{"id":750143,"date":"2026-08-26T08:56:12","date_gmt":"2026-08-26T08:56:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/750143\/"},"modified":"2026-08-26T08:56:12","modified_gmt":"2026-08-26T08:56:12","slug":"liverpools-midfield-is-fragile-but-will-they-act-in-the-transfer-window","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/750143\/","title":{"rendered":"Liverpool’s midfield is fragile – but will they act in the transfer window?"},"content":{"rendered":"

A little over four minutes had passed at St James’ Park on Sunday and Liverpool<\/a> had started encouragingly, keeping the ball well and with urgency in their play.<\/p>\n

Ryan Gravenberch created space with a brilliant touch to get past Lewis Miley but instead of shooting from the edge of the box or playing Dominik Szoboszlai through, the Netherlands international lost possession.<\/p>\n

Just 11 seconds later, Newcastle<\/a> were ahead through Anthony Elanga after a devastating counter that required one pass after Amar Dedic’s initial clearance. <\/p>\n

Liverpool<\/a> simply had no structure when out of possession. It was schoolboy stuff and a nightmare start for Andoni Iraola.<\/p>\n

It was a similar story in the second half when Gravenberch was dispossessed after trying a back heel on the edge of the Newcastle<\/a> box.<\/p>\n

This time, Yoane Wissa went on a brilliant run through the centre – evading an array of Liverpool<\/a> players – and played the ball to Joe Willock, who finished in style. <\/p>\n

As Iraola alluded to after,<\/a> perhaps one of his players should have had the know how to commit a foul in that situation but Liverpool<\/a> were punished again.<\/p>\n

Looking back on both goals, Gravenberch’s decision-making should have been better and perhaps the centre-back pairing of Virgil van Dijk and Jeremy Jacquet could have engaged quicker rather than holding off.<\/p>\n

But having a defensive midfielder stationed accordingly would, in all likelihood, have nullified the threat. <\/p>\n

Liverpool<\/a> have not had an out-and-out number six since Fabinho, who left in 2023<\/a>, and as it stands Iraola’s preference is a two-man pivot in midfield with Florian Wirtz playing as a number 10.<\/p>\n

Both of those two midfielders, Gravenberch and Szoboszlai, were in the Newcastle<\/a> box when Liverpool<\/a> lost possession before Elanga’s opener. <\/p>\n

If Liverpool<\/a> are to be taken seriously, they simply cannot concede goals like that regularly. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A little over four minutes had passed at St James’ Park on Sunday and Liverpool had started encouragingly,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":750144,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[33],"tags":[218,101,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-750143","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-football","tag-football","tag-sports","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/750143","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=750143"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/750143\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/750144"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=750143"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=750143"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=750143"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}