Today, September 15, marks the anniversary of one of the most memorable Merseyside derby goals in recent memory.
At Goodison Park in 2001, a youthful Steven Gerrard dropped his shoulder, surged past Gary Naysmith and buried an unstoppable cross-shot into the top corner of the Everton net.
Given the proximity of Anfield to Aintree, Chester and other racecourses in the North West, it’s perhaps no surprise that Liverpool FC and the sport of horse racing are indelibly linked.
Horses named Van Dijk, Klopp and Mosala – that’s a nod to Mo Salah, if you hadn’t figured it out – have all enjoyed success in British racing, while Jurgen Klopp himself once described speedy forward Darwin Nunez as being ‘like a racehorse’ after his performance against Fulham back in May.
Liverpool have bolstered the ranks of their various academy and youth age group teams this summer.
Trey Nyoni joins from Leicester City, where he made a catalogue of appearances for their Under-18 team despite being just 16. He has also represented England at youth level.
Amara Nallo has also put pen to paper on terms with the Reds, joining from West Ham. The defender was described by his academy coach Carlton Cole as a ‘Rolls Royce’ of a player.
Although the duo haven’t come through the ranks with the Reds, they will now enter Marc Bridge-Wilkinson’s ‘finishing school’ of an under-18s side, where they will be hoping to become the latest cabs off the rank to make the breakthrough into first-team action at Anfield.
If they can, they will be following in the footsteps of some Liverpool FC legends….
In comes another one.
As Liverpool flail desperately in a bid to sign a defensive midfield player in the summer transfer window, Jurgen Klopp has turned to a happy hunting ground in the hope of signing the right player.
Wataru Endo looks to be Klopp’s number one choice to fill the void left behind by Fabinho, Jordan Henderson and co. The Stuttgart man is expected to sign for around £15 million, and at the age of 30 brings an end to Liverpool’s traditional transfer policy of signing players for tomorrow as much as today.
At the age of 32, the jury is out on exactly how many games Virgil van Dijk will be Liverpool captain for.
The Dutch defender will replace Jordan Henderson as skipper for the 2023/24 season, so there’s a chance that – combining this term and next – Van Dijk could get close to 80 games as Liverpool captain.
That would just about scrape him into the top 25 players to have captained Liverpool the most….although it’s nigh-on impossible that Van Dijk will catch the man at the top of that very list.
When it comes to analysing the performances of a footballer, we instinctively turn to quantitative measures – goals, assists, clean sheets and the like.
But for midfield generals, the analysis is often just as much qualitative – their importance to a team going above and beyond mere numbers.
Liverpool have been lucky to have not one but two of the best English midfielders of the modern era in Steven Gerrard and Jordan Henderson, and in a ‘it takes one to know one’ twist it’s rather ironic that one of Gerrard’s first signings as manager of Saudi outfit Al-Ettifaq looks set to be the Reds’ club captain.
A new season provides a fresh start in football – a welcome chance to hit the reset button.
For Darwin Nunez, the 2023/24 season will be one in which his performances are heavily scrutinised – is the Uruguayan productive enough to be described as an elite level player?
At least Nunez himself isn’t shirking the challenge – in fact, the 24-year-old is positively owning it after requesting the number nine shirt for the forthcoming season.
His name isn’t much fun to type out, but rest assured Dominik Szoboszlai is super-entertaining on the pitch.
The Hungarian is Jurgen Klopp’s second signing of the summer transfer window, joining Alexis Mac Allister on the books at Anfield. Fabio Carvalho will head the other way on loan to RB Leipzig.
A fee of £60 million – the release clause in his contract – will be paid to secure the services for Szoboszlai, a 22-year-old who generally plays as a number ten. Whether Klopp will have to tweak his tactics to get the best out of his new man – or whether he can be turned into a number eight in the boss’ traditional 4-3-3 system – remains to be seen.
Is it an inverted full back, a mezzala or a carrilero?
However you describe Trent Alexander-Arnold’s positional shift at Liverpool towards the end of the 2022/23 season, it’s clear that Jurgen Klopp’s masterstroke came up trumps.
In the Reds’ last eight games of that campaign, TAA played further forward and more central – a sort of inside right, who ensured he funnelled back to defend in wide areas when Liverpool lost possession.
Liverpool’s longest serving player has left the club….and it might not be who you were expecting.
Leighton Clark is only 21 years old, and yet he’s been with the Reds since the age of just six through the various junior and academy levels.
He will depart Anfield for Aberdeen after a successful loan spell with the Scottish side, bringing the curtain down on the unlikeliest of longest serving spells.