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Ryan Gravenberch joined Liverpool as an attacking midfielder, a No.10 in a team which didn’t use one. One stop-start season and a managerial change later, the Reds now do look like they’ll operate with, effectively, a man behind the striker - yet the Dutchman appears in line for a reinvention of his own.
If the mantra from Arne Slot is that the entire team needs to defend together, Gravenberch as the holding midfielder - deepest and often solo in the centre on the opening day of the season - means that everyone will also continue having an offensive mentality.
Not that this is precisely how the new Anfield boss envisaged his team shaping up, of course. A failed pursuit of Martin Zubimendi and an apparent preference to not use Wataru Endo - even after rejecting a bid for him - means Slot must find alternative solutions from within for now, having seemingly decided that the point of having Alexis Mac Allister should be to use him in his best role slightly higher upfield.
Gravenberch, then, looks to have initially won the battle of the rest to sit in front of the defence, take the ball on the turn and start moves through the middle.
To his credit, the 22-year-old certainly grew into the game and into the role, a regular spear-thrust from deep in Liverpool’s late onslaught which should really have yielded more than the two goals they did score at Ipswich. Yet in the first half, while he gamely tried to operate defensively in the manner his manager wanted, there were moments he was exposed and bypassed.
This was not a midfield issue, though, Slot insisted: “We as a team made a big change [at half time] because we came out totally different to the first half,” he said after the match. Ipswich’s decision to go man-for-man all over the park wasn’t so much of an issue as the fact they were winning the individual battles, the blue shirts quicker and stronger into the challenge than those in red.
“After, we won more duels second half, played more balls in behind. When you have players like [Mo] Salah, [Luis] Diaz, [Diogo] Jota, then use them! Play the balls behind. We did that better second half and the gaps opened up and we showed what we can do.
“It’s not the balls we lost [in possession], it’s that we lost far too many duels. They were aggressive but in a good way and we didn’t cope with that well enough in my opinion. I said if you want to win, you need to step up, make it a fight instead of accepting every time we play [into the attacking third] that the ball ends up back in our 16.”
Metrication of the penalty area aside - Slot was referring to the 16-metre box, more familiarly known as the 18-yard one on these shores - it was clear that the boss was more unhappy with those behind and ahead of Gravenberch not winning first and second balls than the fact the Dutch midfielder wasn’t marauding all over the place mopping up those messes.
And so once the rest of the side became more engaged in the defensive work, Gravenberch was one of the beneficiaries to be able to show his offensive prowess.
Powerful bursts through the centre, clipped balls into the final third and more than a few recovery challenges on Ipswich’s increasingly sporadic counter-attacks meant it ended up a well-rounded showing from the No.38.
In an unexpected turn of events from three months ago, he won the most tackles in the Liverpool team and also made the most fouls. Perhaps just as wild is the fact he played the full 90 minutes, having done so only once since January at club level.
Go back further and this was only his third entirely completed club match since November 2022, or his second full league 90 minutes since April of that same year - a massive 28 months ago. You get the picture: Gravenberch hasn’t really been a go-to player for his managers for some time and getting through from first whistle to last was a big occasion for him, as well as an opportunity.
“For me it’s always about the team. We know with Ryan he can play forward [...] he’s attack-minded,” Slot continued.
“People told me Jurgen [Klopp] hated the 12:30 kick-offs; today the team did too because we didn’t start until the second half. The second half wasn’t the first time Liverpool fans saw the team playing well, I inherited a really good team. But the players need to know the first half wasn’t enough.”
Not enough tenacity in the start, and not enough team protection for a player getting a first taste of a new role. But Liverpool got there with a tweak and a tackle or two, with the forwards taking the chances but Gravenberch, the unexpected man in the middle, at the centre of Liverpool’s improvement.
