I think Paul Joyce has summed up one of Liverpool’s biggest problems rather neatly.
Liverpool decided their title-winning midfield wasn’t creating enough chances or scoring enough goals. Winning games by the odd goal was considered unsustainable, so the club went out and spent heavily on attacking talent to take the team to another level.
Florian Wirtz arrived. Alexander Isak followed. Bradley Barcola was added to give Liverpool even more pace and attacking quality.
The idea was understandable.
Liverpool wanted to score more goals, create more chances and stop relying on narrow victories.
But here we are, watching Liverpool struggle to win games, never mind score the goals that were supposed to transform the team.
Something has gone badly wrong with that plan.
Was Liverpool’s title-winning midfield really the problem?
This is the question I keep coming back to.
Liverpool won the Premier League in 2024–25, but the club clearly believed the team needed more creativity and goals if it was going to remain competitive at the highest level.
There was logic behind that thinking. Football moves quickly, and you cannot simply assume that a successful team will keep winning by the same methods forever.
But I do wonder whether Liverpool underestimated what that midfield actually gave them.
A midfield isn’t judged purely by goals and assists. It also has to control matches, win second balls, protect the defence, recover possession and give the attacking players a platform to do their jobs.
Sometimes the best thing a midfielder can do is make sure the opposition never gets the chance to attack.
That work rarely makes the headlines, but supporters notice when it disappears.
Liverpool wanted to add more attacking quality. I understand that completely. What worries me is whether the club lost too much of the balance that made the team successful in the first place.
The new signings were supposed to change everything
Let’s be fair to Liverpool’s thinking.
Wirtz had been outstanding at Bayer Leverkusen. Isak had established himself as one of the most dangerous strikers in the Premier League. Barcola offered pace, dribbling and the ability to stretch defences.
These were exciting signings.
I was excited about them too.
The thought of Wirtz creating chances for Isak, with Barcola attacking defenders from wide positions, was mouth-watering. Liverpool appeared to be assembling an attack capable of frightening anybody.
But football isn’t a collection of expensive individual players.
They have to fit together. The midfield must get them the ball in dangerous areas, the forwards must understand one another’s movements, and the team needs a structure that allows everyone to play to their strengths.
Right now, that cohesion simply isn’t there consistently enough.
Wirtz has struggled to produce the decisive moments expected of him. Barcola is still adapting to English football, while Isak has had fitness problems that have interrupted his attempts to settle.
Those circumstances matter, and it would be unfair to write off any of them after a difficult start.
But Liverpool cannot ignore the bigger picture either.
The club spent heavily to improve its attack, and the attack still isn’t functioning as intended.
The Manchester City defeat brought the problem into focus
Sunday’s 3–0 defeat at Anfield was another painful reminder of how much work remains.
Liverpool had periods when they looked capable of competing, but they failed to make enough of their opportunities. The match changed significantly when Ryan Gravenberch was sent off, allowing Manchester City to take advantage of their numerical superiority and pull away.
That context is important. I wouldn’t pretend Liverpool simply played badly for 90 minutes.
But the dismissal doesn’t explain every problem with the team’s attacking play.
Liverpool still need to create clearer chances, make better decisions in the final third and get more from the players brought in to improve those areas.
And that brings us back to the original recruitment strategy.
If the old midfield was considered insufficiently creative, where is the consistent improvement now?
If Liverpool changed the attack because narrow victories were supposedly unsustainable, why does scoring still look so difficult?
These are fair questions, not an attempt to write off the new signings.
I’m not giving up on Wirtz, Isak or Barcola
I want to make that clear because I still believe there is enormous talent in this group.
I’ve defended Wirtz before, and I’m not suddenly changing my mind because of one disappointing result. He needs time to adapt, but Liverpool also need to find the right way to use him.
Isak has already shown what he can do in the Premier League. His fitness and ability to build a run of games are crucial, but nobody should be surprised that Liverpool look different when their main striker is unavailable.
Barcola is another player I want to see succeed. His pace and ability to beat defenders could give Liverpool something they have lacked, although he needs time to adjust to the demands of the league.
The problem is that potential only takes you so far.
At some point, these players need to start producing consistently. Liverpool cannot keep waiting for the whole attack to click while results suffer.
And the manager has to find a way of getting them involved without sacrificing the team’s balance.
Perhaps Liverpool didn’t need to change quite so much
This is the part that concerns me most.
Maybe Liverpool were right to seek more creativity. Maybe the title-winning midfield did need refreshing. But perhaps the club should have been more careful about what it removed while trying to improve what it had.
You can add attacking talent without making the rest of the team less effective.
You can bring in a creative midfielder while keeping enough defensive discipline and physicality around him.
You can improve your goalscoring without turning every match into a test of whether your forwards can rescue the team.
That balance is what Liverpool need to find now.
I don’t want to see the club abandon its plans or start treating every expensive signing as a mistake. That would be another overreaction.
But I do want to see some honesty about the results of the strategy so far.
Liverpool wanted more goals. They wanted to win more comfortably. They wanted to move beyond narrow victories.
Instead, we’re still waiting for the attacking improvement to arrive, and the team is no longer winning enough games.
That is the real issue.
Iraola has to find the answer
Andoni Iraola now has a difficult job.
He inherited a squad that has undergone significant change, with new players still adapting and injuries making it harder to establish a settled attack.
He deserves time to work on that. I don’t believe changing managers or abandoning the recruitment plan is the answer after a difficult spell.
But the midfield needs to provide a platform, Wirtz needs to influence matches more consistently, and Liverpool must find a way of getting the best out of Isak and Barcola when they are available.
There also has to be room for players who offer control and defensive security, even if they don’t produce spectacular attacking numbers.
Winning football isn’t always about adding another forward or another creative player.
Sometimes it’s about making the eleven players on the pitch work better together.
Liverpool already know how to win a Premier League title. The challenge now is to build a team that can keep winning while developing a more dangerous attack.
I still believe the quality is there.
But Paul Joyce’s point raises an uncomfortable question: if Liverpool dismantled a title-winning midfield to score more goals, why are we still struggling to do either consistently?
That’s what Iraola and Liverpool’s recruitment team need to answer.
Because the plan sounded brilliant on paper.
Now we need to see it working on the pitch.
By Jamie (The Kopite View)
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