Here is how the PL table looks like after the first half of the 2023/24 season:

On paper, Liverpool has a slightly easier second half of the season, with more games at home than away (10 vs 9) and all the newly promoted sides yet to play at Anfield. Here is the full list of 19 games, sorted by degree of difficulty:

10 home games:

• 5 quite winnable: the 3 newly promoted, Palace, Wolves
• 2 difficult, but winnable: Newcastle, Chelsea
• 2 difficult: Brighton, Spurs
• 1 very difficult: City

9 away games:

• 2 difficult: Arsenal, Villa
• 2 traditionally tricky: United, Everton
• 3 London trips: Fulham, West Ham, Brentford
• 2 against teams with low expectations, but potentially banana peels: Bournemouth, Nottingham

Below I will look into the prediction and the schedule, but first, a few assumptions:

1. Liverpool will not be involved in the January transfer market (in or out). A safe assumption looking at the recent years, and also confirmed by a few trustable journalists. There is a chance that Fabio Carvalho might come back from his Leipzig loan, albeit he might be moved on to another team, perhaps in the PL.
2. Injuries: while Matip, Tsimikas and Bajcetic are likely out for the season, I think it’s safe to assume that MacAllister will be back from his injury in early January, while Robertson and Thiago will become available later in February. Also, I will assume that no other long term injuries will occur. As we all know, they quite be quite damaging in Liverpool’s case, especially for the key players (Alisson, