Season Review: 2023/24

Liverpool have concluded their 2023/24 campaign, so how did it go, and what can we expect next season?

Well, that was an emotional one. The campaign that we initially thought would act as a springboard for Liverpool 2.0 actually ended up being Jürgen Klopp’s last dance.

The Reds ended the season with a trophy — which is probably the main thing — but how did the car perform under the hood? What strengths did Liverpool showcase, and what weaknesses did we suffer from?

This is your inaugural end-of-season review, powered by the numbers that Klopp’s men have posted over the past year.

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So when the campaign started last August, we didn’t really know what to expect from Liverpool. Every match felt like a bit of a free hit, with a freshly renovated midfield department appearing like a potential solution to the woes of the previous season.

Liverpool bought good players in Alexis Mac Allister, Dominik Szoboszlai, Wataru Endō and Ryan Gravenberch, but we didn’t know how they would perform as a collective.

Perhaps most of all — despite investing in youth and legs — we didn’t know whether Liverpool would improve against the ball. In the previous season, that was the primary issue. The overwhelming weakness. The Reds just got cut open every week, mainly because their midfield of pensioners struggled to showcase enough intensity to keep the door closed.

Darwin Núñez also had to find a way of becoming a starter. £85m was too much to spend on a break-glass option from the bench. And question marks surrounded the idea of Andy Robertson as a wide centre-back, and Endō — who was over 30 years old and had never experienced Champions League or Europa League football — as the team’s pivot.

38 matches have been played since we toyed with those thoughts. So how did Liverpool perform?

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Well, mostly as expected if you ask me. The Reds have been the third-best team in England, quite a distance away from fourth but also quite a distance away from second if we’re being honest with ourselves.

On the attacking side of the game, we’ve unsuprisingly been more creative than any other team in the division. The Reds have generated more shots than everyone, and more xG.

Liverpool actually ended up averaging 20.6 (!!) shots per match, which is quite insane. For context, only one team in Premier League history has ever averaged more than 20 shots per match, and that was Chelsea under Carlo Ancelotti in 2009/10.

The Blues won the title that year, and they set a new record for goals scored with 103, whereas Liverpool only scored 86 this term. Yeah, go figure.

When your number six is Mac Allister, your right-back is Trent Alexander-Arnold, and your left-back is Robertson, you’ve pretty much got the last pass from everywhere. We knew Liverpool would be difficult to defend against, and that has mostly proved to be the case.

The finishing hasn’t always been great. In fact, Klopp’s men ended up scoring about seven goals less than expected, underperforming by more than every other side in the division except for Brighton and Hove Albion, Sheffield United and Everton.

Make no mistake about it, though, our prospects of potentially winning the league stemmed from the level of our offensive players and how they managed to effectively get us out of jail so often after going behind.

From a tactical standpoint, despite generating loads in the final third, Liverpool have consistently had to battle against an ongoing width problem, and this was relatively easy to anticipate last summer once combining the lack of natural wingers in the squad with the modern trend of full-backs becoming inverted.

Núñez has shined at times — and nobody in the country gets more shots than his 4.7 per 90 — but he’s still not great at converting his attempts into goals, and he’s formed part of a attacking puzzle that hasn’t been perfected yet. The pieces don’t quite fit as well as we’d like them to. Things need to be refined.

Cody Gakpo, Mohamed Salah, Diogo Jota and Luis Díaz are all pretty great individuals, but what’s the blueprint, and who benefits who? There’s lots to tweak over the summer but nevertheless, even despite those structural concerns, Liverpool still tend to create enough to win most of their games.

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On the defensive end, we’ve improved, no doubt, but not enough to be deserving of the gold medal ahead of Manchester City and Arsenal.

Liverpool have faced about 10.9 shots per match, and those efforts have typically been worth around 1.2 xG in total. If we’re wanting to win the title, that needs to come down by about 0.2 at the very least.

Arsenal, for perspective, have given away shots worth just 0.7 per match, with City not far behind on 0.9.

Virgil van Dijk has been as good as ever, but his centre-back partner has been anybody’s guess. Joël Matip has been injured, Ibrahima Konaté has been injured — albeit less so — and Jarell Quansah has been a youngster doing his best impression of a fully-grown adult.

The defensive frailty isn’t just about the defenders. Liverpool must be difficult to attack as a unit, and that will only happen when every player becomes a defender without possession, and everything is compact at all times.

That dynamic isn’t easy to strike — especially when pressing high — but Arsenal and City both manage to do it. As shown below, Liverpool are about Champions League good when it comes to conceding progressive passes, but they are the worst in the division for getting dribbled past.

This could be a personnel problem, sure, but peak Fabinho would be getting dribbled past if the team wasn’t compact around him. From a tactical standpoint, ensuring our players are less exposed next season is going to be really important.

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So overall, we’ve got a title-winning attack — albeit one that needs to be polished a bit — and a defence that you tend to see competing for a place in the top four. If you want to get better, you need to address that balance.

Arne Slot improves Liverpool’s goal difference — and consequently their points total — next season by giving away less, and one of the ways in which he can do that is by sacrificing some of the attack that we’ve witnessed this term.

Below, you’ll find a clip of me talking on The Anfield Wrap in September after just four games of the campaign. My thoughts haven’t changed much. The Reds are still generally a bit too chaotic, vertical and random to keep jeopardy at bay.

So you need to get better in defence, and you can indirectly achieve that by becoming smarter in possession. They are connected. The smarter you attack, the easier defending becomes.

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This summer, I think the general objectives for those involved are pretty clear.

On the training ground, Slot must find a way of ensuring that Liverpool concede less, and if he wants to tick that box by toning down the Reds in attack, cool.

As for Richard Hughes, Michael Edwards and the guys upstairs, again, they will probably want to sign players who will somehow move the needle on the defensive side of the game.

If the coaches and the suits can combine by completing their respective tasks between now and August, evolution should follow. This is the start of a new era. Klopp has done his part by pushing the train out of the station. The onus is now on the new regime to build upon his work.