Should Liverpool be investing in a central midfielder this summer?

© Image by jorono from Pixabay

Already in the middle of June, Liverpool got the news of what's to come for the club in the next several months after going through a herculean effort to stay on top of its games this season. Liverpool fan or not, one must acknowledge that the Reds had a schedule that at times seemed physically impossible to keep with. Only a month will pass before the first kickoff of Premier League 2022/23 between Crystal Palace and Arsenal, and teams already know that they are in for a tough battle, with Bet UK Online Betting operator already prepared with their prognosis odds for the first several games.

Pre-season bouts

Liverpool will get an early start on active play with a pre-season face-off in Bangkok against Man United on July 12, where the two rivals will be battling it out for the Bangkok Century Cup. Eight days later, Liverpool meets Manchester City for the Community Shield. Pre-season games undoubtedly play an important role in checking the team's performance before the season properly begins. They are also an excellent opportunity to boost morale with some trophy wins.

World Cup incoming

Liverpool is facing a workload like few other clubs in the league because some of its star players will also be travelling to Qatar for the World Cup at the end of November. Until then, the Reds will have to play 24 games in the Premier League alone, alongside matches for the Champions League and the Carabao Cup. All of this up until a little over a week before the start of the World Cup. Now, the question remains how the team will fare all throughout the season and what this tight and responsible schedule means for the needs of the club player-wise.

New Additions

It has been discussed since the beginning of the year that the team is on the market for a new central midfielder. In February, Klopp confirmed that the Reds follow a "buy-to-sell" policy, meaning that any new additions would most likely be conditioned upon outbound transfers. Back then, there were a couple of names rumoured to be on Liverpool's list, but of course, the time was still far away from the summer transfer window. Now it's a different story. At the beginning of June, the German coach suggested that his team was looking to sign a new central midfielder. According to famed Italian sports journalist Fabrizio Romano, Aurelien Tchouameni was one of Klopp's top choices, and the German personally called Tchouameni in a bid to attract him to Anfield. Ultimately, the French player joined Real Madrid, which as per Romano's tweet, was the footballer's only desire. Nevertheless, it wasn't clear how a signing of such calibre would have complied with the strict monetary policies implemented at the club anyway.

Latest Developments

Moving a few weeks further into the timeline, the picture around Liverpool's squad is becoming more apparent. Sadio Mane is already off to Bayern Munich. At the same time, the club has added three new names to its team. Fabio Carvalho, Darwin Nunez, and Calvin Ramsey are members of the Reds' lineup. At the time of writing, Mohamed Salah and Liverpool have not yet reached an agreement on the player's potential contract extension. All in all, it seems that the team is all set with its inbound transfers and that the saga of filling in a central midfielder with a new name is pretty much over with no signings in this position. This undoubtedly raises the question about how such a move will affect the team going forward into what will be perhaps an even tougher season than the previous one.