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Liverpool’s need for a creative midfielder has been hotly debated since Philippe Coutinho left the club in January 2018.
At the start of the Jurgen Klopp era, they were blistering against superior teams, but struggled to take down the more disciplined opponents who sat in a deep, compacted space in front of the penalty area. In truth, they lacked the art and ingenuity to bring them down.
Meanwhile, Manchester City were dividing through their opponents, largely due to the creativity of Kevin de Bruyne and David Silva on a double-center line axle, which only increased pressure on the Reds. The problem, apparently, was obvious.
Liverpool, however, has since tackled its creativity problem. This season they are on track to score 84.5 goals, having averaged 15.6 shots per game this season, the third in the Premier League. Last year, they scored 89 goals.
But these excellent goal-scoring and opportunity-building numbers have not been developed through improved production from his midfield, as many might have expected.
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In the Premier League, Liverpool’s opening midfield trio, Jordan Henderson, Gini Wijnaldum and Fabinho combined for just six assists and seven goals this season.
The Reds’ skipper is the most creative of the trio, but averaged just 1.05 opportunities created per 90 minutes, while Wijnaldum’s total is as low as 0.46. De Bruyne created 3.86 chances per 90 for the sake of comparison.
Liverpool does not trust its midfield for casual creation. Instead, Klopp turns to his back to supply the explosive front three.
Trent Alexander-Arnold leads all Liverpool players with 12 assists, placing him second in this season’s Premier League ranking, while creating 2.58 chances for 90, the seventh highest in the top flight and more than any other. defender.
On the opposite flank, Andy Robertson has provided seven assists, the second-most joint in the squad, and offers 1.62 innings for every 90. That number ranks fifth in Liverpool’s squad, above each bar for central midfielder Naby Keita. .
Robertson and Alexander-Arnold are used in a completely unique way by Klopp. They are more involved in building and creating Liverpool than any other pair of defenses in world football, and they relieve the creative pressure of a central midfield tasked with providing physicality, balance, and protection against counterattack.
The pair ranks among the top five in the Liverpool team for the expected assists per 90, the top three for passes, the top five for passes to the penalty area and the top two for crosses to the penalty area and progressive passes, excluding those who have played less than 400 minutes
This is not by accident. The Klopp system is designed this way with Robertson and Alexander-Arnold free to ruffle their respective flanks and instructed to play more cautiously into midfield, providing the core team structure.
Creativity comes through full backups; Continuity from the center of the field. And it works wonderfully.
Thanks to this system, Liverpool has produced the best form in the history of the Premier League. They are still on track to set the Premier League record for points, wins and the first title win.
And this does not include its historic end to last season. Since the start of last season, Liverpool lost only twice. They have won 36 of their last 38 games, breaking the record for the most points recorded in a period of 38 games.
Liverpool has been historically great. And they have done it without a creative midfield.
However, having an alternative option to remove from banking is not a bad thing. Having variety in attack is invaluable and has led many to suggest that the club should invest in that player this summer.
But in Keita and Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain, Liverpool have two players who have shown that they are at least capable of fulfilling this role, albeit somewhat inconsistently at this current stage.
Keita has not performed as expected, but its underlying numbers suggest that it is capable of much more. He has an average of 0.24 assists and 0.29 expected assists for 90 minutes. His expected assists for every 90 seconds in the squad, just 0.01 behind Alexander-Arnold.
Keita has created 1.98 opportunities for 90 so far this season, which is also second in the team, and 7.07 progressive passes for 90, just 0.03 behind Henderson, who is the best of the midfield first choice trio of the Liverpool.
Oxlade-Chamberlain is not as creative as Keita. He has created 1.14 opportunities for 90 minutes, a figure comparable to Adam Lallana and Henderson, for example. But he’s an excellent dribbler, completing two-thirds of his 3.41 attempts by 90, making him the third-highest number of dribbling attempts by 90 on the team.
The need for creativity in the center of the central field, then, is somewhat moderate. With full-backs involved, the prolific nature of the three forwards, and the tactics Klopp employs, having three more hard-working midfielders is essential to exercising the other creative options in the team.
Liverpool haven’t had a dominant creative midfielder since Coutinho left in 2018. But they haven’t exactly fought without one. So why change now?
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