The biggest difference between the ‘old’ liverpool and liverpool 2.0 lies in midfield, aside from changes in personnel, with many key and experienced players moving on. The attacking game, which was primarily made up of andy robertson and trent alexander-arnold, has now been reformed. Liverpool only scored seven goals from midfield in the entire season. Manchester city, on the other hand, earned 33 goals, albeit in more games. And although it is not a “problem,” the goals in the team dry up, an unlikely scenario considering liverpool’s limited attacking options, it was perceived as a problem by some in the initial version of jürgen klopp’s liverpool team. jordan henderson and alex oxlade-chamberlain were the top scoring midfield players in the squad in the season that they won the league. But half of oxlade-chamberlain’s total came while he was playing on the wing. Midfield goals and chance generation were simply not a thing.
Liverpool had only had more goalscoring and creating from midfield under klopp in 2016/17. Adam lallana led the way with eight goals, while gini wijnaldum and emre can each had six and five goals. For comparison, lkay gündoan scored 11 goals and seven assists last season, but after that, the focus changed. Liverpool became more “functional” in the middle of the field. Sadio mané and mohamed salah were fine playing every game and scoring regularly, but the team needs to continue to improve. Salah is still in the squad, but the other forward options aren’t exactly guaranteed to produce great numbers as mané did.
Klopp has deliberately changed things up this season. Although liverpool 2.0 still has a lot to do, steps in the right direction are already being taken. Dominik szoboszlai has already scored four goals, matching 2019/20 henderson and oxlade-chamberlain with half a season to play, and hasn’t been doing anything special in the last few weeks. Curtis jones has netted three times since being hospitalized for a short time. In the penultimate game of the season, he scored two goals. Ryan gravenberch and even wataru end have scored two goals each, with alexis mac allister and harvey elliott contributing to the other two. Liverpool has a chance to develop even more and are expected to add more players before the season ends. Alexander-arnold has two goals (three if you count the superb free-kick against fulham that went down as an own goal), and there is a pretty strong argument that he should be considered a midfielder given the challenges he now occupies. Before they can match gündoan’s contribution to manchester city last season, all liverpool midfielders must improve their numbers, but there is a world in which szoboszlai can reach double figures this season. Jones should be aiming for that in the future.
However, it is clear that there has been a lot more improvement in this regard than in the previous season, and that there is still plenty of room to improve even more. The masterplan for liverpool 2.0 is already apparent as it continues to evolve and improve, maintaining klopp’s original liverpool’s control, dominance, and defensive attributes while still adding goals and flair.
