Graeme Souness believes Liverpool are in desperate need for midfield reinforcements with Jordan Henderson and Thiago the wrong side of 30 and Naby Keita not ‘good enough’, speaking to talkSPORT (10 October, 10.40am).
Sir Alex Ferguson certainly had a knack for knowing when to switch things up. Remember the summer of 1995? When Manchester United sold the legendary trio of Mark Hughes, Andrei Kanchelskis and Paul Ince before going on to re-claim their title, while leaving Alan Hansen wishing he’d never uttered those six infamous words.
Ferguson also sold David Beckham and replaced him with a young Cristiano Ronaldo. Out went Ruud van Nistelrooy too, ten months before a youthful frontline fired United to their first title in three seasons.
Now, hindsight is a wonderful thing, of course, but Jurgen Klopp may regret not taking a leaf out of Ferguson’s playbook. One two teams – West Ham and Fulham – have older squads than a Liverpool side who now count eight key players aged 30 or over, including three regulars in their crumbling midfield.
And while Souness believes there is nothing in suggestions that the ‘seven year curse’ is once striking Klopp down – after spells at Mainz and Dortmund went pear shaped around a similar time – the Liverpool legend does put the club’s current malaise down to a lack of quality reinforcements in the middle of the park.
Is Graeme Souness right about Liverpool’s biggest problem?
“I don’t see the comparison between Mainz and Dortmund. I don’t see it being a seven-year thing. Just a gigantic coincidence. It’s complete tosh,” Souness says after Liverpool were outran and outplayed by the youthful exuberance of Arsenal at the Emirates Stadium on Sunday.
“If you’ve had success, going down a certain road, do you all of a sudden change it? It’s personnel. It’s not him.
“One (area) where I think they’ve made a mistake is the midfield; screaming out for strengthening. You’ve got Thiago Alcantara, 31, Jordan Henderson, 32, (James) Milner, (nearly) 37. Keita, for me, isn’t good enough.
“I think that’s a fairly obvious area where you need to strengthen.”
Klopp, at least, seems to be aware of a glaring issue in Liverpool’s XI. Enzo Fernandez, Matheus Nunes and, of course, Jude Bellingham are already under consideration; the men from Merseyside looking ahead to what could be a make-or-break summer in 2023.
By then, former RB Leipzig ace Keita is likely to be heading out the door. His contract expires in less than 12 months, with little movement on an extension.
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