The 2022/23 season will certainly not be remembered fondly by anyone involved with Liverpool, but according to one former Red, there is an opportunity to build for the future.
Barring a late season miracle, Liverpool are out of the running for Champions League football next season and will not be adding any more silverware to the trophy cabinet.
With those options off the table, there is a prevailing thought amongst fans of the club whether it will be worthwhile to miss out on Europe all together and start with a clean slate next season.
It will be a different thought process entirely for the manager and his players who have a great deal of professional pride and integrity and want to fight their way through this wretched campaign by picking up as many points as possible.
Danny Murphy feels that whatever the results may be in the last 10 games of the season, Jurgen Klopp can walk away with some positives by tinkering with some player positions as he told The Mail.
“Darwin Nunez has great strength, pace and carries an aerial threat. He’s a finisher, not a creator, so he’s wasted playing on the left. He’s going to be Liverpool’s main No 9 when Roberto Firmino leaves at the end of the season, so why delay? Let him have a proper feel of it now.
“Firmino was a different type of centre-forward during Liverpool’s glory days of winning the Premier League and Champions League, but he was automatic first choice and was able to build relationships with Mo Salah and Sadio Mane.
“Nunez needs to have that backing. He’s only 23, in his first season in the Premier League, and only had two years in the Portuguese top flight before that.
“He’s going to be a super player but needs stability, while the rest of the team need to get used to him down the middle so they can get the best out of him. It’s hurting his development to be wide one week, centre-forward the next and on the bench after that.”
A number of Liverpool players have dropped this level this season, but arguably none more so than Trent Alexander-Arnold.
While the 24 year-old’s attacking quality from full back have been a major part of the team success in recent seasons, it has been increasingly evident that opposition sides are the targeting him defensively more than ever.
It is for that reason that Murphy feels it is worth taking Alexander-Arnold out of the firing line.
“Trent has such fabulous technical attributes, it would be fascinating to see if he could express himself without having the same amount of defensive responsibility or being left isolated against a winger.
“There are different ways of going about it. If Klopp wanted to stick religiously to his tried and trusted 4-3-3, he’d have to play someone else at right-back and put Trent into the middle. But Pep Guardiola and Mikel Arteta have shown you can be flexible during games and turn a back-four into a three, so full-backs can step into midfield.
"It would represent a tactical shift for Klopp, who has enjoyed the majority of his success with a standard 4-3-3. But Trent is such a talent, it’d be worth looking for alternative ways to get the best out of him. That could also be introducing three at the back so he and Andy Robertson would be wing-backs.
“Or giving Trent an experienced midfield partner until he learns the details of the position: shorter, sharper positions, maybe being a bit more tenacious."
Klopp has often spoken about the challenges of this season in a managerial sense but also taken positives out of them recently saying:
“In the long term, this year will make me a better manager.You need to improve to get the best out of yourself.
“You need to know about pretty much everything and of course it will help us as a coaching staff, definitely. But at the moment, the effects haven’t kicked in.”
And Murphy feels adding to his staff could be of some benefit.
“We see managers on television all the time but, as an ex-player, I can tell you the input of the coaches and other staff is hugely important in the daily workplace.
“Klopp has been very close to assistants Peter Krawietz and Pep Lijnders during his time at Anfield. Krawietz has been with him for the whole eight years and Lijnders for seven of them.
“No doubt they have the manager’s full trust and rightly so. I am not saying either one has to go, but I do think an extra fresh voice can be useful when a management team has been together so long.”
We know that change is coming to the squad come the summer, but getting something beneficial out of this campaign could really help with any rebuild.
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