At the doorway, part III

Liverpool's '25-'26 season, the players

I realized a couple days ago that I hadn’t really described what the title of this series meant. Most should probably understand the implied meaning, but there’s a fair amount of interpretation that can be made. One of the favorite phrases of many of the English types I follow on the Interwebs, be they writers or Reddit posters, is “a sliding doors moment.” It’s meant to describe a key moment where things could’ve gone one way but instead went the other. This season has been that for everyone involved: head coach, ownership, supporters and, of course, players. It was also meant to imply the situation for the person most focused upon when it comes to the criticism about the season, which is Arne Slot and whether he’s at said mythical doorway, about to depart the club one year after winning its 20th top flight title. But as I’ve said so often over the years: a) this is a team sport dependent upon 11 guys on the pitch to do the work and b) the head coach/manager is not one of those guys on the pitch. In that respect, this third part is at least as important as part I or part II to describe how exactly things went so poorly that not only did we not win anything after spending a net €250 million, but that at least two members of said squad (Mohamed Salah and Andy Robertson) player their last game for Liverpool on Sunday and they may be followed by several others (most notably Alisson Becker.)

By and large, I don’t like rating systems because they often lack context and are, consequently, too simplistic. Therefore, when reading through the following assessment of the squad’s performance, keep in mind that there are many, many factors that went into that performance and that no player should be judged as simply “good” or “bad” as a result. I do have serious reservations about some of the newer members of the squad and have expressed those previously but that’s more based on the makeup of our team as a whole and not meant to be a condemnation of that player’s inherent value. I’ve usually found it easier to follow what for a long time was the US’ inane grading system (A, B, C, D and F (no E!)) because, again, there’s no sense in trying to be precise about an inherently unscientific process. These are just those that I think lived up to expectations, those who didn’t and the two who may have exceeded them and why. I’m going to focus largely on those who actually played significant minutes, which is another coaching/recruiting question of note.

Goalkeepers

We’ve been extremely fortunate for the last few years to have the best goalkeeper in football standing between the sticks for us. However, one of the surest aphorisms in sports is that “the best ability is availability” and in that respect, Alisson Becker is no longer so able. Over the past three seasons, he’s been on a downward slope in terms of minutes played, going from almost 5000 at his peak to around 3000 for the past two years. His shot stopping and distribution remain solid, if somewhat less than before, especially on the latter, but that may be a question of play style, as well. He gets a C, which makes him still better than many, many other keepers which is why Juventus is keen to sign him. But one thing Alisson does still have that Giorgi Mamardashvili doesn’t quite possess is a level of comfort with the ball at his feet. We bought Giorgi to be a shot-stopper, which he is, par excellence. But he’s also not great at delivering the ball to a racing Mo and he has a hitch in his step when handling the ball and trying to play out from the back, something that’s almost essential for a modern ‘keeper. If everyone knew this beforehand (and they did), why did we shell out for him? Refer yourself to part I. Giorgi gets a C. Freddie Woodman didn’t play enough matches to reasonably be assessed but her performed well in often trying circumstances, which is at least mildly comforting when it comes to injury issues. Something also to be considered for all of the ‘keepers is that their performance is often directly impacted by what’s happening in front of them. If the back line is giving up chance after chance, the ‘keeper isn’t going to look that great…

Defenders

“Vulnerability” was the operative word for this year’s defense. That’s bad. Not only did it give up repeated chances to clubs both large and small on the talent scale (3-0 to Man City followed by 0-3 to Forest, like a horrible mirror) but it also clearly broke down when the rest of the squad did after setbacks on the pitch. That’s bad. The bright spot was actually left back, at least once we got past November. Milos Kerkez had a rough ride for his first few months, leading me to wonder how one of two actually Premier League-tested player was performing this poorly (Don’t worry. The other one would be worse.), but his play steadily improved on both the offensive and defensive ends, becoming one of our best back trackers in the second half of the season, so he gets a B, despite a poor start. Andy Robertson is a much lesser version of the whirling dervish that has been running up and down our left side for the past nine years. Age does that to you. He’s simply not a threat on the offensive end anymore and has been caught out repeatedly by long balls (like most of the rest of the defense.) He gets a C.

Right back was chaos, pure and simple. No less than six different players have started games for us this year in that spot, including three midfielders and a nominal centerback. And the reason for that is that the two intended to play that position kept running into injury problems (again, availability…) Conor Bradley has piles of skill and intensity. It’s obvious why he’s on the pitch when he’s playing. He just doesn’t have the durability that’s required to play at this level, which is why he’s so often not on that pitch. I really wish it were different because I think he could be a star in the John Arne Riise mold, but he just can’t stay fit, which is a shame. He gets a C and I have my doubts that he’ll ever turn into the kind of long-term Trent Alexander-Arnold replacement that we were hoping for. In our brief experience, Jeremie Frimpong has been the same way. Repeated hamstring injuries have left his first campaign with the Reds at no better than mid-tier level. He creates threat in a much different way than the player he was bought to replace (TAA) and there were a few games this season where he was basically the only threat coming from that side or from our attack entirely. So there are obvious benefits to having him in the squad. But you gotta be able to play and he just hasn’t been. He also gets a C. Since Joe Gomez no longer plays centerback but mostly fills in at the fullback spots, we’ll talk about him here. Joe has been a great servant of the club… which is exactly the phrase you use for someone who’s generally reliable but not really suited for this level of play. He’s been with us for a decade and at one point was one of the best centerbacks in the world. But his constant string of injuries (Can you see the theme here?) and subpar play this season means that he really shouldn’t be here next season. He gets a D.

