Alexis Mac Allister became Liverpool’s first signing of the summer window and has the ability to add ease the goalscoring burden on Mohamed Salah, Luis Diaz and Diogo Jota.
Just weeks after the curtain was brought down on the Premier League season, Liverpool have already begun the process of righting their wrongs from a largely dismal campaign at Anfield.
A fifth-placed finish in the Premier League represented the club’s lowest during Jurgen Klopp’s seven full seasons at the helm, while last year’s quadruple hunt was followed up by failing to qualify for the quarter-final stages of the Champions League, FA Cup or League Cup.
The swift capture of Alexis Mac Allister in a £45m deal from Roberto De Zerbi’s high-flying Brighton and Hove Albion, however, demonstrates a feeling of remorse from those at Anfield to ensure the same failings are not repeated next season.
The Argentine, who co-starred alongside Lionel Messi at the 2022 World Cup as the Albiceleste claimed a first triumph in 36 years, is Liverpool’s first permanent midfield signing since an unexpected play was made to sign Thiago Alcantara from Bayern Munich in September 2020.
Meanwhile, in the three years since, the Reds have waved goodbye to influential members of their Champions League and Premier League-winning squads, with midfielder Georginio Wijnaldum leaving at the end of his contract in the summer of 2021. The capacity of his departure is set to be followed by those of James Milner, Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain and Naby Keita at the end of this month.
It means Mac Allister will become the eighth senior midfielder at Anfield ahead of next season as he joins Fabinho, Jordan Henderson, Thiago, Curtis Jones, Harvey Elliott, Fabio Carvalho and Stefan Bajcetic. The 24-year-old Argentine is not expected to be the last arrival in that department this summer either, with Klopp still keen to bolster his engine room ranks as he looks to plot a return to the Champions League in 2024. As a Premier League-proven player with over 95 appearances in the English top flight and a World Cup winner, Mac Allister will hold an instrumental role in aiding Liverpool’s quest back to the summit of both the English and European game.
Lining up centrally in De Zerbi’s 4-2-3-1 system, last season saw Mac Allister produce the most prolific return of his career as his 10 league goals helped the Seagulls record a historic sixth-place finish and secure Europa League qualification for the first time in their 122-year history.
Despite six of those strikes coming from the penalty spot, the rest of Mac Allister’s count – which included a stunning free-kick against Leicester City back in September – proves he can become a regular goal donor in a Liverpool side that became far too reliant on the exploits of Mohamed Salah, Cody Gakpo, Luis Diaz, Diogo Jota and Darwin Nunez last term.
After both Diaz’s and Jota’s seasons were wrecked by long-term injuries, the lack of contributions from elsewhere in the team unfairly raised the pressure on both Gakpo and Nunez during their first months at the club. In fact, so poor was Liverpool’s return in the final third that at the start of 2023, a four-game winless streak against Brentford, Brighton, Chelsea and Wolves saw them score just one goal across 360 minutes of Premier League action.
Even without counting penalties, though, Mac Allister still managed to individually out-score all of Liverpool’s midfielders last season. After 38 games, Jones finished as the Reds’ highest talisman from that area thanks to a flurry of strikes against Leicester City (2) and Tottenham (1) in the final weeks of the season, while Carvalho’s efforts against Newcastle United and Bournemouth in consecutive outings back in August saw the 20-year-old finish his maiden term on Merseyside with just two strikes. Meanwhile, Oxlade-Chamberlain, Bajcetic and Elliott ended their campaigns with just one league goal to their names.
Worryingly, the collective return of just eight Premier League goals during the 2022/23 season was the lowest sum from that area of the pitch in any of Klopp’s full terms since he succeeded Brendan Rodgers in October 2015.
In contrast, regular contributions from Oxlade-Chamberlain (8), Wijnaldum (6) and Henderson (4) across the 2019/20 season helped the Reds on their way to amassing 28 goals from the centre of the park as they won the Super Cup, Club World Cup and Premier League title. Equally as impressive is that that particular season remains the Reds’ record for the number of scorers from midfield under Klopp (8), with goals from the aforementioned trio adding to strikes from Keita (3), Jones (3), Fabinho (2), Milner (1) and Adam Lallana (1).
And after failing in their efforts to replicate a comparable tally across all competitions in the three seasons since – 2020/21 (12), 2021/22 (19) and 2022/23 (13) – Mac Allister’s acquisition will be met with widening arms at Anfield as the foundations for Liverpool’s midfield overhaul are laid.
The Argentine is set to become Thiago’s long-term replacement on the left-hand side of midfield and, in doing so, will be entrusted with providing creativity in the final third by supplying the Reds’ attacking syndicate with premium service.
But, if the final weeks of the 2022/23 campaign in a new-look 3-2-2-3 system have revealed anything, it’s that Mac Allister can expect to be pushed further upfield into a left-sided No 10 role. It is there where his craft will be examined as he looks to become the first Liverpool midfielder since Xherdan Shaqiri in 2018/19 to score more than five non-penalty goals in a Premier League season.
But as the excitement of the new seasons grows stronger following the capture of the Argentine, Klopp knows he has gone so way to replicating his Premier League-title winning formula at Anfield. And Mac Allister is just the beginning.
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