Editor’s Column: Eyeing Liverpool’s summer revamp – six players needed, minimum

It’s the final day of the transfer window, but the Paul Joyce tweet everyone was waiting for regarded Ibou Konate picking up an injury and not a shiny new midfielder… Ibrahima Konate is facing upto three weeks out with a hamstring injury. The Liverpool centre back will miss games against Wolverhampton Wanderers, Everton, Newcastle United […]

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It’s the final day of the transfer window, but the Paul Joyce tweet everyone was waiting for regarded Ibou Konate picking up an injury and not a shiny new midfielder…

Ibrahima Konate is facing upto three weeks out with a hamstring injury. The Liverpool centre back will miss games against Wolverhampton Wanderers, Everton, Newcastle United and potentially Real Madrid in the Champions League.

— paul joyce (@_pauljoyce) January 31, 2023

That means the Frenchman, probably our best player in the weekend defeat to Brighton, will miss Premier League matches but most importantly the Champions League ties against Real Madrid.

With Virgil van Dijk also out of action, we’re looking at a possibility of Joel Matip and Joe Gomez at best, and either Nat Philips or Rhys Williams at worst… Gulp.

Maybe Fabinho could drop back there, given he has definitely lost the legs required of a midfielder in a Jurgen Klopp team, but these are hypotheticals.

What is not though is that if Klopp is to have a second era of greatness he’ll need a new side.

This depends on many caveats. Firstly, who Liverpool are owned by come the summer transfer window, although it’s looking less and less likely that FSG will be completely out of the door by then. Either nothing will have happened, or there will be a minority stake sold, which is difficult to predict how that will influence Klopp’s transfer funds.

Chelsea got bought in the summer and new owner Todd Boehly has, rather recklessly it has to be said, spent over £600m already. They sit one place below us in the table currently but these are the kind of teams we’ll have to compete with going forward.

What will definitely have an impact on funds is whether Liverpool qualify for the Champions League or not. That would require either winning the competition this year or climbing to fourth in the table. Both look like enormous long-shots. So, we might end up at a crossroads where the money required for a rebuild is not available because we’ve left it too late – posing the question why we didn’t just build from a position of strength after winning the Premier League and Champions League.

So these are the potential situations in which we’re working, made all the more complicated by the fact Julian Ward, the current sporting director, is leaving.

It’s enough to give you a headache. But what is more sensible is to analyse what’s required on the pitch and hope those in power do the business. So, what do we need?

Defence

At the start of the season, we looked completely sorted at centre-back, but now I’m not so sure. Konate is the only player who looks a genuine short and long-term option. Van Dijk is maybe the best we’ve ever had, but his form before his injury was woeful. He’ll be at the club for many more seasons and he’ll improve on what he delivered before Christmas, but he seems to have lost his outrageous pace that used to get him out of many a troublesome situation. A new centre-back, given Matip and Gomez haven’t been up to scratch either, is a necessity. Joško Gvardiol would be nice, although Rb Leipzig will surely be asking a lot of money that we could better spend on midfield. Calvin Ramsay was supposed to be a backup option for Trent Alexander-Arnold, but he’s played only 124 minutes this season and the jury is obviously out on the 19-year-old. Given Trent’s form, a new right-back is required as well, opening up the potential of the Scouser moving to a controlling, passing role at the base of midfield – given the fact Fabinho and Henderson are no longer cut out for it. Alisson is great between the sticks, but if we cash in on Caoimhín Kelleher, probably smart as he’s too good for a no.2 role, we’ll need a new backup keeper, too. Andy Robertson is also not the player he once was, so a left-back at some stage might be handy as well, although right now there are more pressing concerns.

Midfield 

Three new ones, minimum. Naby Keita, Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain and James Milner will leave, while Fabinho and Henderson can surely no longer be considered starters. That’s five players out of the equation, while Harvey Elliott is definitely better in the front-three and Curtis Jones is incredibly injury prone. Arthur Melo will leave the club, too. Jude Bellingham is obviously the dream, but will the English superstar really join a club not in the Champions League? It would be massively surprising. We need an anchorman, like Declan Rice, and an energetic Gini Wijnaldum clone to provide legs, screening and the ability to retain possession. It’ll be expensive, but that’s what happens when you buy one midfielder (Thiago) in four years.

Attack

This is the area we’re definitely best stocked, although it has to be said a number of the current options are injury prone. Mo Salah is a machine in terms of his availability, but nobody else provides the potential minutes that he and Sadio Mane consistently delivered at their devastating best. Diogo Jota is great but crocked. Luis Diaz is coming back from a horrendous injury, while Darwin Nunez picks up annoying niggling issues quite regularly. Roberto Firmino is out of contract, and although it looks as though he’s staying, he’s very prone to injuries himself. Cody Gakpo, we don’t yet know enough about. When all are fit, our attack looks our best area by a mile and it would therefore be an error to use funds on the strike-force ahead of especially the midfield and increasingly the defence.

For me, a summer that didn’t include a backup goalkeeper, a right-back, a centre-back and three midfielders would leave us in the lurch.

Let’s see what happens.

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