Stefan Bajcetic is ready to step up and play a big part for Liverpool this season even if another midfield recruit arrives.
Of all the sights that will emerge from day one of Liverpool’s pre-season schedule, few will be as pleasing as seeing 18-year-old Stefan Bajcetic back in action.
The teenager missed the final two-and-a-half-months of the Reds’ 2022/23 campaign after sustaining a stress response in his abductor. Cruelly, the unfortunate news came just days before he was primed to start against Real Madrid in the second leg of the Reds’ Champions League round-of-16 tie.
Despite heading into the clash in the Spanish capital 5-2 down due to events at Anfield some three weeks earlier, a start a the history-draped Santiago Bernabeu would have undoubtedly been the climax of the Spaniard’s breakthrough campaign on Merseyside.
And now, given how much has changed at Anfield in the months since – as Jurgen Klopp tore up his blueprint and implemented a 3-box-3 formation – Bajcetic has perhaps become something of a forgotten figure outside of the corridors of Liverpool’s AXA Training Centre.
Yet to turn 19, and having witnessed first-hand the weight of expectation that has fallen on the shoulders of Trent Alexander-Arnold, Curtis Jones and Harvey Elliott at various points of their careers, a lengthy spell away from the limelight that he has found himself engulfed in since he made his Premier League debut 11 months ago has possibly been the perfect remedy for Bajcetic ahead of what he hopes is another promising campaign on Merseyside.
Although named as one of eight senior members set to return to Kirkby on Saturday morning, Bajcetic’s reintegration to full training will be handled with caution as Liverpool look to avoid the setbacks suffered by Jones and his battle against various stress responses over the last 12 months. Klopp is, however, hopeful the Spaniard will be fit enough to participate in Liverpool’s Black Forest-based training camp in mid-July, though it remains to be seen whether he will play any part in either of the friendlies against German sides Karlsruher SC or Greuther Furth.
Since his unexpected rise into the Reds’ senior ranks, Bajcetic has developed a close-knit connection with Thiago Alcantara, one that very much lends itself to both players’ parents’ roots in the north-west region of Spain.
“It’s a crazy story because I also played in a very, very little academy back in Vigo, the city where I was born – we played in the same little academy,” said Bajcetic earlier this year when recalling his blossoming friendship with the former Bayern Munich and Barcelona midfielder. “When I told him I played in this academy, he was like, ‘Wow!’ It’s unbelievable, this story.
“I think my dad hasn’t talked with his dad but it’s crazy to think about how small that town was and look at where we are now.”
Of course, it was roughly 12 months ago that Bajcetic’s voyage into Liverpool’s first-team really began to take shape as he was named as part of the Reds’ 37-man squad for the pre-season tour of Asia. Having been name-checked by assistant manager Pep Lijnders some six months earlier, it was during games against Manchester United and Crystal Palace in the Middle East that the teenager was able to demonstrate his talents first-hand to Klopp, Lijnders and co.
“There was a door, I’m not even sure it was open, but he ran through it and he was exceptional,” said Klopp, months later after Bajecetic’s first Premier League start against Chelsea. “He does really well in the moment, I think that’s clear.”
Fast forward one year from his maiden expedition with the senior side and this summer will represent a slightly different challenge for Bajetic as he looks to remind the masses why he was viewed as such a beacon of hope during the driest January of Klopp’s Anfield tenure.
The Spaniard’s first assignment upon his return will be to prove his tactical flexibility to the Liverpool manager, demonstrating that he has the discipline to hold the fort for Alexander-Arnold as part of a double pivot; an element of the system that is designed around supporting the obvious powers of the No.66’s game.
That, however, shouldn’t be a problem given how smoothly Bajcetic adapted to life as a central midfielder since Liverpool’s Academy director Alex Inglethorpe recognised his talents and swiftly hauled him out of his initial position as a central defender.
The role he will undertake in his second season as a first-team player seems likely to be linked to Fabinho’s resurgence in a new-look midfield, that now boats athleticism and durability thanks to to the double swoop of Alexis Mac Allister and Dominik Szboszlai.
That Brazilian spent most of the last season striving for form as he struggled to recapture the heights that had once made him a linchpin of Liverpool’s Champions League and Premier League-winning campaigns. It has the air of a crucial campaign at Anfield for Fabinho this time ahead, starting at Stamford Bridge in just over five weeks’ time.
Any further arrivals between now and the end of the summer transfer could too impact Bajcetic’s position in Liverpool’s midfield ranking, with Southampton’s Romeo Lavia currently under consideration by those at Anfield. However, a fee in the region of £50m for a player who has played just 18 Premier League games more than Liverpool’s 18-year-old Spaniard is quite clearly a legitimate sticking point.
But whatever happens between now and the start of the summer, Bajcetic’s return will be welcomed with open arms by Liverpool.