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Liverpool have been walking a tightrope for several weeks.
In fact, we can argue that the season is a giant shrug, a nine-month procession of who knows? However, as goalposts change, things can get lost in the mud and skew in our constant tunnel vision for fitness updates, or need a game result now seemingly every other day.
The fact is that Liverpool have quietly gotten away with it in recent weeks. They were punished by Atalanta at Anfield, but that result is now limited to the irrelevant. While we’ve all been so focused on starting with the XIs, there hasn’t been time to consider a major issue at Liverpool’s bench.
Against Ajax, Liverpool’s only midfield alternative was a player already playing central. Takumi Minamino does not need to apply here. He is not a midfielder, the jury is still out on whether he will actually do so as a Liverpool player.
Curtis Jones, Jordan Henderson and Gini Wijnaldum were enough to feel a sense of security and competition in the starting lineup Tuesday, but beyond that, the Reds were clearly struggling, and Ajax clearly knew it.
Like Atalanta, the Dutch team consciously set out to expend the energies of the locals in the middle of the field and seek to take the game away from them in the final stages. As it happens, the result was the other way around with Jones’ second-half winner.
With Sunday’s opponent Wolves being slick in the transfer market in recent years, they have options beyond the starting lineup even without the hapless Raúl Jiménez. Against Arsenal, they presented Ruben Neves, Fabio Silva and Max Kilman; in fact, they introduced competition in the midfield.
That is not to say that his bench is a better option than his opponent this weekend, especially after the news of the return of Naby Keïta and Trent Alexander-Arnold. Although many will be reflecting on the physical condition of the right back, it is Keïta’s that could be the most crucial of all.
If Keïta is fit enough to play 30 minutes for Liverpool, injury-free beforehand, then he could prove as important as Trent in the sense that he allows Klopp at least one option beyond moving Fabinho or betting on Minamino. Liverpool have quietly avoided a difficult situation in recent weeks. Naby Keïta could now have made sure it stays that way.
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