Klopp has told the hardly believable truth about Liverpool’s injury transfers
Liverpool’s summer signings Ryan Gravenberch, Dominik Szoboszlai, Alexis MacAllister and Wataru Endo
This week, a particularly seismic statistic about the Liverpool team has been floating around on social media, which at first glance could not be more true.
The argument was that just four games into the season, summer signings Dominik Szoboszlai and Alexis MacAllister had already played more Premier League minutes than the departed Naby Keita and Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain combined last season.
And this despite Mac Allister being controversially sent off just before the hour of his home debut against Bournemouth.
But a closer look reveals, incredibly, that it is accurate. Szoboszlai and Mac Allister have played a combined 672 minutes in eight rounds this season. Keita and Oxlade-Chamberlain combined for 625 wins in 17 matches last season.
It strikes at the heart of why Jurgen Klopp wanted to almost completely overhaul his midfield options this summer, parting ways with five machine operators and splashing £151m on new arrivals.
Nobody wants to get injured and while sheer bad luck played a part – especially in Oxlade-Chamberlain’s case – durability has undoubtedly become a real issue for him and Keita in the final seasons of their Anfield careers. Having all the talent in the world is pointless if the player isn’t available.
This made Gini Wijnaldum integral to Klopp’s success during his five-year stay. He was versatile enough to play in a number of midfield positions and missed just eight of his 190 Premier League appearances. Liverpool probably haven’t had a player like the Dutchman since he left, and it was worse.
It also says a lot that Thiago Alcantara – himself a vulnerable man – has played more minutes for the Reds in all competitions than Oxlade-Chamberlain or Keita, despite having played less at Anfield for several years.
Indeed, the current midfielders have not been without injury concerns in recent campaigns. Curtis Jones has had a series of ailments over the past two years – from a damaged eye to stress reaction damage in his lower leg – and started just one Premier League game last season before April. Harvey Elliott has been out for more than four months at the end of 2021 with a broken ankle, but is expected to be in the lineup for the final 59 game days. And 18-year-old Stefan Bajcetic has just returned to the bench after a similar spell with a side problem.
So it is very encouraging that the recent availability history of Liverpool’s four summer midfield signings is exemplary, something that would certainly be considered during any transfer.
Szoboszlai has missed just five games in two seasons at RB Leipzig, two of which were suspensions.
Mac Allister missed three Premier League games at Brighton last season, two of which were special concessions to celebrate helping Argentina to the World Cup just before Christmas. He was available for every Premier League game in 2021/22 and from 2020/21. since his major league debut in 2016, he has missed just five games, only one of which was due to injury. Wataru Endo played only four games in three seasons for Stuttgart, one of which was suspended and the others due to international commitments. And while Ryan Gravenberch didn’t get as many minutes as he would have liked for Bayern Munich last season, he only missed two matchday games. In the last two seasons at Ajax, he missed only eight matches, three of which were after contracting the coronavirus.
Apart from McAllister, the other three in England’s top flight are still fully adapting to the rigors of a non-stop schedule, although they are used to the demands of balancing domestic commitments with European competitions and international commitments. It will be tested when the intensity of the calendar increases from next weekend. The challenge for Liverpool now is to start producing meaningful availability statistics for all the right reasons.