One of the stand-out issues with Liverpool’s midfield in 2022/23 is the confusing age profile of the players available to Jurgen Klopp. The centre of the team is staffed with youngsters and veterans with very little in between.
The other 19 teams in the Premier League have given an average of 70 per cent of their midfield minutes to players currently aged between 22 and 28 years old. In the extreme case of Newcastle United, a handful of cameos for Matt Ritchie is all they have allotted to players outside that bracket.
Yet for Liverpool, only two men in that age group have played at all and both have barely featured. Just 7.7 per cent of the minutes for players who are primarily midfielders have been covered by those in the peak age range. One of them, Naby Keita, looks set to depart the club this summer, which leaves Curtis Jones as the only one likely to be at the club in 2023/24.
