Given the way in which they began the summer, Liverpool head into the new season with a surprising level of pessimism rising among supporters.
By Jack Lusby, ThisIsAnfield.com
After a pre-season that brought trips to Germany, Singapore and Preston, with victories over Karlsruher, Leicester and Darmstadt, a draw with Greuther Fürth and defeat to Bayern Munich, their Premier League campaign gets underway at Chelsea.
It is a marquee fixture for the broadcasters, and undoubtedly a tough one for both sides, as Jürgen Klopp revisits his first-ever meeting as Liverpool manager when he stands opposite Mauricio Pochettino.
The hope was that, by now, things would have been wrapped up and the Reds would have put their woes of 2022/23 behind them. But despite a promising start to preparations for the season upon us, progress has certainly stalled.
That leaves a host of questions still to be answered ahead of Liverpool’s opener at Stamford Bridge.
Which formation will Klopp go for?
While this would have seemed a straightforward question at the end of last season, as Klopp successfully pivoted to a 3-4-3 formation that turned Liverpool’s fortunes around, the trip to Chelsea leaves it uncertain.
“We have to find, in the next five or six days, a formation for the Chelsea game, not for the whole season,” the manager explained after the final friendly of pre-season against Darmstadt.
“And then we go from there.”
The unexpected departures of Fabinho and Jordan Henderson, married to a lack of urgency in the transfer market, may have left Klopp temporarily unable to set up with his preferred box midfield.
Instead, we could expect a return to his tried-and-trusted 4-3-3, at least for the first game of the season.
If not Caicedo, who begins the season as No. 6?
With Fabinho joining Al Ittihad and a host of options out through injury, Klopp trialled a number of players as his deep-lying midfielder through pre-season.
Trent Alexander-Arnold, Curtis Jones, Alexis Mac Allister and youngster James McConnell were all tested as No. 6, to varying degrees of success.
As the bizarre Moises Caicedo saga rages on between Liverpool and Chelsea, there is no set option for that role at present, which makes it a difficult decision for Klopp regardless of his formation.
As both Thiago and Stefan Bajčetić are unlikely to be deemed fit enough to start, the smart money will be on either Jones or Mac Allister to serve as the nominal tempo-setter alongside a drifting Alexander-Arnold.
Will Mac Allister and Szoboszlai stick the landing?
Though their pursuit of other targets has stalled since, Liverpool sanctioned a significant outlay at the start of the summer with £95 million paid to bring in both Mac Allister from Brighton and Dominik Szoboszlai from RB Leipzig.
Two young but well-established names, the pair took up the No. 10 and No. 8 shirts respectively and are widely expected to claim key roles as the campaign kicks off.
When it comes to an early impact, it seems likely that Mac Allister – who shone as a link between midfield and attack in pre-season and already has 98 games’ experience in the Premier League – will be more prominent.
But that makes Szoboszlai’s role all the more intriguing.
The Hungarian was decidedly quieter throughout pre-season, but if he can hit the ground running he could give Liverpool a devastating new outlet as an advanced No. 8.
Who starts in Klopp’s first-choice attack?
Liverpool were prolific in their warmup friendlies, with 18 goals scored across five games, and all but three of those came from their five senior forwards.
While Mohamed Salah seems guaranteed a starting berth on the right, there is a case to argue for any of Darwin Núñez, Diogo Jota, Luis Díaz and Cody Gakpo to join him in the first-choice attack.
Núñez and Jota, with four apiece, were the most consistent source of goals in those pre-season games, but Díaz, with three, looks to have a point to prove and Gakpo, who netted twice, has more value as heir to Roberto Firmino.
The most probable duo to starting alongside Salah seems to be Gakpo and Jota, but the variety available will leave Pochettino and managers across the Premier League guessing in the weeks to come.
Will there be any more signings?
With seven senior players – Fabinho, Henderson, Firmino, James Milner, Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain, Naby Keita and Fabio Carvalho – leaving and only two arriving in the form of Mac Allister and Szoboszlai, there are legitimate concerns over Liverpool’s transfer business.
The short-term appointment of Jörg Schmadtke as sporting director – based, according to reports, remotely from his house in Ibiza – has not lent any certainty to proceedings, either.
But there are still weeks to go until deadline day and the pursuit is on for at least one more signing, with a British-record deal agreed for Brighton midfielder Caicedo only for the lure of Chelsea to cast doubt over his plans.
Whether any new arrivals land before the curtain raises in the Premier League is doubtful.
Surely – surely – though, Klopp and the club’s hierarchy cannot miss the opportunity to further strengthen the squad between now and 11pm on September 1.
Can Liverpool still depend on the old reliables?
There’s no doubt there is a rebuild going on at Anfield – and not just this summer’s stadium expansion – but despite those changes, the core of Klopp’s squad remains.
A new captain is in place in Virgil van Dijk, while Alexander-Arnold has stepped up as vice-captain, supported by the leadership group of Salah, Andy Robertson and Alisson.
All five can be expected to start the majority of games, but a handful of Klopp’s stalwarts will do so under greater scrutiny.
There are signs of age in Van Dijk and Robertson’s legs, for example, while doubts are mounting over whether Joel Matip, Joe Gomez and Thiago can still cut it.
The challenge for Liverpool, therefore, in these early weeks of the season, is not just proving they can evolve, but also for those remaining staples of the club’s success under Klopp to show they’ve still got it.
(Images from IMAGO)
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