Liverpool have been a bit of a feast to famine club in recent years. They haven’t had consecutive stints in the Champions League since 2010. Having managed to pull the club back into Europe’s premier club competition, Jürgen Klopp will be determined to build on last season’s fourth place finish. Klopp has strengthened the squad adding Egyptian maestro Mohammed Salah as well as Hull’s Andrew Robertson and Chelsea’s young striker Dominic Solanke.
The Liverpool boss clearly wants to bring in more players with high profile pursuits of both Naby Keita and Virgil Van Dijk suggesting that he is not satisfied with the current squad. It seems as if their campaign to bring in Kieta has failed with the Liverpool Echo reporting that the Reds have given up on signing him this season with the intention of reigniting their pursuit of him next season.
Van Dijk, however, is another story with the Dutch defender apparently unwilling to play in Southampton’s first game, according to The Mirror, in order to push through a move. On top of transfer related matters Klopp will be considering how to set his side up as the new season begins. With that in mind, we take a look at two different options for the German manager.
1The Defensive Option 5-3-2:
If Klopp is looking to play slightly more defensively and try to hit teams on the counter then he could try a much more popular five at the back formation. Invariably it would mean three centre-backs, two wing-backs, a central midfield duo and then two strikers.
Matip, Lovren and Klavan could play as the three centre-backs, or if Van Dijk was to join he could slot in for Klavan. Clyne has the pace and attacking creativity to play as a right wing-back with both Milner and Robertson able to do the job on the left. In midfield Henderson could, again, link the defence and the attack with Coutinho or Lallana playing a more attacking role.
Up front, this would give Klopp the option to use Solanke and Sturridge together if he wanted a more classic centre-forward than Roberto Firmino. Where a 4-3-3 would provide a quick and creative front three, in this formation, a front two of Sturridge and Solanke would provide more power and penalty box brilliance.
In essence, Klopp has a lot of options and will struggle to get all of his attacking stars into one team. These two options would give him the flexibility to change the team’s style depending on who they’re playing. If I was Klopp then this is how I would line up. However, there is a reason Klopp has two Bundesliga titles, and I am regularly sacked on Football Manager so don’t be surprised if the German genius does something different.
