Too Many Changes at Liverpool?

It's time to turn and face the strain affecting the Reds.

The downside to spending over £400m in the transfer market is the difficulty you face in integrating the new talent into your team. Liverpool are experiencing this as they stumble through the early weeks of 2025/26.

Milos Kerkez has started every league game, as has one of two new players at centre-forward. With a price tag potentially rising to £116m, you can bet Florian Wirtz will be in the XI far more often than not too.

The disruption does not end there. When the Reds conceded a 96th minute winner to Chelsea, they did so with a back four containing two midfielders and their now second-choice left-back trying to protect their back-up goalkeeper’s net. That situation was reached via a combination of poor performances, injuries and managerial choice, but even so, it’s not a defence that screams solidity.

If quantifying this type of disruption is nigh-on impossible, we can certainly assess starting XIs. A previous newsletter which evaluated the success of Liverpool’s transfers in the last decade included a pertinent statistic provided by Ian Graham, the club’s former Director of Research.

“About a quarter of the starts get replaced season to season. So players that weren’t at the club or weren’t part of any line up last season, they make 25 per cent of the starts on average in the next season”

The Reds of 2025/26 are in-line with this expectation, as 21 of their 77 league starts (27.3 per cent) have gone to new players. Their rate is likely to rise, at least in the short term, with Giorgi Mamardashvili deputising for the injury-prone Alisson Becker. Jeremie Frimpong will add to his one league start too.

The total of 21 line-up inclusions allotted to newbies is already 21 times as many as occurred for Liverpool last season. The tally is also closing in on the 32 new player starts recorded by the title-winning side of 2019/20. Does this vastly increased level of turnover mean the Reds can’t win the league or that they are destined to struggle throughout this season? Let’s assess the previous nine seasons of Premier League football to find out.