Liverpool’s Performance Against Leicester Shows Need For A Midfielder

It took less than five minutes for Leicester City to cut through the Liverpool defence at Anfield on Friday night.

They shocked the home crowd by opening the scoring in a game Jürgen Klopp’s side needed to win if they were to get back in the race for the Champions League qualification places.

Leicester’s English midfielder Kiernan Dewsbury-Hall picked up the ball after Liverpool failed to deal with a long goal kick from the opposite end of the field.

He then waltzed through, perhaps himself slightly surprised how quickly he was able to get one-on-one with goalkeeper Alisson to score his second goal of the season.

Dewsbury-Hall had the freedom of Anfield for much of the game from then on, at least in the centre of the park. He was involved in the game, in terms of touches, as much as Liverpool midfielders Jordan Henderson and Harvey Elliott despite Leicester only having 43% of the ball possession.

The way he breezed past Henderson for the goal was worrying from a Liverpool perspective, and the performances of Elliott and Henderson generally were cause for concern.

Both players are at opposite ends of their career. Elliott is finding his feet while the experienced Henderson is becoming more inconsistent, especially in the deep-lying midfield role where defensive positioning has never really been his strong point.

Sky Sports pundit Gary Neville commented after the game: “I’ve always felt Jordan [Henderson] is not at his best in that holding role in a midfield three.

“I thought that when I was with England as a coach and I think that more now. I think he’s far better when he’s on top of the game, running forward and pressing the game.”

Such failings can be more noticeable once a player reaches the latter stages of their career when physicality is not always a reliable insurance for positional errors.

Elliott has shown encouraging signs as the most advanced midfielder in a three, but youth and inexperience come with their own inconsistencies. He was on the end of a couple of rough challenges from the Leicester players which also provides a tough test, literally, for a 19-year-old in one of the most physically demanding leagues in soccer.

Alongside them, Thiago Alcântara was impressive, luckily for Liverpool, and regularly covered for his teammates, tidied up some loose balls, and intervened defensively. But the overworked Thiago was another indication that the club still needs midfield reinforcements.

With the January transfer window opening imminently, Liverpool have already made an attacking signing in the shape of Cody Gakpo, but a pressing need for more quality in midfield remains.

It can be difficult to get deals done for such quality midseason, as clubs generally want to keep their best players at least until the end of the campaign, but Liverpool have themselves shown that deals can be done with the signing of Gakpo, plus the acquisition of Luis Diaz last January.

Arthur arrived on loan from Juventus at the end of the 2022 summer transfer window but picked up a long-term injury from which he is scheduled to return in February.

Even in the unlikely event that a best-case scenario occurs and Arthur returns to solve some of the club’s midfield problems, Friday night’s game showed Liverpool can’t wait that long, and there is more than one problem.

The club have been linked with a number of players, most notably Jude Bellingham of Borussia Dortmund, Brighton’s Moises Caicedo, and World Cup winner with Argentina, Enzo Fernandez, currently of Benfica.

The defensive midfield issue appears the most urgent. With Fabinho out, as was the case against Leicester, the club does not have another player in the same mould.

Liverpool may have run out 2-1 winners as a result of two own goals from Foxes defender Wout Faes, but they were still poor, as both Virgil van Dijk and Trent Alexander-Arnold admitted after the game.

One of the main reasons for this was the lack of presence in midfield, and as the January transfer window opens the club needs to make reinforcements in this area a priority.