After a transfer window which has left Liverpool celebrating an exciting, if cautious, optimism reality will soon start to hit. The international break will give way to a crunch double-header this weekend and in midweek as Jurgen Klopp’s Reds have to build on a successful transfer window and actually turn that into performances on the pitch.
On Saturday afternoon, the Premier League returns with an early kick-off when Liverpool travel to Manchester City, before Anfield welcomes back Champions League football with the arrival of Sevilla in a repeat of the 2016 Europa League final.
They are two big games and would be huge at any time of the year. But given they’re coming now, just after the transfer window and on the back of an international break, they start to take on a new dimension.
Despite signing Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain on deadline day to add to the squad along with Andrew Robertson, Dominic Solanke and Mohamed Salah, it’s hard to escape the fact that Liverpool are still missing in two areas they spent the summer trying to strengthen. Naby Keita will arrive in a year’s time, meaning he won’t be any use to Klopp this season, and looking back at the the Virgil van Dijk saga only seems to underscore how Liverpool didn’t actually manage to sign a centre-back: a potential problem for a side who are gaining a growing reputation for being a soft touch at the back, and who are still reliant on Dejan Lovren to partner Joel Matip.
Time will tell if these failures will be the difference between a good season, a poor one, or something in between.
But in the more immediate future, it will be interesting to see just what Jurgen Klopp has in mind for his side, which now looks to be much more complete, at least in midfield and attack. He now has a squad which seems to have a functional-looking feel to it, where the midfield three are energetic and committed, and the front three are pacey and skillful. That makes Liverpool look set-up perfectly to overcome teams on the counter-attack, just as they did to Arsenal in their last game, but where does that leave room for the slower creativity of Philippe Coutinho?
Keeping hold of the Brazilian despite being offered crazy money was clearly a sign of intent from the club, as well as a very practical thing to do. Selling your best player just because Barcelona come knocking isn’t necessarily something that five-time European champions usually do, but in this case it seemed like turning down a fortune for a player who doesn’t necessarily seem to fit into the team. With a midfield three seemingly geared to hassle the opposition and transition the team onto the counter, and the front three filled with pace, Coutinho is something of an outlier, not obviously fitting into either role.
And yet, he is still one of the side’s best players, and a man who can make a difference in tight games, especially in the sorts of games against lower-in-the-table opposition where the Reds dropped points last season due to a lack of creativity – though admittedly, that was often with Coutinho in the side. With both Sadio Mane and Mohamed Salah, though, he will be able to play with runners ahead of him, and that could make a difference.
But while it’s clear that the Brazilian will be the major talking point around the club over the next few games, there’s a danger that this will overshadow what is a genuine issue for Klopp ahead of two matches against sides who are notoriously efficient in possession, and who will provide two different tests of Liverpool’s defence.
Despite City’s creativity in midfield, and their obvious ability to break teams down from open play, they are also particularly devastating on the counter-attack, an area where Liverpool’s defence can often look vulnerable. Against the top six clubs, it’s Klopp’s side who seem perfectly suited to springing counters on the teams who like to play in possession, but that doesn’t mean they can’t be hit going the other way as well.
In midweek against Sevilla, the Spaniards are unlikely to utilise the counter quite so much. Last season, they scored only once in La Liga on the counter-attack, and even though they have changed manager this summer, replacing Jorge Sampaoli with Eduardo Berizzo, the former Celta Vigo manager, that seems unlikely to change too much. Last season, Celta scored only once on the counter, too, with the vast majority of their goals also coming from open play.
It will be interesting to see how Liverpool’s defence copes with these two sides.
And then there’s the unknown, which is perhaps the most difficult to read. How will Liverpool come back from the international break? After breaks – and especially early-season ones, when teams haven’t quite settled into the rhythm of a campaign – teams always come back from their week away not knowing just how well they’ll do when they play a match again.
The first games back are always strange in that regard: players return from all over the world and you don’t know whether they’ll just pick up where they left off, hit the ground running or have to feel their way back into the new run of games. Last time out, Liverpool enjoyed a massive high after beating Arsenal, but will the break mean their form’s worn off before the trip to Manchester on Saturday?
There’s an optimism and an excitement around the club for the moment, and one that’s justified after good results against Arsenal and Hoffenheim as well as a win over Crystal Palace, in the type of game the Reds would probably have drawn last year. But there are still quite a number of questions which remain unanswered about Liverpool. That optimism could break over the next few games, but if it doesn’t, they could be set for a few feel-good months to build momentum for the rest of the season.