Be afraid... this Liverpool team will get BETTER
Erling Haaland will give City a different dimension, will allow them to play a different way at different times, which could be the edge they need in Europe. It’s a frightening prospect FINAL BLOW WON’T STOP KLOPP’S JUGGERNAUT
A MODERN football team is like being a shark… you have to constantly keep moving forward, or you die.
I say this because you look at Liverpool’s epic campaign – ending with last night’s Champions League defeat by Real Madrid to miss out on a cup Treble – and they had the ability to compete on every front, in every game, with the best squad in their history, and yet they are already evolving.
They have completed the signing of Fabio Carvalho (below), quite possibly the most admired teenager in world football right now, and a forward who had every European giant chasing him. They will also sign a defensive midfielder, almost certainly, and will have replacements in other positions lined up.
So, as implausible as it seems after falling two wins short of an historic Quadruple, they will get better.
And Manchester City will evolve and get better next season too. Signing Erling Haaland will give them a different dimension, will allow them to play a different way at different times, which could be the edge they need in Europe.
It is a frightening prospect, of course, because a City team with a tiny bit more tactical flexibility and the ability to kill games at the right times is daunting.
So I’m wondering what Manchester United are thinking right now? They see two of their
greatest rivals already boasting two of the greatest teams in the history of the game, and looking to evolve those sides.
You have to wonder how far they will have been left behind, even before Erik ten Hag gets his feet under the table?
I think they have a massive problem, because there is simply no foundation at Old Trafford at the moment.
How many players do they need? Almost an entire team for a start. I look at them and there
are no leaders, no one who will put their hand up and sort out the mess.
Their final game at Palace was embarrassing. What were those players thinking, producing such a lame, lifeless performance with their new manager watching?
I look at the teamsheet from that game and think City and Liverpool are not just on another level, but another planet.
A new manager with the right philosophy and the right ability will – of course – sort things out eventually.
Jurgen Klopp did that at Liverpool. They are unrecognisable from the team he inherited almost seven years ago.
Yet there were some foundations. Brendan Rodgers created a wonderful team that should have won the title a year before. There were still some elements remaining of that side, even if their best players had been snatched away, or retired.
At United, there’s nothing. No foundations, just a big hole in the ground. Ten Hag will need to fill that hole before he can start thinking of building a structure on top of it.
It takes time and, in the position the club is now in, it also takes some innovation and skill in the transfer market, because, suddenly, you can’t just go out and buy the best players in the world. They won’t come to a side in the Europa League.
Klopp did it the hard way. He had to find players such as Sadio Mane and Mo Salah to build his team before he could attract players of the calibre of Virgil van Dijk and Alisson.
It seems incredible but now he’s in the conversation for Kylian Mbappe. The France superstar spoke to Real Madrid. And he spoke to Liverpool.
He wouldn’t speak to United. And that’s a massive problem for Ten Hag. It’s going to take a lot of imagination, and an awful lot of skill in finding the right players to turn this club around.
In the meantime, City and Liverpool will keep getting stronger.
When I was at Anfield, we had that situation with Arsenal and United.
No matter which players we brought in, they were able to attract better ones.
It’s a vicious circle, and it’s hard to break that cycle once you fall behind.
United have stopped swimming with the big fishes, and if they’re not careful they will die.