Less than a year after Jürgen Klopp vehemently defended the Liverpool midfield, the transfer reality tells a very different story amid massive upheaval
Not even 11 months have passed since Jürgen Klopp declared that the Liverpool midfield had ‘everything’. Last season already appeared to prove that wrong, but recent transfer activity has painted it in a whole new light again.
Admittedly, by the time he said that, Klopp had also already told watching journalists that ‘you were right and I was wrong’ about the transfer need in the midfield. He admitted that Liverpool had tried and failed to sign someone — who we know now to be Aurélien Tchouaméni, with the Frenchman picking Real Madrid instead
But fundamentally, the manager retained faith in his existing group of nine. With Liverpool ultimately doing no further transfer business that summer except an ill-fated loan for Arthur, and then passing up the chance to sign a midfielder again in January, Klopp’s stance was clear.
Defending it, he listed all of the attributes that were already present among his midfield (via The Athletic). After two draws and a loss in the opening four matches, it was a bullish statement:
“The situation is the following: we started the season with nine midfielders and every aspect was in — creativity, speed, excitement, young players, technique, runners, fight, stuff like this. Whatever you wanted, it was all in.
So it means we had all different aspects of a midfield game. You all told me — you are the ones who ask the questions — do I need another midfielder? A 10th midfielder! I am not sure, but we were going for a midfielder who decided to go to another club, which can happen.”
The nine players in question were Fabinho, Jordan Henderson, Naby Keïta, James Milner, Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain, Fábio Carvalho, Thiago, Harvey Elliott and Curtis Jones. Something immediately jumps out about this list: the first six have all either left or are close to sealing a transfer
That’s quite a staggering level of turnover, particularly given that the final two entrants on the list, Elliott and Jones, have an average age of 21. As Liverpool agrees a deal with Al-Ettifaq for the sale of Henderson, with Fabinho left out of the touring group to finalize a transfer, it seems those youngsters and Thiago might be all that is left of the Klopp midfield that had ‘everything
With even Thiago attracting some transfer rumors this summer, it’s not completely beyond the realms of possibility that Klopp’s nine-man list could be slashed down to two. For a manager who was supposedly satisfied with his options, that’s a mind-bending development.
Most of it comes down to circumstances. If Klopp had been totally honest last summer, he probably would have conceded that most of his options could be upgraded. But with nobody agitating to leave, and no major transfer interest on the table, he was more than happy to make do. Indeed, he came close to admitting as much in the very same interview where he defended his group of nine:
“But the one thing that we push people actively out and tell them, ‘You are cut out now. Yes, it was great what you did until last year but now we don’t like you anymore, go’ and these kind of things. We are not like this, we are not like this.”
This summer was already earmarked as a turning point, where three midfielders could leave with the club’s best wishes at the end of their contracts. That would naturally create room for the rebuild to begin — as indeed it has, with the arrivals of Alexis Mac Allister and Dominik Szoboszlai. But it just so happened that others chose the same window to seek a departure, with transfer interest from Saudi Arabia materializing.
That has forced a rapid change of transfer stance. Klopp would no doubt have been content to keep Fabinho and Henderson — they probably fall into the ‘runners’ and ‘fight’ categories he outlined, plus the unlisted but crucial ‘experience’ box. But with both interested in leaving, there was hardly a question of Liverpool standing in their way.
While it has attracted less attention, the loan deal for Carvalho is much the same. Klopp could have utilized him at Liverpool, but the player wanted more guaranteed game time, and there was interest in his services from RB Leipzig. The transfer policy has to be flexible, because it is fundamentally dependent on player wishes
The midfield may have had everything at the start of last season, but now there is a chance for it to have more of everything. While the Liverpool boss would never have envisaged such massive turnover, fate has conspired to supercharge the rebuild he had already planned — from being satisfied with the whole group, Klopp will now look to the transfer market to construct a new engine room almost from scratch.
