Just a few weeks after the Premier League season came to an end, Liverpool had already started to make amends for a mainly disappointing season at Anfield.
The club’s lowest Premier League placing during Jurgen Klopp’s seven full seasons in charge was fifth, and after winning the quadruple last season, they were unable to advance further in the Champions League, FA Cup, or League Cup.
However, the quick acquisition of Alexis Mac Allister in a £45 million move from Roberto De Zerbi’s successful Brighton and Hove Albion shows a sense of regret from people at Anfield to ensure the same mistakes are not repeated the following season.
The Argentine, who co-starred alongside Lionel Messi at the 2022 World Cup as the Albiceleste claimed a first triumph in 36 years, is Liverpool’s first permanent midfield signing since an unexpected play was made to sign Thiago Alcantara from Bayern Munich in September 2020.
Meanwhile, in the three years since, the Reds have waved goodbye to influential members of their Champions League and Premier League-winning squads, with midfielder Georginio Wijnaldum leaving at the end of his contract in the summer of 2021. The capacity of his departure is set to be followed by those of James Milner, Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain and Naby Keita at the end of this month.
As a result, Mac Allister will join Fabinho, Jordan Henderson, Thiago, Curtis Jones, Harvey Elliott, Fabio Carvalho, and Stefan Bajcetic as Anfield’s eighth senior midfielder before the start of the following season. The 24-year-old Argentine is not anticipated to be the only player to join that team this summer though, as Klopp is still eager to improve the ranks of his engine room as he works to prepare for a Champions League comeback in 2024. Mac Allister will be crucial to Liverpool’s effort to return to the top of both the English and European games as a Premier League-proven player with over 95 appearances in the English top flight and a World Cup victory.
Lining up centrally in De Zerbi’s 4-2-3-1 system, last season saw Mac Allister produce the most prolific return of his career as his 10 league goals helped the Seagulls record a historic sixth-place finish and secure Europa League qualification for the first time in their 122-year history.
Despite six of those strikes coming from the penalty spot, the rest of Mac Allister’s count – which included a stunning free-kick against Leicester City back in September – proves he can become a regular goal donor in a Liverpool side that became far too reliant on the exploits of Mohamed Salah, Cody Gakpo, Luis Diaz, Diogo Jota and Darwin Nunez last term.
The absence of support from other players on the team during Gakpo and Nunez’s early months at the team unfairly increased the strain on both players after the seasons of Diaz and Jota were ruined by long-term injuries. In fact, Liverpool’s performance in the final third was so bad that in the beginning of 2023, they went on a four-game losing run against Brentford, Brighton, Chelsea, and Wolves, during which they managed to score just one goal in 360 minutes of Premier League play.
Even without counting penalties, though, Mac Allister still managed to individually out-score all of Liverpool’s midfielders last season. After 38 games, Jones finished as the Reds’ highest talisman from that area thanks to a flurry of strikes against Leicester City (2) and Tottenham (1) in the final weeks of the season, while Carvalho’s efforts against Newcastle United and Bournemouth in consecutive outings back in August saw the 20-year-old finish his maiden term on Merseyside with just two strikes. Meanwhile, Oxlade-Chamberlain, Bajcetic and Elliott ended their campaigns with just one league goal to their names.
Worryingly, the collective return of just eight Premier League goals during the 2022/23 season was the lowest sum from that area of the pitch in any of Klopp’s full terms since he succeeded Brendan Rodgers in October 2015.
On the other hand, throughout the 2019–20 season, consistent contributions from Oxlade–Chamberlain (8), Wijnaldum (6), and Henderson (4) helped the Reds collect 28 goals from the center of the pitch as they won the Super Cup, Club World Cup, and Premier League crown. The fact that season still holds the Reds’ record for the most goals scored by midfielders under Klopp (8), along with goals from the aforementioned trio, Keita (3), Jones (3), Fabinho (2), Milner (1), and Adam Lallana (1), is equally astounding.
And after failing to repeat a comparable total across all competitions in the three seasons that followed – 2020/21 (12), 2021/22 (19), and 2022/23 (13) – Mac Allister’s acquisition will be greeted with wider arms at
The Argentine is set to become Thiago’s long-term replacement on the left-hand side of midfield and, in doing so, will be entrusted with providing creativity in the final third by supplying the Reds’ attacking syndicate with premium service.
Mac Allister can anticipate being moved farther upfield into a left-sided No 10 position, if the latter weeks of the 2022–23 season in a new–look 3-2-2–3 system have shown us anything. In order to become the first Liverpool midfielder since Xherdan Shaqiri in 2018/19 to score more than five non-penalty goals in a Premier League season, his skill will be put to the test there.
However, Klopp is aware that he has made significant progress toward implementing his Premier League title-winning recipe at Anfield as anticipation for the upcoming seasons becomes higher in the wake of the Argentine’s acquisition. Mac Allister is just the start, too.