Profiles and Puzzles Continued

A collaboration with The Redmen TV to elaborate on last week's piece surrounding profiles and puzzles within Liverpool's squad.

So last week, I put together a post called Profiles and Puzzles, which you can read here. It was all about Liverpool’s squad, and how despite being packed full of really good players, the pieces don’t quite fit together in a tactical sense as harmoniously as they once did.

I joined The Redmen TV just a few days later, and we dedicated a Deep Dive episode to my post. You can watch the full video on YouTube, but I’m going to use some clips from our show here to add an extra layer to my original post.

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I started last week’s post by comparing Jürgen Klopp’s first Liverpool outfit to the Sistine Chapel. The players were good, of course, but the blueprint worked, too. It was beautiful. The finest architecture.

The below clip visualises what I meant when I said all of the players on Merseyside complemented each other when Liverpool ruled the world.

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If we compare that blueprint to the one — or lack of one — that we’re currently dealing with, the difference is pretty stark. Liverpool have been a mishmash of different ideas over the past 12 months, but things can be refined now that we’re entering into a new era.

Sometimes we play with a poaching striker like Darwin Núñez, sometimes we play with more of a false nine like Cody Gakpo. Sometimes we’ve got a playmaking right-back like Trent Alexander-Arnold on the pitch, sometimes we’ve got Joe Gomez there. Alexis Mac Allister is your holding midfielder, and then it’s Wataru Endō.

Now, I appreciate that some of this is normal. You want options, and you don’t want to be predictable. It’s not easy finding two clones for every position, and sometimes you need to adapt, 100 per cent.

I’m talking more about picking a few guys who are going to represent our future, and constructing an environment around them. Find ways for them — and everybody else — to flourish at once, as a collective.

Again, an example of what I’m talking about can be watched below: