14 Sep 2026 07:39:01
{Ed's Note - HAJI has posted a new article entitled, Liverpool's Midfield Pivot Is Starving the Front Four
14 Sep 2026 08:23:07
Starves the attackers and doesn't protect the defence. Our midfield is worse than useless.
14 Sep 2026 08:36:38
I couldn't agree more, I've been shouting from the rooftops that we need a passer in midfield, we can't pair two runners and carriers who don't want to sit in there, it just doesn't work. It's not a defensive midfielder we need, it's somebody who doesn't need to be ahead of the ball and somebody who can hit the ball early without needing to take two hundred touches just to pass it 5 yards forwards, sideways or backwards. Against Fulham Dom had several chances to hit it out to the wings early before the defense was set, and he just ambled about with it before giving it back to Virgil. It was infuriating.
I don't really like slating Grav or Dom because they are individually excellent players who are being asked to do something that they can't do, it's just not their game. As such I don't want to say they're not good enough or any of that nonsense, they are more than good enough at what they are good at, but they can't be a double pivot pairing with the squad balance that we have right now. Either Dom goes to right back where he doesn't have the pressure of playing a first time ball and has more time to pick a pass from deep, or he plays 10 and Wirtz moves out to the left wing inverted so we can bed in a more combative midfielder who is willing to be more withdrawn. Whatever the case may be though, we need a specialist passer who is confident receiving from deep, is ahead of the play and can get the ball to Wirtz or the wings as early as possible.
Stiller or Wharton, I'd be okay with either. Also Camara is a must for an option in there who will do the dirty work off the ball, doesn't need the ball at all times but can pass it short or long forwards if need be, and won't charge to get on the end of stuff up the field.
14 Sep 2026 08:43:25
It's kind of telling that right now the best passer in our squad is Jacquet. Even Virgil deferred to Jacquet more than once in the game because he knows he has the quality and confidence to get it through the lines consistently. With Grav out of form, Jacquet is our best carrier from deep too. Sad state of affairs.
14 Sep 2026 08:47:28
@Patrik If you want a deep lying playmaker who can launch an attack from the deep in the split of a second, why do you even need wirtz? just pass the god damn ball to the wide players instead. that is what we did with Trent / Fabinho supplying to Salah and Mane.
And BTW that player you are mentioning is called a Holding Midfielder.
14 Sep 2026 09:01:31
If you play Wirtz left where does the £100m plus Barcola play. No doubt we'd say right but that's just not what he was bought for.
We've tried Wirtz left in the Premier League and he just got outmuscled continually, or lacked sufficient pace to thrive, even though that's where he plays for Germany.
Problem we have is it's compromise after compromise to keep the likes of Wirtz in the team, so others end up playing out of position to accommodate him.
I think we're better playing a system that suits the players we have, and play whoever is best in their best positions within that system. If that means Grav, or Szob or Wirtz sit on the bench then so be it. We need to be winning more matches, and playing more coherent football.
14 Sep 2026 09:05:19
To suggest that our midfielders are being asked to do something which they can't do, is an indirect criticism of Iraola. I predicted it would start in October, it's started already.
14 Sep 2026 09:09:56
It's not so much a criticism of Iraola as an indictment of the squad planning before Iraola and in the summer transfer window. Iraola can only do what he can with the players he has, and he is currently trying to do so.
The likes of Hughes should have seen what the problem was with our midfield balance, rather than passing the buck to the coach to solve.
14 Sep 2026 10:03:26
And there lies the problem, We claimed this team would walk the league if not for Slot for the whole last season and now we say the squad is inbalanced. What are you blaming Hughes for actually? Not signing "This" and "That player".
14 Sep 2026 10:36:31
Sonic, you've said exactly what I've said countless times, mate. To me, it was obvious that our problems last season weren't just Slot. I wish I could've been proved wrong, but it unfortunately appears that I wasn't.
14 Sep 2026 11:05:03
dom and Macca can play those passes, but they look gun shy to me.
I think driven by not wanting to make an error particularly on a switch then they're vulnerable to a counter and.
14 Sep 2026 11:14:47
Rome for some reason, maybe blind faith, some fans won't have it that quite a few of our players just aren't all that.
It could just be that to accept that would be to accept that there's not necessarily an easy fix. It could and should click, but draws against very poor teams this season and last seasons debacles suggest there's more to it than coaching and systems.
If you think about what we've done as a club we've gone from best in class in Jurgen, to maybe men in Arne and Iraola. They're good coaches but quite high risk appointments with little to no big club experience.
We've also taken quite a lot of risk in the transfer market by not filling key positions, but also continually recruiting young talent from abroad. We've lost a leadership core, and we've lost a lot of experience in a short period of time.
As Patrik said we've got a very imbalanced squad. Why did the board let that happen, makes me think they're too hands off at times with insufficient scrutiny and accountability around football operations and huge transfer outlays. I suspect in truth they're more interested in the business than the football.
Some will say well Edwards and Hughes have gone, but so what, Edwards probably went with contract paid up and suffered no loss. In Hughes case it looks like he went of his own accord rather than being sacked, but I guess that may come out eventually.
Either way the underperformance at the club isn't because Arne goes to Ibiza, it's about culture and leadership. One is a symptom of the other, with the ultimate measure being performance outcomes on the pitch.
