The Liverpool Puzzle
There are a few pieces missing that are not yet in the box. How have the rest fitted together this season?
Liverpool maintained a very settled line-up last season, with 10 of their players starting at least 28 of their league games. The only club with more such men in the preceding nine seasons was the Leicester City side of 2015/16. Magical things can happen when you keep your best players on the pitch.
It’s impossible to do this without keeping everyone fit. Milos Kerkez is the only one of the Reds’ signings from last summer who has yet to suffer an injury this season. The Reds also bade farewell to Trent Alexander-Arnold and Luis Díaz, two of the 28+ club in 2024/25. It has been impossible to keep the starting XI stable.
Except that it has been, more or less. As noted on here recently, Arne Slot is only making marginally more adjustments to his Premier League starting XI from one game to the next than he did before the title was won last season. The equivalent of 28 starts in a 38-game season is 24 after 33 matches; the Reds have nine players at that mark.
The devil is in the detail, as he so often is. Seven of the eight players Liverpool reportedly paid at least £150k per week in Slot’s debut campaign made 28+ league starts, with Federico Chiesa the exception.
With 24 our current benchmark for starts this term, we find six players in that financial bracket that have appeared often enough. One difference is that there are 11 eligible squad members in 2025/26.
The other is that only three of the seven men on over £150k have more than 23 league starts on their ledger. Mohamed Salah, Hugo Ekitike (who have both made 21) and Alexander Isak (seven) won’t make the season-long target of 28. The Egyptian King will make his fewest league starts for any club since he warmed the Chelsea bench for the first half of 2014/15.
The prompt for checking these figures was the latest episode of the Distance Covered podcast. Guest Mo Stewart highlighted how little Rio Ngumoha has played with the club’s principal centre forwards. “Before the Ekitike injury, I think 32% of Rio’s minutes this season have been with either Ekitike or Isak, which is not enough,” he said.
Too right. Ngumoha has spent more time on the pitch for Liverpool with Tyler Morton than Isak, Wataru Endō over Ekitike, Joe Gomez rather than Salah. His left-back split has been roughly 75/25 between Andy Robertson and Kerkez; useful for his development, less beneficial as we contemplate life without the Scot.
Another pertinent fact is that Ekitike, Jeremie Frimpong, Isak, Kerkez and Florian Wirtz have yet to grace a Premier League pitch together. Maybe performance this season would have been stronger if they had. We might have a better idea regarding the direction of travel for the next iteration of Liverpool at the very least.
As that has not been possible, it’s worth reviewing how the Liverpool jigsaw has slotted together this term. Even a simple look at the points won when certain pairs of players have both started is insightful.
