Liverpool have already sold an “incredible” Trent successor

It’s clear that Liverpool have appointed one of football’s best tactical minds in Arne Slot. The biggest tribute to the Dutchman’s breezy start would be that Jurgen Klopp’s name has scarcely been uttered with any real longing.

Liverpool are top of the Premier League table, six points ahead of Arsenal and all the while among the least active outfits in English football since Ryan Gravenberch completed a needed midfield rebuild in August 2023. It was Klopp’s last signing.

Liverpool’s focused strategy and inimitable ability to ignore the noise and double down on their planning has allowed FSG to keep Anfield among Europe’s prized outfits after the end of an era, with so many expecting the Merseysiders to fall.

The American owners are hardly destitute, but they don’t have the financial power of certain other (less successful) rivals. The squad is booming, deep and of value. But Liverpool also need to sort out their ongoing contract problem before investing heavily in the market.

Liverpool’s contract conundrum

Sporting director Richard Hughes will no doubt wish to parcel out bonuses to Liverpool’s non-committal triumvirate, but football is rarely so easy.

However, the creeping culmination of Liverpool’s much-discussed contract sagas hasn’t derailed Slot’s season. Instead, Mohamed Salah, Virgil van Dijk and Trent Alexander-Arnold have been among Europe’s finest once again.

It’s lessened the concerns and then some, but Hughes will know that a resolution must be quickly agreed upon. The unwritten word on Liverpool’s bustling streets is that Liverpool’s elderly superstars are set to pen new terms, set to take Slot into his second season.

Alexander-Arnold’s future is more clouded. Real Madrid have a vested interest and will stop at nothing to make the Scouser their latest Galactico. Conor Bradley, for whom Trent is a “one-of-a-kind player”, performs dutifully and with flair when called upon, but Liverpool’s number one is perhaps the greatest-ever defensive playmaker.

Bradley will step up, should Alexander-Arnold step away. But Liverpool will undoubtedly need to sign a replacement to jockey with the 21-year-old Irishman.

It’s a shame the perfect heir has already been sold.

Liverpool’s long-sold Trent successor

Months have seldom gone by without scornful rivals laughing at Alexander-Arnold’s so-called defensive fragilities, but his strengths outweigh such weaknesses considerably.

In any case, with Bradley something of an attacking force in his own right, some Liverpool chiefs might harbour unspoken regrets over the decision to sell Neco Williams to Nottingham Forest in 2022 for a £17m fee.

Williams, still only 23, emerged from Kirkby’s youth scene to prod the outer rim of Klopp’s imperious squad but was sold for a pretty penny when it became clear that his chances at right-back would, understandably, be limited.

It was the right move, a necessity to realise his qualities. However, the Wales international is now proving under Nuno Espirito Santo that early Liverpool readings have proved on the money. Liverpool could do with such a defensive demon.

As per Sofascore, Williams played 21 times in the Premier League this season, starting 14 matches and predominantly starring at left-back, a curious testament to his tactical and positional dynamism.

More impressively still, he’s won 60% of his duels (4.7 per game), whereas the 26-year-old Trent has only won 45% of such battles despite enjoying one of his best defensive campaigns.

Bradley is a decent defender himself, with bundles of energy and tenacity besides, but Williams’ protective qualities have been chiselled at the iron-walled City Ground, forged in the furnace of Nuno’s sublime counter-attacking system. Forest are the surprise package of the year, third in the standings and behind only Liverpool and Arsenal for goals conceded.

Williams was always regarded as a high-ceilinged prospect, making his senior Reds debut aged 18 in an extraordinary Carabao Cup victory over Arsenal in 2019/20, starting in the 5-5 draw that was determined by a 10-9 spot-kick shootout.

Bradley hasn’t featured all that much in the Premier League this term on grounds of fitness issues before the new year and Slot’s unwillingness to tinker too much, but he was immense in his breakthrough under Klopp.

Let’s see how the three full-backs in question compare. Interestingly, their current strengths lie in different areas.

In expansive Slot-Klopp Liverpool set-ups, Bradley and Alexander-Arnold obviously skip miles ahead of Williams with the more offensive metrics, Forest’s ability to absorb when under the kosh evidenced through the Welshman’s remarkable clearance average.

Now, it might seem that Williams would serve as Bradley’s tactical foil in some alternate Liverpool universe, but he’s not just a defence-minded player, with Klopp singling out his “incredible” offensive qualities and rise from the sidelines.

Williams’ rise and rise has seen him chalk up 91 Premier League appearances, involved in keeping nine clean sheets across the board this term alone.

There’s a reason why the Tricky Trees’ manager has pushed for him to start despite Ola Aina’s brilliance at right-back. Liverpool cannot truly regret selling a young and untested prospect for a decent fee when so well-stocked in the position, but in hindsight, he certainly seems a shrewd answer to Liverpool’s right-back conundrum.

And don’t FSG just love a shrewd solution?