Liverpool, a beacon of stability at its peak, has been in a state of flux for the best part of two years now.
It all started in November 2021, when sporting director Michael Edwards, one of the key architects of the club’s success, decided to leave the club at the end of his contract. Twelve months later, Julian Ward, his former assistant and the man no doubt envisioned as a long-term successor, tendered a shock resignation.
In the intervening period, head of research Ian Graham had signaled his intention to depart too. The biggest brains in a recruitment operation envied the world over were packing their bags.
Also in the autumn, longtime owner FSG signaled that it was open to selling Liverpool, before pivoting towards a search for minority investment that’s still ongoing.
Some predicted that this off-field instability would impact the Reds on the pitch, and that there would be an inevitable knock-on effect. And while the link is certainly indirect, that’s exactly what’s materialized.
Liverpool will go into next season without an array of erstwhile stalwarts, with the planned exits of Roberto Firmino and James Milner followed up by the very-much-unplanned sales of Jordan Henderson and Fabinho to Saudi Arabia.
As a result, the Reds could bring in as many as five new faces, replacing the duo with two more midfielders in addition to Alexis Mac Allister and Dominik Szoboszlai, and also adding a new center-back to their ranks. If you combine incomings and outgoings, that would be nine key transfers in the space of one window.
We’ve seen the club embark on a big spending spree before, most notably when it invested $203m (€182m) on Alisson, Fabinho, Naby Keïta and Xherdan Shaqiri in 2018.
But it’s worth remembering that there were no truly significant exits that summer — back-up goalkeepers Danny Ward and Loris Karius and rarely-used defender Ragnar Klavan were the only first-team players sold. That window felt revolutionary at the time but it’s been surpassed this year.
And in combination with all of this, Jürgen Klopp is pivoting to a new way of playing. He’s moved to a different system entirely, fundamentally changing the role of not just newly-instated hybrid midfielder Trent Alexander-Arnold, but also the right-sided center-back, who has more ground to cover, the left-back, who’s expected to tuck into form a three, and the three existing midfielders, whose positions have been adjusted.
Never before under Klopp have the Reds gone into a season with this much change happening all at once.
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