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News
- 44 minutes ago
Liverpool's Achilles Heel that could RUIN their season
Analysis
Liverpool are top of the Premier League having won three out of three games.
The Reds beat Newcastle at St. James' Park, overcame a tricky tie against Bournemouth and even beat Arsenal at Anfield. All this after beating Crystal Palace in the Community Shield.
Then they followed this up by signing Alexander Isak from Newcastle for a massive €144 million, taking their total spent in the summer transfer window to over €450 million. They are looking imperious, but are they?
Current ETV
Ryan Gravenberch
DM, M (C)
Liverpool
Ryan Gravenberch
DM, M (C)
Liverpool
ETV Range
€77.5M - €94.7M
The defending Premier League champions spent more than any other club in the world this summer to reinforce their squad and prepare for the future. They could barely be stopped last season, what's to stop them running the table now they've made their team even stronger? Surely nothing stands in their way, right?
Wrong.
Arne Slot's Chaos Football
Firstly there is just fate. Football is chaos, and sometimes things just go wrong for no real reason. Managers and sporting directors do what they can, but chaos is undefeated.
But looking at the team they've assembled, it's absolutely delightful to watch in attack, they drive forward and in numbers and Hugo Ekitike looks a much more devastating finisher than even Liverpool would have expected him to do.
Their wing-backs fly up the pitch and they overwhelm opponents with fast movements and laser-sharp shooting.
But as good as they are in attack, they are for sure weak at the back.
While Jeremie Frimpong and Milos Kerkez are athletic upgrades at wing-back, neither is a good defender. Moreover neither has the playmaking intelligence of Trent Alexander-Arnold, who departed the club in the summer.
The Reds relied a great deal on Trent's long-range passing ability to get the ball into the final third and to their danger men in attack. Without the Englishman things do not progress as consistently and at the same tempo as they did before.
Current ETV
Trent Alexander-Arnold
D (R)
Real Madrid
Trent Alexander-Arnold
D (R)
Real Madrid
ETV Range
€61.7M - €75.4M
But back to defence, in order to accomodate Florian Wirtz into the starting XI, Dominik Szoboszlai will have to drop out. Injuries have thus far allowed Liverpool to avoid addressing this issue, but it is going to need addressing.
Szoboszlai is so important because of his ceaseless defensive effort. Last season he and Luis Diaz provided an enormous defensive counterweight to help ensure Liverpool weren't overran. Diaz is gone now and does Szoboszlai get into the first choice XI?
Current ETV
Dominik Szoboszlai
M (C), AM (L)
Liverpool
Dominik Szoboszlai
M (C), AM (L)
Liverpool
ETV Range
€73M - €89.3M
All of which could be counter-balanced, perhaps, if Liverpool had a monster sweeper in defensive midfield. Think N'Golo Kante, Javier Mascherano, Claude Makelele, etc.
They don't. They have Ryan Gravenberch.
Liverpool's Achilles' Heel
The thing is, Gravenberch was an excellent defensive midfielder last season. With Diaz and Szoboszlai providing their superb effort, he was able to be a mostly effective defensive midfielder as he was largely on the front foot.
However, this season, when Liverpool start putting out XI's without either of those men, you'll see Gravenberch being asked to cover a lot more ground and on the back foot, too. He'll be in reactive mode, which doesn't suit him at all.
STATS
Ryan Gravenberch
DM, M (C)
Liverpool
Ryan Gravenberch
DM, M (C)
Liverpool
Gravenberch is a defensive midfielder in the Busquets-mould, which means that you need to keep up a relentless press to allow him to defend in a way that best suits him.
Liverpool have yet to do that this season, and unless they do (highly unlikely given their new signings and how they all play) then Ryan Gravenberch is going to be Liverpool's Achilles' Heel this season.
Not because he isn't good, he's great, but he'll be stretched to his limit by the structure of the side and having to be in reactive mode all the time. Especially when his back-up is Wataru Endo, a lovely lad but not someone you'd want starting games, especially games of consequence.
An injury meant Gravenberch wasn't seriously involved with Liverpool this season until the Arsenal game. And without the Dutchman they conceded six goals across those three games, and plenty more chances besides. With him? A clean sheet (albeit aided by Arsenal's own profligacy).
Gravenberch is so critically important to Liverpool's defence, especially as they failed to add Marc Guehi to their defence too (though not for lack of trying).
Is there an answer?
Yes. Sort of.
Arne Slot's Diamond solution
If the structure would expose Gravenberch, change the structure!
Switch to a 4-4-2 diamond. This formation allows for your wing-backs to be as attacking as possible while Gravenberch remains at the base of midfield. But this time, he'll have Alexis MacAllister and Dominik Szoboszlai and Florian Wirtz with him.
Current ETV
Alex MacAllister
M (C)
Alex MacAllister
M (C)
ETV Range
€80K - €0.1M
The diamond midfield allows Gravenberch to hold while MacAllister and Szoboszlai move up and down the pitch, while Florian Wirtz remains on the field to wreak havoc as a 10. This provides security, plus the added pressing from Szoboszlai will prevent Gravenberch from being over-exposed.
Another bonus of this formation is, in theory, it allows both of Liverpool's €100 million strikers on the field at the same time as a devastating pairing of sharp movement and clinical finishing.
Although for now Mohamed Salah would likely take one of those striker spots, but in terms of building for life after Salah, the 4-4-2 diamod sets Liverpool up kind of perfectly.
Or Arne Slot's Reds can stick with 4-2-3-1, play some immaculate attacking football and make a tonne of defensive mistakes that eventually opponents are going to start punishing with a devastating regularity.
And that could absolutely ruin their season.
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