Liverpool have signed 10 midfielders since Jurgen Klopp took over as manager in October 2015. Including potential add-ons and loan fees, FSG have parted with roughly £215m to complete such transfers.
However, only four of those signings have been completed since the Reds won the Champions League, the first trophy of Klopp’s reign, in 2019. While Liverpool would part with £25m to bring in Thiago Alcantara from Bayern Munich 12 months later, the other three swoops are the signings of teenagers Harvey Elliott and Fabio Carvalho from Fulham in deals worth up to £4.3m and £7.7m respectively, and the £3.5m loan fee paid for the emergency loan signing of Arthur Melo from Juventus.
With plenty being said about Liverpool's midfield in recent times ahead of a desired revamp in 2023, it’s pretty clear that Reds bosses have ultimately neglected investing in their engine room for a number of years. Admittedly they could get away with it at first, but ageing and injury-prone stars and expiring contracts ultimately leave their midfield now in need of a major overhaul.
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From Klopp’s 10 midfield signings at Anfield, Marko Grujic, Gini Wijnaldum and Xherdan Shaqiri are the only ones no longer at the club. From his 10 current options, Naby Keita and Arthur are the only ones currently deemed to be at a peak age.
Yet both are not contracted to the club beyond next summer, with the same applying for both Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain and James Milner. Meanwhile, the Liverpool vice-captain will turn 37 in January and has already been joined by both Jordan Henderson and Thiago on the wrong side of 30.
Fabinho and Oxlade-Chamberlain are both due to reach such a milestone in the next 12 months. Elsewhere, Milner, Elliott and Carvalho are the only three current Reds midfielders you can not accuse of being plagued by injury throughout their career. At least the latter pair, along with Curtis Jones, are still only young with their best years ahead of them.
On paper Liverpool might boast quantity in midfield but it’s clear their engine room requires major surgery, with fingers being pointed at FSG for not gradually revamping the position as they ultimately tripped into the need for next year’s planned overhaul.
Links with the likes of Jude Bellinham continue, with him said to be Klopp’s first-choice target despite competition from the likes of Man City and Real Madrid. To complete such a transfer, FSG would, in all likelihood, need to make the England international the club’s record signing and hand over a fee to Borussia Dortmund equal to over half of what they’ve spent combined on the German’s 10 previous midfield signings.
Yet for a number of years, Liverpool’s faith in their current options was warranted as they were crowned champions of England, Europe and the world, and won every major honour on offer to them. The only issue is they could only deliver each piece of silverware once before the years caught up on them and the injuries stacked.
Perhaps things could have been slightly different, at least, if Grujic had proven to be a good enough player to nail down a starting role at Anfield. Instead, Klopp’s first ever signing made just 16 appearances for the Reds, scoring one goal, following his £5.1m arrival from Red Star Belgrade in January 2016, and spent time on loan at Cardiff City, Hertha Berlin and FC Porto before joining the latter permanently.
Now aged 26, while signed for the future seven years ago, he’s at least now at the peak of his powers. Instead, Liverpool started the cycle again and are waiting for Elliott, Carvalho and Jones to succeed where the Serbian failed.
Yet Grujic potentially wouldn’t have been Klopp’s first signing if the German had had his way. After all, he twice tried to sign Piotr Zielinski in 2016, with the club’s interest in the midfielder even pre-dating his arrival.
Tracked by the Reds as a teenager, he stayed with local club Zaglebie Lubin before moving to Udinese aged just 17. Klopp’s first attempt then came less than four years later in January 2016 when the Poland international was midway through his second season on loan at Empoli from Udinese.
His parent club were prepared to sell him at the time and the midfielder agonised over his future, even meeting with Klopp, but ultimately couldn’t bring himself to cut short his loan spell with Empoli.
“There were days when I was walking out of home, looked into my mobile and I didn’t know what to do,” Zielinski told Poland’s Przeglad Sportowy. “I spoke a lot with Konrad Golos and Tomasz Dawidowski – my managers from the agency representing me.
“Everyone said: ‘Great offer, Klopp wants you, it’s a fairytale in terms of finances’. All fine, but I wasn’t convinced. I was driving my car and I said to my girlfriend: ‘No, red light, I’m not leaving’.
“I felt great in Empoli, I didn’t want to leave the lads when we were battling for the European places. My head was a mess.
“Liverpool finally got a plane and I met with Jurgen Klopp. He said he wanted me in his team. I saw a different world and after returning my head was even a bigger mess.”
Liverpool would return to try and sign Zielinksi the following summer and faced competition from Napoli and AC Milan. Now 22, the Poland international was even pictured in a Reds shirt only for Udinese to refuse to sell to the Merseysiders.
An £11.75m bid from Liverpool was rejected as Ian Ayre, then the Reds' chief executive, met with Udinese owner Giampaolo Pozzo on numerous occasions but found negotiations difficult. Zielinski's personal preference was said to be a move to Anfield, with Napoli president Aurelio De Laurentiis even telling the media that the player was doing “everything he could” to force through a move to Merseyside.
