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Michael Edwards was in a garden centre when he took the call telling him that Liverpool would have to break a world transfer record for Virgil van Dijk. He was businesslike, not wanting the person ringing on behalf of Southampton to know his true feelings, but was silently punching the air, standing there amid the birdseed and potted plants.
That was Edwards at the top of his game. Liverpool’s former sporting director possessed detailed reports on 30 centre backs and had analysed the market. He knew that Van Dijk, by a distance, was the best Liverpool could sign and a price of £70 million plus £4 million add-ons, although unprecedented for a defender, would soon be regarded as a bargain.
So it proved. Joining on the first day of 2017-18’s winter transfer window, Van Dijk became the colossus Jürgen Klopp constructed a great team around. Before long, Manchester United would be paying £80 million for Harry Maguire.
Van Dijk’s home debut was the same game in which Trent Alexander-Arnold began his run as Liverpool’s first-choice right back. That was Klopp at the top of his game, re-imagining a youngster who played in the midfield for Liverpool’s under-18s as a buccaneer who would spring forward from his back four.
To return to where they want to be, Liverpool need to return to what they were. Which, for a time, was the smartest club in football. Never the richest but the smartest, whose ability to add value in recruitment and coaching won them every prize in a cycle that began in that 2017-18 season and ended with defeat in the Champions League final last May.
The club have not been portrayed as smart since Tuesday evening, when The Times’s Paul Joyce broke news of them withdrawing from the chase for Jude Bellingham. Supporters took it bitterly. Bellingham is that very rare commodity, a player whose ceiling is simply higher than the rest, giving him potential to transform any team. One imagines that in Liverpool red, he could have been Steven Gerrard-plus.
Aborting the Bellingham chase makes sense in the here and now but in macro terms the decision cannot be dressed up as anything other than a failure of strategy. While it is a misconception that Liverpool’s midfield rebuilding plans only ever revolved around Bellingham (they were close to signing Aurélien Tchouaméni last summer), it is true that Bellingham was near the top of their list for at least 18 months, and their understanding, earlier in the season, was that Borussia Dortmund would sell this summer for about £80 million plus add-ons.
However, Bellingham’s rapid development during a campaign in which he has become the Dortmund captain and starred at a World Cup — at a tender 19 — has redrawn his value and two clubs of a higher spending power, Manchester City and Real Madrid, are now strongly in the fray.
With Manchester United interested and Paris Saint-Germain (despite reports) also considered to be keen, Dortmund can anticipate an auction. Bellingham has no buyout clause and his price is expected to be north of £130 million once fees are factored in. However, his destination will be Bellingham’s choice, not his club’s. It is understood that he would rather stay at Dortmund and reassess in 2024 than be pushed towards a move that’s not absolutely right for him.
In further contrast to perceptions, there was never any indication that he preferred Liverpool. His father, Mark, is a Liverpool fan, but the player and his family have plotted his career to date flawlessly by taking all factors other than what is best for his development out of the equation. So, with no special levers to make the deal happen, Liverpool pulled out to avoid the risk of allocating a huge chunk of their budget and summer to a bidding war they were not favourites to win.
Doing so offers a good chance of delivering what Klopp wants: several signings that arrive near the start of the window. That’s the decision dictated by common sense, but would Edwards, with his knack for the market, have stopped Liverpool getting to this position?
We’ll never know. Much of the expertise that made Liverpool such good recruiters remains. A new sporting director is being sought but the outgoing Julian Ward (formerly Edwards’s right-hand man) is contracted until the end of the season and continues making plans.
On Tuesday, as the Bellingham news was emerging, a representative from Liverpool was arriving in Amsterdam for a meeting with Ryan Gravenberch’s father.
Gravenberch, 20, is under serious consideration. An athletic and elegant midfielder, he can play at No 6, No 10 or even as a left-sided No 8.
Frustrated by a lack of game time since joining Bayern Munich from Ajax last June, he is valued at about £25 million and would leave Liverpool scope to pursue other targets, including Mason Mount, for whom Chelsea are likely to want about £70 million.
Liverpool are also now linked with both Alexis Mac Allister and Moisés Caicedo, both thought to be valued at about £80 million by Brighton & Hove Albion, and cheaper options such as Wolves’ Matheus Nunes and Chelsea’s Conor Gallagher.
Klopp is thought to be sanguine about the budget allocated for new players and though away form remains feeble, the fire of the old Liverpool has flickered at Anfield since victory in the Merseyside derby on February 13. That came after a week in which those close to Klopp saw him regather his energy, and he has cut a different, more optimistic, steelier figure since.
His buoyancy coincides with the return to day-to-day club involvement of the cerebral Mike Gordon, the president of the owners, Fenway Sports Group. Gordon and Klopp is the key relationship at the club, the one that underpinned the era of success. The news gives cause to think that renewed dynamism with decision-making is in store.
There is value for Klopp to add on the coaching side too. He and his assistant, Pep Ljinders, have a saying that “training is our transfer” and it’s time to show it with regard to Darwin Núñez, who seems no less rough a diamond than when signed last summer for £64 million rising to £85 million.
Erling Haaland scored more Premier League goals in August than Núñez has all season, and Klopp declined to start him against Arsenal last Sunday — just like in both league games with Manchester City and against Chelsea back in January. Moved to the left after appearing to struggle with the pressing work Klopp requires of his central forward, the Uruguay international’s future in a rebuilt Liverpool team is surely back in the middle, but Klopp faces either changing his attacking style to accommodate a striker who wants to gallop in behind, or adapting Núñez to one who can come towards the ball. Or a bit of both — like Pep Guardiola with Haaland.
The long-awaited return of Luis Díaz against Leeds tomorrow should be a starting point in the redesign. On top of the penetration and unpredictability he provides with the ball, the speed and aggression of Díaz’s pressing hauls team-mates up the pitch by making them go quicker and harder to keep up with him. Díaz is pivotal to a revamped Liverpool’s game. With Salah on one side and Díaz back on the other, Klopp can audition candidates to start in the middle of his front three next season, whether that is Núñez, Diogo Jota or Cody Gakpo.
It is time to reimagine Alexander-Arnold. After six seasons in defence he is still to develop basic elements of defending such as sensing danger and body positioning, and perhaps it is time to accept he never will. However, in possession he is more important to Liverpool’s game than ever. Per 90 minutes he has the most touches of the ball for the club and he still produces moments of magic, such as his nutmeg on Oleksandr Zinchenko and cross to Roberto Firmino for the equaliser against Arsenal.
The quality of Alexander-Arnold's passes – quantified in terms of
expected assists – are consistent with recent years, however, his team-mates' poor finishing has cost him
assists this year.
However, there is a shift in Alexander-Arnold this season. He has fewer touches in the attacking third than in any campaign since 2018-19, and more of his work is done in deeper areas (see graphic). This seems partly an effort by Klopp to use his long passing. In possession against Arsenal, Liverpool switched to a “box” midfield with Alexander-Arnold as a playmaking pivot alongside Fabinho.
Alexander-Arnold's share of touches in the
final third this season are the lowest they have ever been.
One key signing has already been made in Jonathan Power, the new club doctor. Addressing the worst injury record in the Premier League this season is key to a rebuild and the hope is that with a fitter team, stalwarts like Andy Robertson and Van Dijk will find their old form. Just maybe, Liverpool can do the same.
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