Liverpool are in Carabao Cup final action against Newcastle United at Wembley on Sunday and the midfield area will be key to success
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Alexis Mac Allister of Liverpool is challenged by Bruno Guimaraes of Newcastle United (Photo by Carl Recine/Getty Images)
For some footballers, the transformation is gradual over time. For others, it can devastatingly happen almost overnight. And there are those who decide to duck out altogether before it has chance to truly take hold.
But “falling off the cliff” - the term bandied around to describe the moment a player’s body no longer fully complies with what is usually being demanded of it – is an inevitability when time prompts a shift in emphasis.
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The fortunate few can negotiate the challenge and morph into a different kind of player during the latter stages of their career. Usually, though, the change has to come with the team itself.
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Liverpool stood at such a crossroads with their midfield 18 months ago. Vice-captain James Milner, such a sterling servant over almost a decade, had reached the end of his contract while Thiago Alcantara was increasingly injury-prone and in his thirties.
And that the Reds were that summer willing to part with both skipper Jordan Henderson and defensive midfield giant Fabinho underlined their belief that the beating heart of Jurgen Klopp’s magnificent trophy-winning machine had reached a natural conclusion.
Out went the old, and in came the new. First there was Alexis Mac Allister, bought for a bargain £35million from Brighton. Then £60m was splashed out on Dominik Szoboszlai from RB Leipzig. After missing out on both Romeo Lavia and Moises Caicedo to Chelsea, Liverpool raised eyebrows by signing Wataru Endo from Stuttgart for £16.5m. And then on deadline day came Ryan Gravenberch from Bayern Munich for almost £35m.
A midfield transformation in one fell swoop for more than £155m. And with the exception of Endo, all were in their early twenties.
Each then went on to play their part – along with youngsters Curtis Jones and Harvey Elliott, who were both already part of the squad – as Liverpool flirted with an unprecedented trophy quadruple for much of the campaign before having to settle on winning the League Cup.
But the arrival of Arne Slot as Klopp’s successor has seen another midfield change. Rather than personnel, though, the formation has been tweaked, with Slot preferring a 4-2-3-1 compared to his predecessor’s insistence that 4-3-3 was the way forward.
A subtle difference on paper, yes. But the big transformation has come in the decision to employ Gravenberch, who until that point had forged his burgeoning reputation as an attacking midfielder, in a defensive pivot alongside Mac Allister, another whose forward tendencies had previously been more prominent before joining Liverpool.
It didn’t take long for any question marks to be banished, Gravenberch swiftly becoming an established and key member of a Reds team that shot out of the blocks under Slot at the start of the season.
“The coach called all the players for a talk,” recalls the Holland international from last summer. “After the European Championship he called me to tell me how he saw me. He knew me from my time at Ajax, of course, when he was at AZ and Feyenoord.
“He told me what position he wanted to use me in and he put me at six. I went into it with an open mind. I played a lot at eight and when I was younger also at six. That helps, but now other things are required.
“I have Virgil (van Dijk) behind me to help me. If I go forward too much, he calls me back. I notice that he has to call less and less often and that I focus more on defending. In attack, I try to read the game. That often works well.”
Alongside him, Mac Allister, already a World Cup winner, has blossomed into one of Liverpool’s best players, combining his talent on the ball with grit and determination.
“Nowadays, I can be a little freer and if we start with two sitting midfielders and one a little further forward, that changes things,” he says. “For instance, when the ball goes out to the left full-back, I’m the one who can move further forward, and Ryan becomes the number five.
“So, the system has changed a little, but the main ideas are the same. I think perhaps the big change is in having that patience to have longer periods of possession and dominate games more and obviously that creates more chances.”
Szoboszlai, meanwhile, has this season been turned into an all-action number 10 and the leader of Liverpool’s pressing game. The Premier League win at Manchester City last month was an example of how he can combine both those attributes while still showing his eye for a pass, as with the assist for Mohamed Salah’s opener, and the ability to score by slotting in the Reds’ second.
“I think all of us are similar players and we know from each other that we can trust each other: so, we can swap places, we look at each other and we understand each other,” says Szoboszlai of playing alongside Gravenberch and Mac Allister. “Both of them are amazing players so I am more than happy to play with them.”
It hasn’t, though, just been about the big-money trio. The versatility of Jones means he has deputised for all three at some point in the season and has featured more regularly this season than any of his previous terms since breaking into the Liverpool first team as a 17-year-old.
Now 24, Jones has popped up with a handful big goals, not least a home winner against Chelsea and a strike in the 3-3 Premier League draw at Newcastle United back in December.
And while Elliott, still only 21, and Endo have, for differing reasons, not had the minutes in the Premier League as last campaign, they have both featured prominently in the run to the League Cup final, Elliott scoring the winner in the quarter-final at Southampton while Endo has regularly appeared as a centre-back.
With Newcastle boasting a midfield of Sandro Tonali, the remoulded Joelinton and Bruno Guimaraes – of whom Liverpool were long-time admirers – the battle in the centre of the park could well determine the destiny of the League Cup at Wembley.
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And the Reds know their engine room is nowhere near the cliff-edge. Instead, the revamped midfield is a key reason why they have been scaling new heights this season.