Playing Cupid
Liverpool keep swiping left.
It’s Q&A week on this Substack.
I asked my subscribers to submit questions on Sunday afternoon, and we’ll be answering most of them on this week’s podcast episode, which will be released on Tuesday.
But first, I’m going to dedicate this post to one of the submissions. Shoutout to Samuel Dodds for the question, who asked:
“To what extent do you think it’s possible that things might just click for Liverpool at some point, versus the need for major personnel and tactical changes? I understand the points made that we’re lacking certain profiles — especially progressive passing — but it does seem like the current style may simply take a bit of time to drill in with some new players around, and when it does, that might fix a hell of a lot of the team’s issues.”
Alright, so first things first, Liverpool aren’t as bad as they appear based on the form table right now.
Like, since Giovanni Leoni got injured, the Reds have played ten matches in all competitions, losing seven of them. Make no mistake about it, that’s truly abysmal. Relegation stuff.
And I know Liverpool’s most recent loss against Manchester City wasn’t great, either. Losing by a three-goal margin can happen in football, especially when deflections and referees get involved.
Crystal Palace, Chelsea and Manchester United all managed to beat Liverpool by scoring late winners with seconds remaining on the clock, with each of the three stemming from Arne Slot gambling in the final moments. He got paid for being bold at the start of the season. Not so much lately.
We’ve all been getting carried away with the tactical state of the team, too, myself included. It’s looked ugly out there at times. But the reality is Liverpool should still win plenty of games because of the talent within their squad.
My point is Liverpool will probably start winning more games now, and not necessarily because anything dramatic has changed, no. More because the coin keeps landing on tails and that seems unlikely to continue to the same extent.
But when it comes to the idea of clicking as a team, I’m sorry but in my book, that doesn’t just happen. And I’m not sure I believe it happens through experience, either.
Relationships are pretty important in sport, granted. But you can’t just have a relationship with anyone. Some people just aren’t meant to be in the same room together, and it’s kinda like that in football sometimes.
We’ve all worked with people who simply aren’t for us. Colleagues who don’t bring out our best qualities. Family members who are either too different or too similar to us. It happens.
When Liverpool signed Luis Díaz in 2022, he made his debut a few days later and looked like he’d been representing the shirt for years. Part of the furniture. Andy Robertson took seconds to find out his favourite colour and his mother’s maiden name.
That sudden bond wasn’t a coincidence. It stemmed from the pairing of two complementary profiles in a functional system. Nothing more, nothing less. I’m pretty sure Díaz didn’t even speak English back then.
Of course there’s a degree of players being on the same wavelength. Quality combining with quality. And playing together over a longer period of time certainly helps.
But relationships tend to blossom from tactical harmony. The players who develop the strongest bonds naturally benefit each other without having to be instructed to behave in a certain manner. It happens naturally.
Think Gary Neville and David Beckham. Dennis Bergkamp and Thierry Henry. Kevin De Bruyne and Erling Haaland. Xabi Alonso, Javier Mascherano and Steven Gerrard. William Saliba and Gabriel Magalhães. Meant to be.
My concerns regarding Liverpool’s current squad — and why I’m not sure clicking will just happen — stem from the number of players who clash with one another.
Slot is managing conflicting profiles, rather than complementary ones, with many of his players vying for the same spaces, naturally resulting in some having to occupy unfamiliar roles.
Mohamed Salah and Jeremie Frimpong almost feel too similar to play on the same pitch together, because when you’re building from the back in particular, they both want to stand in the same place.
Alexander Isak and Hugo Ekitike are twins in many ways. And they’re both very expensive, yet Slot has only fielded one striker at a time throughout his entire managerial career, even dating back to his time in the Netherlands.
Milos Kerkez loves to overlap and underlap. He likes combining with his winger and getting to the byline before hitting cutback crosses towards the penalty spot, cool.
The problem? In addition to being used in deeper areas since joining Liverpool, he’s also attempted to combine with the ultimate lone ranger that is Cody Gakpo, who has been swiping left on every possible occasion since the dawn of time.
And then you’ve got Florian Wirtz. In this Tinder-fuelled post, he’s your classic relationship guy. So easy to get along with, big people pleaser. Always looking to connect. A social butterfly.
But he’s found it tough on Merseyside. Less time on the ball, more aerial nonsense, stronger opponents in a man-to-man environment. And perhaps most importantly of all, he doesn’t seem to have a place now that Slot has realised Dominik Szoboszlai’s importance as Salah’s personal bodyguard.
Wirtz has played as a number ten, and he’s also been deployed on the left and the right. But he’s largely struggled to connect regardless, and that’s unlike him, which perhaps illustrates the extent of the issue.
Before the international break, Slot essentially fielded the same team three games in a row. That was him searching to restore the relationships of last season, and it kinda worked.
Deserved wins over Aston Villa and Real Madrid, and a bad-but-mostly-unlucky defeat the Etihad, which can happen even when things are going well, never mind when you’re swimming against the tide.
The Dutchman should keep moving forward in that direction, while showing extreme caution whenever introducing his new signings. Not because they’re bad, but because some of them clash and consequently upset the taste of the recipe.
So Liverpool should get back to winning ways — within reason, at least — after the international break. The Reds aren’t seven losses from ten bad, don’t worry.
But you might have to wait until some point in 2026 to see that spark, when things truly click.
Interesting article. You’ve nailed it: the issue isn’t waiting for the team to “click”—it’s about complementary profiles and the tactical harmony that creates relationships. I’d also add that there’s the basic humanity of people moving and living in different areas and countries, which simply takes time.
Of the seven new faces, three are injured. That in turn obscures what the plan is and, ultimately, the relationships that underpin it. Looking at the four consistently available players, we see a mix of success and major relational issues:
• Ekitike: The exception. He’s arguably the most successful signing because his role is simple—put the ball in the net. He needs fewer complex connections to thrive.
• Wirtz: Talent is world-class, but he’s visibly struggling to synchronise his abilities with the league and the team’s structure. He clearly can connect, proven by his established relationship with Ekitike, which might be insightful in itself.
• Giorgi: Better shot-stopper than Kelleher, but his poor distribution actively exposes the rest of the defence.
• Kerkez: Harshly criticised defensively, but the real failure is his on-ball relationships. The disconnect with VVD is the most alarming partnership issue.
This is the most disappointing part. The existing players are meant to be the platform, the continuity. Instead of leading the transition, the core has actively regressed. Whilst Macca and Bradley have injury excuses, players like Konaté, Salah, and Gakpo have conspicuously dropped off instead of forming the solid, reliable base we desperately needed. Frankly, only Dom has elevated his game and embraced a leadership role this season. Leadership manifests itself in many different ways.
I think that for it to click Liverpool will need to fix their buildup and find some way of dealing with the physical, long ball football that teams are throwing at them this year. If they can’t do the latter, it won’t stop and Liverpool will keep conceding cheap goals. If they can’t do the former they won’t create chances at the level that they should with the players they have.
My reductionist, simplistic take is that too many of our players are too small / not physically aggressive enough and too few of them are passers rather than runners. There is both physical and stylistic imbalance in the squad. That to me feels like a transfer solution rather than a coaching / tactical one.