14 Sep 2026 12:13:28
I certainly wasn't one of the people saying we were going to walk the league. Then again, I never thought that it was exclusively Slot's fault that we didn't do better than we did last year. Up until the end of last season folks still kept saying that we had a squad good enough to win the league. I would say we have parts of a squad good enough to win all the big prizes, but that the rebuild is still incomplete, and I thought we would be closer to completion in the summer. I'd like to state for the record that I am not somebody who thinks that either Isak or Wirtz were bad purchases, or that the money could have been better spent. I do think however that not enough thought has gone into how all the different parts cohere together, and that's Hughes' job.
You could certainly put forward a case saying that adding wingers, buying one or two starting caliber midfielders and a starting right back in one window would be too much work for anybody, and I'd probably be inclined to agree. I'm just hoping Iraola can tide us through until January, when we can look to bring in somebody like Camara to help us, and then we can look towards bringing in a bonafide passer in the side next summer.
14 Sep 2026 12:28:02
Once Minteh and a gritty MF are signed, things will improve a great deal, IMO.
Minteh is a pressing machine, and currently we have too many vanilla players.
There will be some big name casualties over the next year or two, the side has been put together by a bunch of different people.
14 Sep 2026 12:28:50
Good post HAJI. I think you highlighted the problem in your title when you say our midfield starves our front 4. Why are we playing with a front 4? We changed last year with the introduction of Wirtz and abandoned our incredibly successful formation of a front 3 supported by three incredibly hard working midfielders.
We could add prime Mascherano and Fabinho to this team and they would still struggle to plug the midfield gaps on their own in the premiership.
14 Sep 2026 12:44:24
You're probably right Patrik that Hughes had the oversight and responsibility for squad planning. I can't help thinking though it should be a manager or head coach who does much of that, in conversation with a commercial director who then goes and gets the deals done. Whether that's transfers, sales or contract renewals.
The head coach can still be in or around the training pitch on a regular basis, but should also spend a proportion of their time planning and shaping the squad.
It's a subtle difference, but important. It's a bit like in a big business setting letting the HR department have final say in recruitment decisions and resource planning for teams. They should enable it, and facilitate and support it, not be the decision maker or have a strangle hold over it.
We've also seen a situation at the club where we've employed two head coaches in Arne and Iraola who have completely different footballing ideologies. The coaches contract lengths were both shorter than some of the players they signed, by a distance.
Theres no way some of those players would thrive under both coaching philosophies, it just didn't make sense in a footballing or business sense.
Hopefully the balance of this gets re thought when we replace Hughes. I suspect when they (Edwards and Hughes) replaced Jurgen, and then also Arne, they wanted to retain more power over decision making than Jurgen would have accepted. It's not a recipe for success.
14 Sep 2026 13:13:40
Ffs we can all relax a bit and give the new manager some time. Even if he were to perform miracles it will take more than 4 games. Let him figure out the players and the system, and let's assess him in December.
{Ed025's Note - as i see it TKA you have a lot of very good individual players but are a poor team mate, some ot them seem to be in a rut or playing for themselves and that has to change, Andoni has got his work cut out but i believe he is the correct manager...but he will need time..
14 Sep 2026 13:43:38
Our midfield looks like what it is. A bunch of randomly signed attack minded midfielders with no plan on how to use them long term and none of them with any defensive nous.
14 Sep 2026 14:19:35
Patrick has it right here. We all knew what the squad was like after last season and what was needed concerning the midfield and the planning was awful. Everything starts from there.
Granted the player that we did sign have improved us for the most part and are playing better with every passing day and that is down to the players ability and Iraola's tactics.
But with that midfield not being addressed from a deeper role perspective, is where our main issues are and till we fix that then, we will struggle early on.
14 Sep 2026 14:27:47
NRed, the problem with your comparison is that our midfield wasn't just hardworking. It had a creative player in it called Macca who worked hard but could find a key pass in the final 3rd.
Also and you may or may not want to here this, we had a "deep lying playmaker" in who? You guessed it: TAA who could play those penetrating passes, too. And if all else failed, VVD would just ping it 60 yards to Salah and we beat the oppo.'s press and we're off.
So if all the above is not happening because TAA is not here then, you have to try your best to replicate the next best thin. because Trent ain't coming back and Macca isn't that player anymore and now does his work a lot deeper because his lack of athleticism.
14 Sep 2026 14:57:09
Oli I don't disagree. Trent's ability to play that decisive pass is sorely missed, more than Macca's, as are Robbo's runs and assists from the left. Whwn we bought Isak and Wirtz, who are both quality players, and then of course Hugo I assumed we would change formation to 4312 to get the best out of these guys but we seem stuck in the old formation with players that just don't suit it.
14 Sep 2026 19:24:28
We shouldn't need loads of time Koparmy. For me enough time is pre season, and first three or four games to get match sharpness and team shape and preferred starting 11 or 13. That should be enough time to see more coherent football. City have it already despite quite a few changes of personnel.
We had coherent football with Slot very quickly in season one, he tweaked what was there basically and that was a sensible step, and successful.
Obviously last season they changed too much and it was also so boring to watch. The pressure was on Andoni to change style overnight, rather than phase the new style in more gradually and as and when he got the right players in.
He's basically got the first choice eleven available other than Connor Bradley so at least he hasn't got injuries to contend with, it's just about finding the right formula.
14 Sep 2026 23:13:54
But someone had a plan on how to use the midfield to win the PL title with the second fewest number of goals conceded.