Liverpool’s risky makeover: Millions spent on high-flying attack, but can defense hold for a title repeat?

Dean Henderson has the ball in his own penalty area, assessing where Crystal Palace might best attack into danger. Meanwhile, 50 yards up the field, Curtis Jones is gesticulating forcefully in the direction of Jeremie Frimpong, urging him to drop back into the back line before the opposition have time to get the ball into advanced areas. Not a moment of great threat in and of itself, but this one instance was indicative of the challenges Liverpool seem to have created for themselves through this summer’s radical overhaul of Arne Slot’s squad.

Frimpong was many things during four and a half exceedingly successful years with Bayer Leverkusen: a dribbling dynamo, a penalty box poacher and a ball progressor down the flank. However, rarely, if ever, was he even a semi-orthodox right back in a four man defense. Xabi Alonso’s system was designed to put the Dutchman where he was most effective, that meant that over the past two seasons Frimpong registered 347 touches in the opposition penalty area and 38 in his own.

His first thought is to get forward and when that pays off — as in his brilliant if likely inadvertent clip over Henderson — it will be very hard for Liverpool’s opponents to quell the overlapping threat from full back, particularly when it is Mohamed Salah that he is driving beyond. Ibrahima Konate has covered for right backs that like to get up the field in the past and he will have to do so again, though Frimpong’s recovery pace is not to be sniffed at. There had been a school of thought that, when Trent Alexander-Arnold left, Liverpool would look for a more orthodox successor. Instead, they have found a man on the defensive flank who once more poses the question: how good does a defender have to be in attack to accept the defensive burden that poses on his team mates?

That could be eased with the sort of cautiously positioned full back on the opposite flank that has become something of a dominant trend in the tactical metagame of the last half decade. There were occasions when Milos Kerkez did exactly that and others where the attacking instincts that made him so admired at Bournemouth came to the fore. His inverted runs in the first half created space in the left channel for Cody Gakpo and Hugo Ekitike, their left back’s instinct clearly to stretch play up the field. Kerkez’s fingers were all over the build up to Hugo Ekitike’s opening goal.

When Kerkez and Frimpong were at their best in advanced areas, Liverpool had too many bodies for Palace to deal with. Occasionally deploying a six man attacking line, they stretched play in pursuit of gaps for Florian Wirtz to slide a pass into. With further reps, their movement will only become more effective, particularly as Ekitike, Gakpo and Mohamed Salah are not the sort of forwards who like to be tied to their starting position.

The issue is those gaps are rich pickings for the opposition if they turn the ball over in optimal positions. Take this instance in the 23rd minute where Palace win the ball back on the edge of their own third. Jean-Phillipe Mateta’s first instinct is to move to the ball, trusting that Virgil van Dijk will follow him. The Liverpool captain does exactly that and a first time pass to Eberechi Eze takes him out of the game. On the far side Kerkez is just about in the game, but on the right Frimpong is a long way ahead of play and defensive midfielder Curtis Jones is static.

Ultimately Jones and Frimpong dart back in time to recover, though perhaps that was at least in part because Eze is having to slow the counter down while he waits for reinforcements. Across the field Ismaila Sarr is a very difficult pass away. These might be difficult breakaway attacks to execute, but in general a defense is not functioning in optimal fashion when a center back is left one on one, even if only for a moment, with Eze.

This would not be the only occasion where Liverpool were stretched, giving up 14 shots and over two expected goals, including a penalty that had come after Mateta darted in behind the backline. The Reds posed plenty of threat of their own and speaking after the game Slot seemed to acknowledge that this year’s iteration would deliver more open contests.

“In the whole preseason we saw that we are able to create more and are more comfortable on the ball,” he said. “We create more chances and dominate maybe even more [than previously]. Last season we had a lot of ball possession, but it didn’t always lead to promising situations. Now we are better at creating than we were throughout the whole of last season.

“The other side is also true, that we’ve conceded four against AC Milan, one against a Japanese team [Yokohama F. Marinos], two against [Athletic Club] Bilbao and two again today. What made us really strong last season was we only won by a margin of one goal, mostly that was to do with keeping a clean sheet or at maximum conceding one goal.”

Slot insisted his side were not giving away many openings at Wembley, but he did acknowledge, “It needs a little bit of adjustment defensively because we don’t concede a lot of chances recently, but we do concede a lot of goals at the moment.”

Of course, Liverpool have previously found their way to strong defensive returns when playing with attack minded fullbacks, conceding only 26 goals when finishing second in 2021-22 and 22 three years earlier. The compromise that Jurgen Klopp made was a more conservative midfield, Fabinho dropping between the center backs while Georginio Wijnaldum and in particular Jordan Henderson prioritized structure, security and cycling possession before they darted into the box.

You would not expect the same of Dominik Szoboszlai. While Curtis Jones was doing his best Joe Allen impression, keeping the passing accuracy high without cutting through the Palace lines, the Hungarian was flicking balls loosely around midfield, twice handing the opposition chances to counterattack quickly. In one of these instances, Szoboszlai exacerbated the issue by sliding onto the deck. These are not the sort of quick fixes that a player can try when there are so few teammates ahead of them and when their forwards are so reluctant to track back. That move ended in an unmarked Daniel Munoz crossing to an unmarked Tyrick Mitchell at the back post. Salah and Gakpo were nowhere to be seen.

Because even a defensively-lacking midfield and front-footed full backs could be mitigated against by a frontline that really works to get the ball back. Slot, however, dialled back the press in last season’s more cautious system, with Liverpool going from being a team who averaged six or seven final third recoveries per Premier League game to 4.4, the ninth most in the division. Salah’s out of possession burden was eased — it is hard to see that picking back up at 33 — while you wouldn’t have confused Gakpo with prime Sadio Mane or Roberto Firmino. Wirtz and Ekitike were out of possession workhorses in the Bundesliga, but two players do not a pressing system make.

There are then issues to offset the scintillating attack that Liverpool seem to have developed in a matter of weeks. None of these are intractable mind, certainly not when you’ve got at least $150 million to commit to strengthening your squad. The tragic passing of Diogo Jota and the subsequent sales of Luis Diaz and Darwin Nunez means that Slot does need greater numbers in the forward line. Harvey Elliott came on for Wirtz against Palace, but his future is in doubt while the fact that Federico Chiesa was unused in a game where two further changes could be made spoke volumes.

Still, the evidence of this game and a dispassionate analysis of Liverpool’s squad is that what holes they are are not best addressed by Alexander Isak, the proverbial “layer of gold paint on the Bentley” that needs upgrades to the engine. Take the $150 million or more and find a truly top tier defensive-minded midfielder, the sort who can ease the pressure on Ryan Gravenberch and Alexis Mac Allister that seems to exist without a ball being kicked. There should still be money after that to poach Marc Guehi from Palace to add to the center back group and find some back up forwards.

After all, for all that the preceding 1400 words have pointed to the flaws in this Liverpool team there is an awful lot to like. Wirtz looks to have slotted in seamlessly; on the Wembley field it looked as if he and Ekitike had already gone through the growing pains of coming to English football. Kerkez showed an aptitude for attacking on the underlap as well as the over. So long as Salah is anything like the player he was last season, this will be the high watermark of Premier League attacks next season. If the center backs can just be afforded a little more protection, there might be no stopping the champions.