What Liverpool's summer transfer business tells us about Jurgen Klopp's tactical plans for next season
CBSN
There's plenty of work ahead for the Reds to get back to the top, but their summer activity tells us plenty about how they'll approach next season
If there was a source of succor for Liverpool in the final weeks of their disappointing 2022-23 season it was the redeployment of Trent Alexander-Arnold as an inverted full back, free to step into midfield and dictate play from there. That one tweak, not necessarily a brand new look for the Reds but rather a stride along the path that the right back had already been on, opened up all sorts of opportunities for Jurgen Klopp. His transfer business so far would suggest he is eager to exploit them.
Throughout their imperial era, which it is perhaps too soon to pronounce over given how they responded to their last down year by taking every competition they were involved in down to the wire in 2021-22, Liverpool's patterns in attack were clearly defined. Their 2-3-5/3-2-5 hybrid unleashed Andrew Robertson and Alexander-Arnold to bomb down the flanks, providing the width that freed Sadio Mane and Mohamed Salah to attack the space vacated by the false nine infield from them. When it all clicked, as it so often did, this was an irresistible scoring machine.
However, freeing up both full backs to fly up the pitch asked a great deal of the players they were leaving behind. Fabinho and Virgil van Dijk in particular had to cover huge tracts of space. In the graphic above those two and Joel Matip are the only players whose average position is in their own half. If opponents broke the line of a press that grew steadily less febrile as the season wore on then it would be up to that trio, in particular the center backs Van Dijk and Matip, to sweep up the danger. Similarly, Jordan Henderson, the No. 14 who is almost level with Alexander-Arnold, could plug gaps behind his full back, allowing Liverpool to get one of the greatest passers the Premier League has ever seen into positions where he could cause chaos. In 2021-22 a right back registered 13 expected assists for the season. No one else in the league got more than 7.5.