Winger is “the hardest position to play” in modern football, according to Arne Slot, and Liverpool’s wide men would find it hard to disagree. A lot of Liverpool’s problems this season can be attributed to their attacking flair being stifled, leaving the champions 19 points adrift of Premier League leaders, Arsenal.
Liverpool return to Molineux on Friday, three days after a stoppage-time defeat by Wolves in the league. The FA Cup fifth-round fixture will be an opportunity for Slot to test his bullpen of wingers and see whether they can do better. Liverpool have scored 48 goals in 29 league matches, the average of 1.66 a game a long way short of the 2.26 when winning last season’s title.
Mohamed Salah has been the focus of analysis because his statistics have tumbled, going from leading the charge to someone fighting to get into the team. The Egyptian had 47 goal involvements last season, when he often made the difference in tight matches, compared with 11 this season. He is underperforming on his xG of 6.53, having scored five times, and his strike against Wolves was a first in 11 league games.
Slot and his players are often greeted by a low block, requiring them to find a way around it, but this has not been a simple task and they have regularly looked ponderous, not helped by the recent absence of Florian Wirtz, who had found his rhythm as the No 10. The midfield area is generally far too congested for Liverpool to play through, so finding an alternative without being able to call on someone such as Lamine Yamal is complicated, leaving Slot at the heart of football’s culture war. “My teams have always been attacking,” he says. “I always make a sort of attacking substitution. I find it indeed hard to hear that people think I like slow play.”
The left-footed Salah is always eager to cut in to make the most of his stronger foot. Cody Gakpo on the other side has looked ineffective. In the league he has one goal in his past nine games and has created a chance on average every 48 minutes. It is not exactly a dynamic offering for teammates to feed off.
Liverpool miss the direct running and skills of Luis Díaz, who was sold to Bayern Munich in the summer. He was a trickier customer than Gakpo on the left, giving Slot a different profile on the flank. It has been understandably difficult to replace the impact of Diogo Jota, who often changed games off the bench.
Virgil van Dijk admitted on Tuesday that the team were “too slow and predictable in possession”. Control is the aim for Slot but there can often be a fine line between domination and stagnation when other teams have built a multi-layered barrier. “It’s so hard to create tempo in a game if the other team doesn’t want to have tempo,” Slot says. “It’s so hard to create so many chances in the current Premier League where everybody is so physical and has a certain playing style. Everybody is struggling with that and we are struggling with that as well. I would not deny that at all.”
Every player in the Premier League is more athletic and fitter than in previous eras, making it more difficult to find a way around the outside of a full-back and forcing teams to look inside. This poses a problem because of the number of players in those areas, which explains why many teams are seeking to do damage from corners, throw-ins and free-kicks.
Jeremie Frimpong and Milos Kerkez were acquired last summer because Slot acknowledged the importance of having full-backs who could attack and get around their opposite numbers. Frimpong has been utilised in a more attacking role because his speed is a huge threat to disciplined defences but injury has limited him to 13 league appearances, meaning Liverpool have not fully benefited from his capabilities.
A positive of playing Wolves twice in succession means Slot knows what did not work and can experiment on Friday. The teenager Rio Ngumoha came off the bench in midweek, playing the final 25 minutes, almost a fifth of the time he has spent on the pitch in the Premier League this season. He has created nine chances, one every 14 minutes, compared with Salah’s one every 42 minutes. A 17-year-old will not be a perfect solution because he is still learning but Ngumoha has the ability and speed to beat an opponent, something Gakpo and Salah rarely manage.
Liverpool are entering a busy period and travel to face Galatasaray in the last 16 of the Champions League next week. A more open match in Istanbul would provide Slot with a further opportunity to see what his wide players can do. European football has allowed Liverpool to forget about their domestic problems, the team scoring at a rate of more than two a game on their way to finishing third in the league phase. They are more suited to playing on the continent, where sides often cannot compete with their speed and physicality.
It is evident why Antoine Semenyo was targeted before joining Manchester City and it seems inevitable that wingers will be part of Liverpool’s summer transfer plans. In the meantime, Slot knows it will take endeavour and cunning on the training ground to get the best out of what is available.
Without that they may miss out on Champions League qualification and find it harder to attract the best in class.