Centerbacks are easy, since we only had two of them, along with occasional match appearances by fill-in midfielders like Wataru Endo. Again, recruiting and possibly coaching come into question here. Whether it was because of a combination of Diogo’s death, contract negotiations or simply not understanding what the gaffer was asking of him, Ibrahima Konaté has been on a fairly regular descent over the past three seasons. He hasn’t made a significant number of errors leading directly to goals, but he has done the hockey assist in those situations more and more frequently of late. I used to be able to tease Bayern Munich fans by mentioning that, in the Great Centerback Raid of 2022 at Leipzig, we had ended up with the better end of the deal when comparing Ibou to his then-counterpart, Dayot Upamecano. I’m not so sure I can say that anymore. Ibou gets a D. Unfortunately, his current counterpart and our captain, Virgil Van Dijk, hasn’t been much better and in some ways (read: errors leading directly to goals; 2 this season) has been worse. For the longest time, Virg was the rock around which our team orbited and was regarded by many as one of the best defenders to play the game. Not anymore. His pace has diminished and he’s found himself trailing attackers who are no longer afraid to attack his side of the pitch. That happens as you get older, so it’s understandable. It’s just been regrettable for our defense. His saving grace in comparison to Ibou is that he’s still a solid goalscorer, with 6 this season to Ibou’s 1. He gets a C. In his (ahem) defense, a huge part of his game was as initiator of our attacks, typically with his long diagonals to Mo. Those have disappeared from our locker for some unknowable reason, which I can’t help but think must be a coaching issue.

Midfielders

This was the absolute rock of the team last season, with all-around good performances exceeded by some great ones, including the Young Player of the Year in the PL. This season has seen that assessment fall back to earth in some ways similar to said YPotY. Ryan Gravenberch has been… competent for most of the season. He’s a long step from the moment where many were considering him the best #6 in England, if not Europe and it’s largely that he seems to have been found out by opposing midfielders, who are only too eager to take the ball off him. Some of that may be strategy-oriented, as he was geeked about being allowed to move forward as he mentioned after the first Arsenal match in September. But some of it may just be the learning process required by, yes, a young player. He gets a C, which I can’t help but think is at least partially due to being overplayed, like last year. His most frequent comparison in the role of the “rear” part of the double pivot, OTOH, has shown an even worse transition. You could argue that Alexis Mac Allister has been one of the best CMs in the world in the past few years. This year, he was a passenger, at best; an active liability, at worst. I haven’t seen such a marked drop in performance in a player in many years (although our right wing might be close…) Certainly, he was affected like everyone else was by the tragedy and he also lost two of his closer comrades on the squad (Luís Diaz and Darwin Núñez.) He was also carrying an injury last summer that probably still wasn’t healed when the season started but it’s May now and he still looks like a shadow of the player he was. It’s an F because he failed virtually every time he was on the pitch, leading to yet more criticism of both Arne’s lineups and substitution patterns or lack thereof.

But the bright side in the middle third is our two stand-in right backs. Curtis Jones can play any position in our midfield, including the 6 and always performs when he is on the pitch. He gets an A. That, of course, makes it doubly mystifying as to why he has so much trouble getting on the pitch, not least because Mac has been such a ghost there. He performs. Every time. He performed when he was tasked with being an RB for the last four games of the season, including yesterday. I fail to see the value that Mac has brought and the apparent absence of same that Curtis has, to the point where he’s rumored to have decided that his future is not with our club. I don’t think I have to point out the downsides to losing such a versatile midfielder who always produces when he’s on the pitch and who is a) homegrown (a deficit we had an issue with this year), b) an academy product and c) a native Scouser. If there’s any coaching decision I can point at and ask: “How is this not working?”, this is it. Similarly, his attacking mid and occasional right back fellow, Dominik Szoboszlai, has been the best player on our squad this season. Full stop. He’s totally embodied the spirit of the player whose number he’s wearing, both in ability and in intensity when trying to drag the rest of his teammates across the finish line. He gets an A. If I was doing more precise gradations, it would probably be an A+, even though he doesn’t quite score at Stevie’s rate and there were moments when that side of his game could have grabbed us a few more points.

