Luke's Football blog

Liverpool haven’t been that good this season and are currently 6 points off second place Newcastle, which is not how people expected as they almost did the quadruple last year. So what has gone from for the red this season as its been a torrid time this season.

The summer transfer window didn’t go off to the best start with Sadio Mane leaving for Bayern Munich, which hurt Liverpool as he was one of their key men the past 6 years for Liverpool .They did go and replace him in January buying Luis Diaz from Porto, which has proved to be a good buy for them. Then, in the summer, they brought Darwin Nunez from Benfica to add to their attacking ranks, as well as Fabio Carvalho from Fulham. who adds depth in attack and a good option off the bench.

One position that they have not added to, which they needed to do, is midfield. With Wijnaldum leaving a year ago, they didn’t go out and replace him, which has become costly as they don’t have enough depth in that position. They waited until the last second and panic brought Arthur from Juventus on loan, who has been plagued by injuries and has only appeared as a substitute once this season. These injuries in the middle of the park have made them start a mixture of youth and experience, which hasn’t worked well this season as many teams have played Liverpool and dominated their midfield. It has not been good for them, especially in midfield as Fabinho has been out of form and Harvey Elliott has been used as a make-way midfielder when he’s a winger and more effective in that position due to injuries and lack of depth. With the lack of protection in that midfield, it has been hard for them to dominate in that area and has left the defence exposed at times which has shown in most of their games and proven costly at times in some of their losses this season.

Injuries have not been kind to Liverpool either, as with the amount of games being played because of the world cup being in the middle of the season and being in 3 competitions the amount of games they have played have took its toll on the squad. Those amount of games lead them to losing Jota and Diaz to long term injuries, and now Van Dijk its going to be hard for them to replace those people as they are all key players for the reds, and it will be interesting to see how they cope especially with them playing Real Madrid in the round of sixteen of the champions league.

If they want to challenge for the title again, they will need to invest more into the team so they have the depth and quality to challenge again. They are going to need to perform better and with some of their players out of contract in the summer, its going to be a busy summer for the reds which will hopefully end with them buying a midfielder who will be quality for them for years to come. Its looking like a trainwreck of a season so far but with additions like Gakpo to bolster their attack,it could lead to something good for the reds.

They can still win 4 trophies this season after they overcame man city in the community shield back in July but it will be unlikely as they are sixteen points behind the current leaders arsenal. They reached the round of sixteen of the league cup but they lost to man city and with drawing the champions league winners Real Madrid in the round of sixteen of the champions league its going to be hard to reach the final of it if they do end up winning.

The main focus at the moment for Klopp is to get a midfielder with the likes of Caicedo and Bellingham on the list who will cost a lot but would be worth it. To attract them players they would need to get a top 4 place to get champions league football for the 6th year in a row to attract them calibre of players for them to do a proper rebuild and get back to challenging for the league.