Examining Liverpool’s Plan

ARTICLE BY MATTY

Feels like there’s a bit of unrest among the fanbase in regards to player transfers, which kinda makes sense. New manager, wanting to build off of what was an encouraging season with a bunch of new young players emerging as first team stars, surely we bolster the side with some big signings to get to the next level and win some trophies again. Or maybe not. This isn’t going to be some massive article, just examining what the club has said to the media so far about transfers and seeing what it could mean for Liverpool heading into the new season.

Liverpool find themselves in a bit of a tricky situation regarding their squad. You can make an argument for a number of upgrades to the team. Knowing the injury history of the CB group, a new player would be appreciated. Same with the DM spot, with Endo really the only established regular at the position. Sure, Mac Allister can play there but do we really want him there? Bajcetic would be the ideal long-term successor to Endo but can he stay healthy enough to prove he can be? We need to plan long-term to replace Salah, perhaps similarly with Robertson and Alisson. Are Kelleher and Tsimikas going to be out of their prime by the time Robbo and Ali are gone? If so, do we sell them and find younger options with higher potential?

For every question about the squad, though, there could already be an answer here. In goal, Marcelo Pitaluga has a ton of potential and has already impressed in training sessions over the previous year. At left-back, Owen Beck has made his breakthrough into the first team and could be seen as a long-term successor to Robbo. We’ve got plenty of talent at CB and could see Sepp van den Berg break into the first team if we can convince him to stay. At DM, Bajcetic is there waiting for an opportunity, so is Tyler Morton. Ben Doak and Kaide Gordon, among others, are in line at RW waiting for a chance. Liverpool could reasonably take the exact same team into next season and be okay. It’d be underwhelming to some fans, perhaps, but the talent and depth already exists, it just needs to be given the opportunity to prove itself.

Richard Hughes kept coming back to one word when he was asked about his transfer policy at his first press conference with the club: opportunistic. You can see it with the main rumor of the summer: Anthony Gordon to Liverpool. The main reason we went after Gordon, I believe, is because Newcastle were forced to sell either him or Minteh. They ended up selling Minteh and releasing a few players to get in the good graces of the new financial regulations, but I think it shows Liverpool’s idea for the summer. They don’t “need” to sign anyone. But they’ll sign someone if the opportunity presents itself. If a club is forced to sell a player we want, we’ll go in for him. It sounds like the money is there should the club choose to spend it, they’re just waiting for the right opportunity because they know they can fall back on what’s already here if nothing positive develops. Take from that what you want.