After hundreds of millions spent on players, what was Liverpool’s plan? | Premier League

Wwhat was it supposed to look like? Amid all the talk around Liverpool and their disappointing form earlier this season, this is perhaps the hardest question to answer. What were they trying to do? If it had worked, how would this team have played?

The champions spent £424 million (around $550 million) on new signings this summer, but if all had gone well they would have spent another £40 million ($53 million) to sign Crystal Palace centre-back Marc Guéhi. The England international would have at least given an extra option in defense (Giovanni Leoni’s injury further diminished their defensive options), allowing Arne Slot to rest Ibrahima Konaté, whose poor form continued in the 3-0 defeat to Manchester City on Sunday. An early City penalty was the direct result of Konate getting in the way of Conor Bradley as Jérémy Doku cut in from the left.

But Konaté’s partnership with Virgil van Dijk is proven. In past seasons, it’s been much better than that. Although neither centre-back is playing well, Liverpool’s disconcerting opening this season has been less about individual form than structure – and this despite, in recent weeks, their return to midfield last season.

Against Aston Villa last weekend, Slot selected an XI made up of 10 players present at the club last season, plus Hugo Ekitike. On Tuesday, against Real Madrid, there was another change, with Florian Wirtz replacing Cody Gakpo. Liverpool won both of those games, but neither Villa nor Madrid tested their obvious vulnerability to direct balls played behind the full-backs. Getting back to basics, trying to transition to something new and more progressive, was perhaps not quite an admission of the hundreds of millions wasted over the summer, but it was probably an acknowledgment that there had been an attempt to change too much too quickly.

Football teams are delicate organisms. Even on a purely tactical level, without considering the infinite complexities of psychology, changing one element of a composition impacts not only the other 10 elements, but also the coalitions between them. Take out Trent Alexander-Arnold, for example, and Liverpool no longer have a player at right-back who naturally inverts to become an auxiliary midfielder alongside Ryan Gravenberch, protecting the center of defense while freeing up central midfielders Alexis Mac Allister and Dominik Szoboszlai, while also being capable of both sweeping long passes to change play and quick, precise balls to free Mohamed Salah.

Slot had become convinced at the end of last season that their opponents had made Liverpool work, to some extent due to the club’s limited transfer activity last summer. Either way, there will always be a point where it clearly becomes his side rather than Jürgen Klopp’s. To this extent, significant change was inevitable and necessary. But what was the intention? If everything had gone well, what should this side have looked like?

Liverpool have signed two centre-forwards for a combined fee of £210 million ($276 million). Maybe the plan was always to play just one Alexander Isak and Ekitike, keep them fresh, have one always ready to come off the bench, much like West Brom once did with Romelu Lukaku and Shane Long. But given their cost, this is an extremely favored position, even if either could theoretically operate largely in extremis and thus provide additional team depth.

But where was Wirtz, who cost £100 million ($131 million) plus add-ons, supposed to fit? He was apparently promised he would play centrally, which persuaded him to move from Bayer Leverkusen to Anfield rather than Bayern. At the start of the season, Slot’s preference seemed to be towards Wirtz as the central creator in a 4-2-3-1. But as it turned out, that left Liverpool hopelessly open at the back – something evident even though they won their first five games of the season.

Wirtz can adapt but, for now, he is struggling with the physicality of the Premier League. It’s very difficult to see how he and Salah, whose lack of natural defensive ability Liverpool have always had to compensate for, can play in the same team without risking overwhelming the midfield – at least not in the Premier League; Madrid just didn’t offer the same physical challenge.

In fact, it may be that no more than two of Isak, Ekitike, Wirtz and Salah can play together. Even if the summer was part of the transition to a post-Salah future, it’s very difficult to understand what the plan was, unless Liverpool always had some sort of 4-3-1-2 in mind, with Wirtz having to play behind Alexander Isak and Ekitike, with width from full-back, which would at least help explain why they signed Milos Kerkez and Jeremie Frimpong. In a world of direct play and long throws, perhaps the first two will be the next step in the revival of English football in the 1980s.

But for now, Liverpool provide a shining example of how you can take a very good team, throw money at it and make things worse.

• This is an extract from Soccer with Jonathan Wilson, a weekly look at soccer in Europe and beyond from the Guardian US. Subscribe for free here. A question for Jonathan? Email soccerwithjw@theguardian.com and he will respond as best he can in a future edition.