And then we come to the biggest question of the moment, personnel-wise: Can Florian Wirtz succeed in the Premier League? There will be 50 different variations on the answer to that question and none of them will be perfectly right. My current opinion is that he’s too small, too slow and not strong enough to really perform in the circumstances that are the PL 2026 and beyond. The fancystats contradict me to some degree, with Opta citing his 57 chances created being behind only Enzo Fernandez, Jeremy Doku and Bruno Fernandes. There’s no denying that he has talent, as the eye test shows him succeeding in that respect, too, with some deft passes and his unignorable performances in the Bundesliga and for the German national team. But my eye test also shows him unable to hold the ball in the middle third and getting it lifted off of him rather easily as soon as he’s double-teamed. You know who has the most progressive passes per 90 for midfielders on the squad? Curtis, 8.9. You know who has the most assists? Dom, 7. You know who has the most key passes? Dom, 64. The counter-argument to that last point is that Flo is not far behind at 58 with far fewer minutes played. Again, he does have talent. The question is whether he’ll be physically able to exercise it. He gets a C, at best.

Forwards

Also, that volume of chances created without results has at least something to do with an inability to finish. Welcome to the forward line. I’ve stated before that I think the money spent on Alexander Isak was not wise and nothing he’s done in his limited playing time has suggested otherwise. You can yammer on all you like about “didn’t have a pre-season” but at some point, you’re either a €145 million player or you’re not. We have to give him some credit for both the disorganization of the squad as a whole and coming back from a grievous injury suffered when he scored his lone league goal for us, but it still adds up to an F. Even when he’s been on the pitch, the production hasn’t. In contrast, the player that has shown to be wise money and the one we likely would’ve stopped with had Diogo been present is Hugo Ekitike. He’s the only new face that showed from minute one that he was worth the cost. Of course, that’s why he’ll be absent until January with an Achilles injury. Liverpool, ‘25-’26, everyone! While he, like the rest of the forward line, had some luck issues and some genuine finishing issues, he still avoided the fabled “Bundesliga tax”, unlike Flo and showed the kind of spirit and drive that we’ve come to expect. He gets a B.

On the wings, though, things were much less positive. For all that one can fault their performance, I don’t think you can fault the drive of either Mohamed Salah or Cody Gakpo. Both of them regularly exhibited the will to do something that was in rare supply among this squad this season. The problem was with ability. Mo is a Liverpool and Premier League all-timer. There’s no doubting his value and he’s one of the best players to ever put on the red shirt. He’s also almost 34 and this season was emblematic of FSG’s reluctance to offer him a contract extension last year. The drop from 29 goals and 18 assists in the league in ‘24-’25 to 7 and 7 this season is just too stark to be ignored. Certainly, we’re still talking about an 11-man game and if he doesn’t get some help, he’s not often going to be able to score. The loss of primary enabler TAA definitely contributed, but there were still many times in the past that Mo created his own chances and scored his own goals and that just wasn’t present this year. He gets a C for at least still providing something. Cody, OTOH, seems to be bearing out my frustration at his signing three years ago. In an unusual move for the club, we signed him off of a sterling performance in the Euros and he has continued to perform well… in international play. That, of course, is a significant step down from not only club play but Premier League club play. He was never going to replace Lucho as the starter at left wing, despite that being his best position, by far, and now he’s likely to be replaced as the starter by 17-year-old Rio Ngumoha. Cody is a good player. He’s just not a Liverpool-level good player. He gets a D, despite coming in only 2 assists behind Mo in the final stat totals.

Speaking of Rio, he didn’t really play enough minutes to get a solid assessment of where he is or how he performed, other than to say that in a season largely lacking excitement because of losses, style of play and various other issues, Rio was one of the few who constantly generated that excitement pretty much every time he touched the ball. The goal reproduced above is also a statement on the season as a whole, taking a 2-0 lead over a 10-man Newcastle, only to be pegged back to 2-2 and wondering how we were only going to get 1 point out of the match until a then-16-year-old rescued us. He’s still a little young to be the nailed-on starter, which is why Cody will probably be retained as the rotation option, but the utter despair that often accompanies the latter’s play at left wing means that we really need to dip into the market and find another left wing. Oh, and a regular right wing, since ours of nine years is now departing and I really don’t think Jeremie is the answer there, despite also being one of those excitement-generating players, based on his willingness to actually drive forward with the ball and go past defenders…

So, yeah. That’s the lot. Yesterday’s match ending in a 1-1 draw after completely outplaying Brentford in the first half summed up everything that this season was and wasn’t. No one will look back at it with any fondness except for two Dominik moments which at least Jon Champion and Jim McCarron immortalized in the NBC coverage:

I actually like McCarron’s delivery on that first kick better (“It’s an incredible- INCREDIBLE -free kick!”) but that one’s harder to find with actual footage. (The question of which commentators are on which broadcasts for the PL’s various outlets that are then reproduced on YouTube by the PL is an enduring mystery.) But those three clips are the highlights of the season, which is why this three-part series has been resoundingly negative in its conclusions. It remains to be seen how all three entities- recruitment, coaching, players -will attempt to turn it around in August.