Playing domestic matches around massive games in the Champions League knockout phase is difficult enough for teams in fantastic form. For Liverpool this season, it’s a near impossible task.
We saw this in their 0-0 draw with Crystal Palace on Saturday, which came hot on the heels of their 5-2 humbling by Real Madrid. The Reds delivered a tired-looking performance at Selhurst Park, generating their lowest expected goal total in league or Europe this season (per FBRef).
Jurgen Klopp made four changes to his starting XI for the trip to south east London, bringing Diogo Jota, Naby Keita, Joel Matip and James Milner into the side. Opta’s Michael Reid noted that this made the team the most experienced the German has ever selected for Liverpool, at least in terms of combined appearances for the club.
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A side with that level of service inevitably comes at a cost of sorts. Trent Alexander-Arnold recently became the fifth youngest player to make 250 appearances for the Reds, but he was an exception at Crystal Palace with only Cody Gakpo younger than him. Significant experience almost inevitably means age and Liverpool’s XI was the second oldest fielded by any team in the Premier League this season, at 29.61 years on average.
They are only behind the West Ham side selected by David Moyes for a match at Molineux in January. Even then, the 37-year-old in the Hammers’ ranks (Lukasz Fabianski) was in goal, not part of the midfield trio as Milner was at Palace, making the Reds older in outfield terms.
This doesn’t necessarily have to be an issue, and it was not extreme in the context of the Premier League. Last season alone there were 17 XIs who were older than Liverpool’s latest and sides who were over 31 years old on average have appeared in the past.
But Reid also revealed just how aged the team at Palace was by the Reds’ standards, as it was their oldest side for a league match since September 1953, when illustrious names such as Billy Liddell and Bob Paisley were in the XI. While the present-day Liverpool won’t suffer the same fate, 1953/54 was the last season in which the club suffered relegation.
Again, correlation is not automatically causation. The side Klopp selected for the Community Shield in July was older and they were excellent in a 3-1 win over Manchester City. Pep Guardiola’s side also later faced the fourth oldest team Liverpool have fielded in the league this term and were beaten once again. History shows that teams of this sort of age don’t tend to finish in the coveted Champions League qualification positions though.
You have to look back to 2016/17 to find the last time a club which finished in the top four in the Premier League selected a side which was at least 29.6 years old on average. It was City in Guardiola’s first campaign at the helm, and the same club provided the only examples in the two seasons prior too. Even if we extend our search to teams which ended a campaign in the top seven, there is a single instance from the last five seasons.
There are far more examples of clubs that selected teams of this age and were relegated: Burnley and Watford last season, the Hornets two years earlier, Stoke City and West Bromwich Albion in 2017/18, and so on. Top teams don’t tend to allow their sides to age to this extent yet that is exactly what Liverpool have done.
Despite all of this, the Reds have been younger on average in this league campaign (27.1 years old) than they were last season (27.7), and that side was within a whisker of winning it all. The transfer business in the last two years has been geared to making the team younger too, in fairness, with 26-year-old Luis Diaz the only acquisition who is currently older than 23.
But the evolution needs to continue apace this summer. It’s not news that Liverpool need further injections of fresh blood into their side but the team they fielded against the Eagles last weekend has put that requirement into very sharp focus. FSG's money men will be poring over the club's freshly released accounts with great interest.
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