Transition isn’t a new word to Liverpool fc as it has accompanied the Reds over the past few years stretching back to Jurgen Klopp’s last couple of seasons where one of the most potent attacking units in football slipped away and a workhorse midfield left their humble mark upon the sport. Mohamed Salah was the last of the magnificent trio after Sadio Mane and Roberto Firmino had already moved on whilst the midfield of Jordan Henderson, James Milner, Fabinho and Gini Wijnaldum were a memory.
Many players
have left and new signings have joined over those years yet for Liverpool it has also been head coaches, three in four seasons which is not normal for the richly storied club. Klopp ran out of energy before his contract was to end which saw Arne Slot ushered in and interestingly the unchanged squad won the 24/25 Premier League title but then the squad transitions started up again in the crazy summer of big spending to the tune of £450M. The following season led to Slot being sacked and Andoni Iraola becoming the new head coach and now we find big shifts, or a hollowing out, of the squad once again (thank you Richard Hughes).
Both club captain Virgil van Dijk and Alexis Mac Allister spoke on the matter after the game against Nottingham Forest which ended 2-2 and their views are a little different, or at least the publicly spoken words.
Firstly from Virgil, when commenting on the anticipated arrival of Bradley Barcola.
“This is one of the biggest clubs in the world. We all know that we’re going through a little bit of a transition. You either want to be a part of it or you don’t. The window is open until Tuesday, right? Let’s see what happens.
It’s not used as an excuse but an open acceptance that the club is in transition.
Mac Allister’s post match comment though seems to suggest that it’s something that should not be acceptable.
“But as I said before. We are at Liverpool; there is no transition years. You have to win and that’s what we want.”
Quotes from players can be interpreted differently and the nuances missed in translation or context can also tilt what is actually meant by the players into some version that isn’t the original intention. From where this writer is looking at it the message is one of no excuses and if the core of a squad is the same then nothing should derail them in approach and attitude.
The main reason for this writer to be looking into Liverpool’s relationship with transition is because of two factors and the one that doesn’t align with personal changes is about in-game play which has led to at least two goals against and plenty more opportunities. This version of transition is something that needs to be addressed and quickly because we are looking like a team that has failed to find balance between attacking in numbers whilst maintaining cover for counter attacks. More time on the training ground and with the tactics of Iraola should help the players find that balance and that’s a simple reality which is something we can only hope Hughes manages in the final days of the transfer window.
With both transitional situations the foundation must be stability such as, in the case of game play, the attacks can be sustained if the opponents have no path out from the pressure and with transfers the whole balance has to be taken into consideration. Once the transfer window is shut we will all know what we have as a squad and more importantly Iraola will and that in itself should bring a sense of stillness and clarity in knowing exactly who he has at hand to work with and one new name added is Bradley Barcola (finally).
