Playing the Liverpool Manager
Exploring why Ekitike is better than Isak, who should be Liverpool's fourth center back, and what they're smoking over at the Emirates.
Find a parking spot, I guess.
Next identify the best, most available player in the squad. The one whose skill propels the others forward most of the time, but whose professionalism propels them forward always.
In Liverpool’s case, you end up with two answers.
Mo Salah and Virgil Van Dijk.
When you start with Mo Salah on the right, you immediately know some things about your formation. We start in a 4-3-3, but it’ll move all over the place in game.
You also know some things about your right back. It should be someone with physical power who can turn around quickly. If Mo loses the ball, a lot of players will be out of position. He’ll need to recover rapidly.
He needs to have enough of a first touch to play with Mo but he doesn’t have to be the one supplying him in behind all the time. It’s a little inconvenient, actually, as it puts Salah 1v1 with his defender closer to the corner flag than the goal.
I’d rather my right back provide space for Salah via running power.
Bradley’s perfect. Check. Frimpong provides an option against lesser sides at home.
Who is Mo Salah passing to? I want a CM, LW, and ST who are penetrative runners. The LB also becomes an option here, as shown above.
Now we have two positions (LB, LW) whose profiles are coming into perspective.
Left back needs to be an endurance runner, as I expect that position to cover more ground than any other. So I go to Hungary, obviously. It would be nice if he added more of a goal threat than Robertson.
Found Kerkez. Check.
Left wing needs to be a finisher, direct and preferably with height. Salah loves a curled ball to the back post, and we need to offer him this option or he’ll be overrun in midfield when receiving our out-ball.
Cody Gakpo. Check.
So far our team looks like this:
But that only describes first wave attacks. What if that attack needs to be recycled? I’d want my attack to look more like this:
The wingers go wide, the striker returns to the middle. This gives space for both fullbacks and two of the midfielders to advance.
If we had a dribbler on the left wing our midfielders / fullbacks could progress up the pitch into the above shape. That’s why I suspect Liverpool are very glad to keep Luis Diaz and will only replace him with a dribbler who is just as good or better.
Rodrygo fits that profile.
But first, let’s do some work on the defense. Because Virgil is our other best player, he slots into whatever positions he wants. Konate will be his partner for now with Gomez supporting both positions.
That leaves space for one more center back.
I’ve sorted by minutes played (if Gomez is one of the four, we need someone with a good injury record) and tackles put in across Europe’s top 5 leagues. I inverted the tackle list though, as I wanted to look at defenders who put in the fewest. That’s a rough way to show who was in the right position most often throughout the season.
You can strike out numbers 1, 3, 6, 7, 8, and 10, as they are all over 28 years of age. I’d like to find someone a little younger who can stabilize our defense for a few years as Virgil gets older and Konate flirts with Madrid.
#5 is already ours, so that leaves a CB list of only three - Evan N’Dicka, Danilho Doekhi, and Nathan Collins.
Of the three, Danilho Doekhi stands out. He’s Dutch, if you’re into that kind of thing. I wouldn’t be upset with Nathan Collins either, who Liverpool have reportedly shown interest in.
No midfielders yet, but it makes sense to do them last. They glue the whole team together, and glue doesn’t have any purpose on its own.
Unless you huff it, like they must be doing over at the Emirates.
Midfield is where you find Liverpool's 3rd, 4th, and 5th best players. Mac Allister, Gravenberch, and Szoboszlai.
What are Mac Allister’s biggest strengths and weaknesses? He’s a combative genius, but he can’t play every game. He’s also a little short. He wants to play in one of the number 8 positions.
So now I need height in a position next to Mac Allister. And running power. I put Gravenberch in for height and Szoboszlai in for the running. They both can carry the ball as well if passing lanes to Mac Allister or the forward players are shut down.
That’s why this midfield looks so good - it was built extremely well.
We don’t quite have a full team yet…
…but we’re getting close.
I realize that we’ve lost some penetrative passing with Alexander-Arnold’s departure, and I know we’ll lose more when Mac Allister can’t play the odd game. It’s probably Szoboszlai’s worst attribute in a suite of really great attributes, and Gravenberch hasn’t shown incisive passing to be a big part of his game.
Everyone has cover but Szoboszlai. Jones for Mac Allister, Endo for Gravenberch... It would be great if we could find a predominately left sided attacking midfielder who offers that incisive pass we’re missing. It would be really, really great if he were an option himself on first wave attacks.
Florian Wirtz fits. You know, if I’m dreamin’.
Goalkeepers we’ll do next, just to keep you hanging on for the strikers…
I have Alisson, but talks with him have revealed that he’s playing too many games. That meeting was attended not by his agent, but by his hamstring.
Looking for his backup, I need someone who is primed to take over as early as next year. I’ve also noticed that I’m lacking height in the team, and set piece defending is one area where we need to improve.
The admins have already done Mamardashvilli. Top fellas.
Strikers….
We need to accommodate Salah’s passing for our first wave attacks, so the strikers we choose should be able to run off their center back into the space that Salah vacates. Strikers have to run channels with defenders pulling all over them, so it has to be a strong runner, not a nimble one, especially if paired with Rodrygo.
That means our perfect striker profiles as a strong runner and good in the 1v1, so he can beat the defender that pulls with him to the RW position. From that position his final ball could be more important than pure finishing, if I’m forced with the choice.
Looking at my options, Darwin Nunez fits the bill. A bit like Luis Diaz, we’re happy enough to keep him if a big offer doesn’t come in. Either way, we want to start with someone else on the first game of the season, as Darwin doesn’t suit our second wave attacking quite as well.
What metric should I use to search for strikers?
I choose to look at strikers in Europe who have the most Goals + Assists last season, then sort them by assists. Here’s that shopping list:
Wouldn’t / Can’t have numbers 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 9, 13, 14. The remaining names are below:
Raphina
Ekitike
Retegui
Watkins
Kleindienst
Isak
Immediately I want to remove Raphina and Watkins, one because I don’t think he’s a center forward and the other because of age. That leaves four… Ekitike being top. Why not go for our first choice?
And leave Isak to take points off our competition. A good Newcastle side only benefits Liverpool’s title charge. It benefits our title chances more than the difference between Ekitike and Isak.
So… if all goes well in negotiations, we’re done! Here’s the first team:
Think we’ll win anything?
Nicely done Britt.
I think it's unlikely we could ever fulfil that particular shopping list but, if we did, we'd definitely win the transfer window!