klopp’s brighter stars may be usurped. Klopp did not bequeath a squad at peak age, or even close.

In the Melt Zone, but perhaps able to adapt their games (and not in the Late Melt Age), are Virgil van Dijk, Mo Salah, Wataru Endō and Andy Robertson.

Form varies. Players improve, but improvement is rarely linear in life; two steps forward, one back, is common. But with every year, up to the 30-something Melt Zone, improvement can be taken as likely, if luck is on a player’s side. (Equally, you could sign someone for £57m, and they spend the whole season injured.)

About 18 months ago, Jota was highly profligate, wasting a ton of xG, over a number of seasons for Liverpool and Wolves; thereafter he was highly prolific.

Is he maturing into a cold-eyed finisher aged 27, or is he just running hot? Díaz, at the same age, had always been deadly, but then became wasteful, albeit in a season of trauma. (And I still think he’s the best improviser in the six-yard box I’ve ever seen.)

Career-wise, going back several years, Gakpo is the Reds’ best finisher in relation to xG, albeit he lost his mojo last season – but regained it later on, and shone again at a major tournament in orange. He looked great on the left wing this summer.

Núñez could tear an opposition defence apart, or end up punching people in the crowd. Logic suggests he will mature (and taller strikers peak later), but I wouldn’t bank on it. With Núñez, literally nothing would surprise me, good or bad.

**The final part of this article and the debate section is for paying subscribers only**