Starting Over

ARTICLE BY MATTY

Typically my friends like to pride themselves on their ability to understand nuance. That not every situation is the same, even if it initially looks it. Liverpool fans, as expectations reached a fever pitch after the Klopp era and Slot’s first season, are perhaps more demanding than ever before. It’s understandable. We just got back on our perch, what do you mean we have to wait before we go again? These last 2-3 years have been a painful breakup of a beloved core of players who won everything at the club. It really started with Mane, then Firmino, Fabinho, Henderson, Milner, Matip. Now Salah and Robertson and Trent. The entire core of winning is gone, with the exception of two players still operating at a world class level: Virgil van Dijk and Alisson. Liverpool, operating from a position of strength, have made numerous attempts to form a new winning core. Consider the beginning of Iraola’s reign to be a prelude, season one of a rebuild that could prove to be sensational if given patience.

I think football moves at such a fast pace nowadays, literally and figuratively. Pacy wingers are all over the place on every team, players are flying into more tackles harder than ever, there is less and less time to make decisions. I think this is why games have become more boring on the eye. Everything is done at such an elite level now, and the defensive part of the game has gone up a level to match the offensive firepower we saw in recent years past. Tactics seem to perennially shift as well. I’ve grown tired of looking at a particular team and thinking “oh this tactic is part of the future of the game”. Someone will have found a way to beat that the following season and introduce a new unstoppable strategy that will quickly be stopped. There was a clear and sudden shift in how teams wanted to play last season, they had the pace and physicality to really make the games defensive and perhaps dirty. Liverpool, in contrast, saw how well a midfield of Gravenberch, Mac Allister and Szoboszlai had performed and wanted to add more technical ability to really try and go for a Champions League title. I think Slot was caught flat footed and, not having a proper preseason due to the death of Jota, did not have much of a chance to meaningfully steer the ship out of the lurch they’d found themselves in.

All this is to say that I do believe fans, to a certain extent, can’t keep up with everything happening so damn fast. We yearn for a proper destroyer or a proper fullback when neither of those player archetypes really exist anymore. Even Arsenal, who seem to highlight the defensive Premier League style even though their attacking movements are quite free flowing when all their best players are healthy and playing together, don’t have a destroyer. Zubimendi, the player who was once thought and perhaps is still thought to be too small for the league, is their “defensive midfielder”. PSG don’t have a typical defensive midfielder either, but the combination of Fabian Ruiz, Vitinha and Joao Neves can pick teams apart quite well and run themselves ragged out of possession. We yearn for the days when football was proper and not the shape shifting chameleon it is now. When it was easy and simple to understand, rather than needing some sort of math degree to figure out how a player brings value outside of the traditional goals and assists. The reality is the past is the past and we can’t go back. We can only look to change the future.

While the moves don’t all make sense in the present moment, I do think Liverpool have a very exciting future ahead. They’re well stocked with young talent in the midfield, with players like Mac Allister and Szoboszlai who can act as veterans in a few years while still being in their prime. Beyond those two, you have the swashbuckling Ryan Gravenberch who only two seasons ago was deemed the best young player in the Premier League. Playing him at the base of midfield was seen as a genius move from Slot. Now, as the league has changed, he’s berated for playing the same role we once praised him for. Florian Wirtz, who has clearly put on some muscle, is still adjusting to life in the Premier League but you can see his confidence and his processing skills grow in real time. Everything’s becoming a bit faster for him, a necessity in the current state of the league. He’s still only 23 years old. Beyond him, Trey Nyoni looks ready to take the next step in his development, still only 19. He looks very polished on the ball, capable of dribbling through the midfield and making smart decisions with his passing. I like that his pathway for development is open, but not open wide. Even if the squad still has holes at the moment, we have the luxury to let our best academy products grow at their own speed, sheltering them from a league and a play style that has absolutely killed so many careers in recent years.

This is the main reason I’m very happy we brought in Munoz and Barcola this summer. Rio Ngumoha no longer has to play every game, nor will fans demand he plays every game. Iraola gets to choose when the electrifying young talent is best suited to play, rather than run an 18-year-old with a kid’s body into the ground in a man’s league. We also desperately needed pace on the wings, and we got it. Pace opens up space, space that can be exploited by either passing or running through it. Isak or Ekitike run through it, Wirtz passes to them, goals scored. There’s a ton of exciting talent in the attack, not just from our two expensive but brilliant strikers but also our four excellent wingers, Wirtz knitting things together, then lastly Szoboszlai and Mac Allister capable of hitting thunderbolts from outside the box. When Conor Bradley is healthy again, the idea is that Bradley and Kerkez can be strong fullbacks flying up and down the field. Ronald Araujo looks a shrewd addition, adding veteran influence and versatility to a back line in desperate need of it. Jeremy Jacquet looks like a future superstar, while Giovanni Leoni was considered only last season by Arrigo Sacchi to be the future of Italian soccer. Lucca Brughmans is an 18-year-old goalkeeper taller than Virgil who’s also been a first team goalie since the age of 15. Ifeanyi Ndukwe looked like a revelation as an 18-year-old CB in the preseason. James McConnell and Lewis Koumas, former Klopp youngsters, made such an impression on Iraola that they’re now first team depth players who add different qualities to the group. My point? There’s a ton of talent at the club right now, and most of it has been acquired very recently. It needs time and patience to develop.

I’m not going to pretend I know exactly what the next great Liverpool team is going to look like, nor am I definitively going to say that Iraola will lead such a team. What I’m saying is that Liverpool have done an exceptionally good job in recent years of buying up some of the best young talent in the world. It’ll take years for these players, many of whom are teenagers, to develop, but they’ve also already shown incredible promise for their age. I’ve previously thought Liverpool’s transfer strategy was scattershot in recent years, leaving gaping holes in the team. While I do think there are holes in the current squad, it’s worth remembering that Ekitike, who was our best player last season, is seriously injured. And also still 23. Leoni is 19 and seriously hurt. Bradley is 23 and seriously hurt. Three first team players, arguably all three would seriously challenge for starting places, and they’re all out long term. Then you look at the delicate balancing act the club is currently trying with Ngumoha and Nyoni, knowing how precious their talent is while also acknowledging the hard truth that most younger players get their careers ruined due to injury in this league. There’s a lot of new stuff with this new age of Liverpool football. It’s really year one of a mini-rebuild. There’s a lot of talent to be excited about. Time to see Iraola try to make it all work together.