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Jürgen Klopp’s decision on who starts at right back Tuesday night against Ajax will be revealing.
The manager doesn’t have many options. There will be no James Milner to trust. Klopp could persist with Neco Williams, who has struggled in place of Trent Alexander-Arnold; he could slide Fabinho through, a move he’s been reluctant to make as it pulls him out of one of the central points behind; It could leave Jordan Henderson on the right side, a play that would eliminate the team’s best temp from the base of midfield; he could go with Curtis Jones, an unusual move the coach was forced to make in the later stages of the Brighton game; he could leave Kostas Tsimikas on the right and roll with Andy Robertson on the left, at least for part of not the whole game. Neither of them is an excellent or reliable option.
Most of the discussion will focus on Williams and how Klopp views his development.
Four things can be true at once: Expectations of Williams making the starting eleven have been too high, mainly due to the fact that Alexander-Arnold and Curtis Jones made the leap from academy to first-team soccer without a hitch ( Jones is full of promise, Alexander-Arnold is already the best player in his position in the world); the development of young players is often bumpy; online criticism for his shows earlier in the season shifted from criticism of cowardly abuse of a 19-year-old; Williams has been poor, looking more than a little over his head.
That last statement is a fact and quite important given the context of the season. Williams has struggled defensively Y going forward. Against Brighton on Saturday, he became so negative at the net in the attacking phase that older players effectively excluded him from the set-up play, a damning accusation against a player Klopp eliminated at halftime.
It’s difficult to cross the line of fair criticism and criticize a developing player too much. Most telling is what Klopp made of Williams’ performance, which make of Williams ‘ability to overcome a series of poor performances, and how he sees the response of Williams’ teammates to his poor performance.
This will be the most challenging, difficult and important spell of Neco Williams’ career. He has broken into the first team, showed some promise and is now struggling. How will you navigate this complicated maze? It’s both a mental and a talent-based question.
(However, it’s fair to ask: What is Williams’s most prominent trait?)
And that makes Klopp’s decision risky. Will dropping Williams be his thing or will he be welcome for the break? Will it confirm the typical lingering doubts of teens breaking into a first-team setup, or will it spur it on, which typically divides quasi-players from the best?
That’s why managers are paid a lot of money: to solve that difficult question, a question that only Williams and Klopp can answer; and neither will know the reality of the decision for a couple of years.
If Klopp chooses to walk away from Williams, it’s a not-so-subtle sign of what he sees about the future of right-backs, more short-term than long-term. Klopp must start from the premise that he needs his best available center pair, Joel Matip and Fabinho, and Jordan Henderson in midfield. If you compromise that or wedge a player out of position, it will be an indictment of where Williams is on his development curve.
And that raises interesting questions about what the club should do in January.
Alexander-Arnold is about to be back in top form. But as Liverpool’s ongoing injury crisis shows, he won’t be able to play the remainder of the season as Liverpool’s sole right-back. They will need to rotate. But if Klopp doesn’t see Williams as a viable backup option (and dropping him against Ajax would indicate that), then there will be a pretty transparent hole in the team.
With Joe Gomez and Virgil van Dijk out for the rest of the year, slipping Fabinho is no longer a realistic option. And relying on James Milner at this stage in his career, with your recent injury history, it would be a gamble.
Find an option similar to Tsimikas or other a short-term perspective or stoppage, just to get to the end of the season, would be sensible choices. Finding that player, someone who knows who will be behind Alexander-Arnold now and forever (barring a serious injury), will be difficult.
But that’s where the club could find itself in January. Given how important the sides are for the preparation of the team Y Defensive geometry, Alexander-Arnold’s fall to a makeshift right-back or a below-average Williams isn’t good enough to carry Klopp and company. where they want to be.
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