It’s been a season to forget for Liverpool. The Reds started the season as favourites for the Premier League title. The then champions had lost a number of players in the summer but invested huge sums, retooling key areas of the team and setting themselves up to retain their crown.
Florian Wirtz, Hugo Ekitike, Alexander Isak, Milos Kerkez, Giorgi Mamardashvili, Jeremie Frimpong and Giovanni Leoni arrived for a combined £450million and though it wasn’t pretty, Arne Slot guided his side to five wins from five. It was supposed to eventually click for the Reds but it never did.
A bad run of form turned into the norm for the Merseyside club and inconsistency plagued the champions for the remainder of the season. It wasn’t a blip. It was their level and despite trying different things at various times across the campaign, Slot wasn’t ever able to come up with a solution. It’s why, with Champions League football still not assured, the Reds failed to win a single game in May. They did enough to secure a top-five finish though.
As far as seasons go, a top five finish was the bare minimum. It shouldn’t be viewed as a success and other clubs may have parted ways with their Head Coach after such a disappointing campaign. According to reports though, Slot is set to remain in charge of Reds. How does he get things back on track though?
Bet £10 & Get £30 in Free Bets with Bet365
Not signed up to bet365 yet? Here's how to claim one of the best bookmaker welcome offers around...
- Open an account (here's a link)
- Make a qualifying deposit of between £5* and £10*
- Claim the offer to receive three times your deposit in 'Free Bets'.
- To release your 'Free Bets', place qualifying bets to the value of your qualifying deposit and allow those bets to settle.
- Your 'Free Bets' will become available shortly after your qualifying bets have settled
- To use your 'Free Bets', select 'Use bet credits' in the bet slip.
Min deposit requirement. Free Bets are paid as Bet Credits and are available for use upon settlement of qualifying bets. Min odds, bet and payment method exclusions apply. Returns exclude Bet Credits stake. Time limits and T&Cs apply.
Get the attack firing
“If you asked me one word to describe this season, I would describe that with the word ‘injury‘. We brought in a lot of players last season. When they’re available again, that will be a change. Every football club will sign one or two and we will do that. We need everyone available and then our results will be better.”
Slot’s words in his press conference following the 1-1 draw with Brentford on the final day of the season.
Liverpool, once again, named Cody Gakpo as a centre-forward. Isak was only fit enough for a place on the bench while Ekitike isn’t going to be seen again until the New Year.
Injuries have deprived Liverpool of key players during key periods of the season. Slot does have a valid point there. However, he’s also been responsible for the Reds looking blunt even when players are available.
For the first time in his Liverpool career, Mohamed Salah failed to score at least 15 in the Premier League. Gakpo had a down year too. For the first time since joining the Reds, he failed to score more than the previous campaign.
You can blame injuries but the fact is, Slot had players available and couldn’t utilise them. His tactics nullified the game-changers and match-winners and, as a result, Liverpool stopped winning matches.
There were games in which Ekitike struggled to get involved in things while Isak would be replaced after an hour having had five touches. The fact Wirtz, a £116million attacking midfielder, finished with the same number of goals as Ryan Gravenberch, one half of the double pivot, is a concern.
You need to score goals to win games. That needs to be fixed.
Figure out a plan for Florian Wirtz
When Liverpool managed to convince Wirtz to join the club ahead of Manchester City and Bayern Munich, it was seen as a major coup. All of the reports seemed to suggest the German playmaker had been sold on the idea of being the main man of the Reds in attack. According to various journalists, Slot had sold the Bayer Leverkusen maestro on having the forward line shaped around him at Anfield.
There was, apparently, a clear plan in place for him.
Yet, as the season progressed, it became evident that this might not actually be the case. The Liverpool No.7 was shifted around the team, popping up as an attacking midfielder, playing on the left side of the attack, the right side of a front four, and even operating in a double pivot at times.
As a result, Wirtz wasn’t able to really impose himself on the team. He wasn’t able to make it his and was often on the periphery.
If the Reds are to be successful, they need to get their £116million involved in the right areas. They need to make it his team and allow him to pull the strings. They need to create an environment that allows him to do his thing. If they can’t he’s going to go down as one of the biggest flops in history.
No pressure, Arne.
Extracting value from swing positions
Full-backs aren’t going to make or break a team. You can get by with average players in these roles if they’re used properly. If strengths are embellished and weaknesses are masked, you can pretty much play anyone in those positions and it’ll be fine.
However, Liverpool opted against that last summer. They instead signed specialists for those positions, parting with a rumoured £70million to bring in Kerkez and Frimpong.
The duo shared similar traits. Both are runners. They aren’t ball-playing full-backs and you aren’t going to want to make them a key part of your build-up. Play to their strengths and they can damage the opposition. Slot’s use of them this term has been confusing. Kerkez, for example, spent the first half of the season seeing more of the ball as a makeshift third centre-back while Frimpong was used more as a right-winger than a full-back.
Having wrong profiles in key roles weakens Liverpool. So either Slot needs to coach the pair to the level required or tweak his style to suit the duo properly. This shouldn’t be such a key position for the Reds but given the outlay, they need to be getting some value from both full-backs.
