Jamie Carragher made a remarkably interesting point about Liverpool on Monday evening after their loss to Brentford.
The Sky Sports pundit, like many others, was critical of Liverpool’s midfield after a dour performance against Brentford at the Gtech Community Stadium, and he chastised the team for losing their physical edge in the middle of the park.
Carragher actually compared this Liverpool team to Arsene Wenger’s Arsenal, claiming that their midfield has morphed from being physically dominant to being too technical.
“The only team it reminds me of is Arsenal under Arsene Wenger. They were a great footballing team, but their pace and physicality, teams couldn’t cope with it, but that team morphed into something really technical and it never won again,” Carragher said on Sky.
When you dig into these comments, it’s actually a great point.
Wenger’s Arsenal in their most-successful era was built around a midfield that contained a lot of energy and physical force.
Patrick Vieira, Gilberto Silva and Emmanuel Petit were three of the most imposing players the Premier League had ever seen, while someone like Ray Parlour could do the running of two players – despite the fact he loved a beer or ten after every game.
However, that all changed as Wenger’s career went on, and the Frenchman pivoted away from the likes of Vieira and Silva and instead used more technically gifted players who used the ball more effectively and stylishly.
What caused this change? Well, in our view it was down to one player – Cesc Fabregas.
At the age of 17, Fabregas broke through at Arsenal and he was immediately one of their best player, and that left Wenger with a conundrum – change the system and ditch the midfield dynamics that had won him so many trophies before, or leave one of the most talented young players he’d ever seen on the bench.
Wenger, as we all know, chose the latter, and Fabregas’ introduction brought about the end of Gilberto Silva’s Arsenal career.
From then on in, Arsenal pivoted from being a winning machine to being an overly-stylish team that lacked a lot of bite – hence the famous line from The IT Crowd ‘the problem with Arsenal is that they always try to walk it in’ – a phrase that was relevant for well over a decade.
After Fabregas broke through, Wenger became almost obsessed with having a technical midfield rather than a functional one.
The likes of Thomas Rosicky, Samir Nasri, Jack Wilshere, Mesut Ozil, Santi Cazorla and Aaron Ramsey were key midfielders for Wenger from there on in, and as brilliant as they were, the Gunners’ midfield was far too flimsy from that point onwards and that led to them losing games where the physicality was stepped up time and time again.
The likes of Stoke City, Birmingham City, Watford and any Sam Allardyce team had their way with Wenger’s side year after year, and it was because the midfield just couldn’t handle the rough-and-tumble of that style of play.
Fabregas changed the fabric of what Arsenal’s midfield was, and while it won them a number of style points, it cost them dearly.
So, where do Liverpool come into this?
Well, as Carragher said on Monday, the same thing is happening at Anfield, and, once again, we have to point towards one player as the man who has changed the way Jurgen Klopp thinks of his midfield.
We’re talking about Thiago Alcantara.
The Spaniard, much like Fabregas did at Arsenal, came into this Liverpool team as something new. Liverpool’s midfield of Fabinho, Jordan Henderson and Gini Wijnaldum wasn’t flashy, they didn’t have much flair and they weren’t playing eye-of-the-needle passes on a weekly basis, but they fulfilled their roles brilliantly.
Fabinho was the perfect anchor, Henderson was a brilliant engine, while Wijnaldum was the ultimate jack-of-all-trades midfielder. They all complemented each other so well.
However, Thiago came in as a breath of fresh air, a midfielder with genuinely world-class god-given ability who could do unimaginable things with the ball at his feet – for many managers, he’s a dream.
Unfortunately though, that type of player has never been what Jurgen Klopp is all about. The German plays what has been dubbed as ‘heavy metal football’ and it’s all about running, intensity and pressing – it’s the antithesis of tiki-taka – the style of play Thiago was brought up on at La Masia under Pep Guardiola.
Klopp, much like Wenger with Fabregas, had a conundrum when Thiago was brought in. Does he change the entire composition of his midfield to suit the most technically-gifted player at the club, or does he leave a player with that level of talent on his bench?
As Carragher pointed out after the Brentford game, Klopp has opted to switch to a more technical style, and, just like Arsenal in the 2000s, it’s beginning to cost them in the games against the likes of Brentford, Fulham and Leeds. The likes of Christian Norgaard, Joao Palhinha and Tyler Adams – three of the division’s toughest tacklers, are having field days with this Liverpool midfield, and that quite simply can’t happen if you want to win major honours.
Of course, Thiago isn’t the only problem in the team. After all, Liverpool nearly won a quadruple last season with him in the side, but, again just like Wenger did after unearthing Fabregas, Klopp is now looking to implement more and more technical midfielders into his side.
Harvey Elliott has been the obvious player to point the finger at this season, while Fabio Carvalho is in a similar boat, but the fact that Liverpool signed Arthur Melo on deadline day as their late midfield signing is also telling. The Brazilian may not have played much football yet due to his fitness, but, rest assured, as another ex-Barcelona player, he’s much closer to being another Thiago than he is being another Wijnaldum.
Thiago is a brilliant footballer, as was Fabregas, but Klopp seems to be falling into the same trap Arsene Wenger did after getting his hands on his own world-class Spanish midfielder. He’s becoming way too focused on technicality in the midfield when he should be looking at bringing back the energy and grit that won him the Champions League and the Premier League.
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