The Regista: How Liverpool will 'modernise' with surgical signings Szoboszlai & Mac Allister
Liverpool have acted decisively to improve their midfield this summer with the acquisitions of Dominik Szoboszlai from RB Leipzig and Alexis Mac Allister from Brighton.
These two additions have Reds fans questioning how they will fit into manager Jurgen Klopp's system and in this examination we are going to break down the impact each of these players will have on Liverpool this season.
KLOPP'S NEW SYSTEM
In the latter stages of the 2022/23 season, we saw Klopp adopt a similar system as Pep Guardiola did with Manchester City (as he did with his previous Bayern Munich and Barcelona teams). They would be setup as a 3-2-5 formation, with one of the back four inverting into midfield. This is something Klopp experimented with towards the back end of the past campaign, utilising Trent Alexander-Arnold in an inverted right back role, to allow him to move inside into midfield and get the best out of his passing abilities.
This is how the team could set up in this new "3-2-5" system. Allowing Alexander-Arnold to invert into midfield, alongside another defensive midfielder such as Stefan Bajcetic, or another signing due to the doubts over the futures of Fabinho and Jordan Henderson. This would then allow both Mac Allister and Szoboszlai to play in advanced 8 positions, which suits their playing styles.
Klopp's vision here was clearly to create a box midfield with two defensive midfielders (Alexander-Arnold and one other defensive-minded midfielder), with two attacking 8's, who thrive in attacking the spaces between the midfield and defensive oppositions lines, in the half spaces.
There would be good versatility within this system too, as Liverpool have the likes of Thiago, Curtis Jones, Harvey Elliott, as well as Luis Diaz and
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