But Pozzo continued to reject Liverpool's advances, perhaps put out by their expectation they’d get their man and that he had already been pictured in the shirt, and instead accepted an identical bid from Napoli, only for Zielinski to spurn the offer as he held out for a move to Anfield. Indeed, the Reds believed their offer was more favourable to Udinese than Napoli's, due to the structure of the deal and the presence of a sell-on clause.
Once Liverpool were forced to concede defeat in their efforts to sign the Pole, he instead agreed to join Napoli with the Italian side completing a £13m deal in August 2016.
“I really wanted to start the preparations for the new season with a new team as soon as possible,” he revealed the following month. “I knew that Liverpool wanted me badly and I knew they would return to the talks as I got that promise in January.
“It didn’t work out for them with Udinese at the end. Milan’s offer was dependent on the club’s takeover by Chinese investors. With Napoli, I knew the coach and lots of the lads from the team. I’m happy I came here.
“I think it is ideal in terms of my football characteristics. I’ve met plenty of technical players. I found myself in Napoli and I feel more confident day by day.”
After realising they would not be able to reach an agreement with Udinese, Liverpool switched their attentions elsewhere and signed Wijnaldum from Newcastle United in a £25m deal in late-July instead. Then 25, the Netherlands international was proven in the Premier League at least, and the Reds would have no regrets as he cemented his place as a club legend during his five years at Anfield.
He would play a vital role and score crucial goals as Liverpool qualified for the Champions League for the first time under Klopp in his first season with the club, before reaching the final of Europe’s elite tournament in 2017/18 and then emerging as champions of England, Europe and the world.
With the Reds facing Napoli a number of times along the way, both in the Champions League and in pre-season friendlies, Zielinski’s own showings against them never stood out enough to become a player they pined after as one that got away. Sure, a good player and one they would have liked but their enforced switched attentions worked out well all things considered in lieu of Wijnaldum and Liverpool’s success.
But then after five seasons, the Dutchman was allowed to leave Anfield at the end of his contract and the first signs of the Reds needing a midfield overhaul started to become clear. Aged 30 when he signed for Paris Saint-Germain on a Bosman transfer, Liverpool had enjoyed Wijnaldum’s best years but it remains clear their midfield misses a player of his ilk who covers every blade of grass while barely missing a game.
As a result, as Napoli visited Anfield on Tuesday night, perhaps this is the first time when the Reds could actually have reason to rue missing out on Zielinksi’s signature. With both sides already through to the Champions League knockout stages, he’d ultimately be rested by manager Luciano Spalletti and only came on in the 83rd minute with little time to make an impact.
His most notable contribution would be VAR spotting him playing Darwin Nunez onside for the Uruguayan’s stoppage-time goal as Liverpool ran out 2-0 winners. In his short time on the pitch though, he would attempt three crosses with two of them being accurate - second only to Kostas Tsimikas on both counts during the match.
Admittedly his showing was much more impactful against the Reds back in Naples in September as Napoli ran out 4-1 winners, as he scored two goals and set up one more. But that isn’t why Liverpool could be forgiven for wondering what might have been if they had signed Zielinski all those years ago.
You see, now aged 28, the Poland international is now that seemingly ‘rare’ breed of a midfielder enjoying their peak years which currently eludes the Reds. While predominantly a central-midfielder, Zielinski is certainly versatile and capable of playing as a six, eight, 10 and on either flank.
Meanwhile, his durability at Napoli is impressive with his substitute appearance at Anfield his 299th appearance for the club in just over six seasons. During that time, he has only sat out 12 of the Italians’ 240 Serie A matches, with Transfermarkt crediting him as only missing nine games in all competitions through injury.
He has comfortably registered more than 40 appearances in every season with Napoli, with his total of 42 matches last season the only time he has appeared less than 47 times. Meanwhile, he has also proven to be a valuable creative threat.
Already boasting four goals and six assists from his 18 appearances so far this season, he has returned double-figures in goal contributions for the third-season running after boasting a combined 18 goals and 18 assists in the past two campaigns.
With only a Coppa Italia win to his name so far in Naples, Zielinski perhaps wonders about the honours he could have won had he joined Liverpool. Yet he is both a £13m bargain and a modern Napoli legend and, following their outstanding start to the season, will be desperate to end their 32-year wait to be crowned Serie A champions for only the third time come May.
Now Klopp is rather unlikely to resurrect previous interest in the Poland international when the Reds plot their midfield overhaul and they have no reason to really regret missing out on his signing back in 2016. But their latest meetings with Napoli have provided them with an unwelcome reminder.
A 28-year-old midfielder at the peak of his powers who is versatile, rarely misses a game and returns both goals and assists, Zielinski is exactly the profile of player which Liverpool both currently desire and are painfully missing. Hopefully this will no longer be the case come the end of next summer, but as the Reds flounder through the campaign and currently risk missing out on Champions League football altogether next season, one only hopes that by the time FSG do belatedly act and revamp Klopp’s midfield, it won’t come too late.
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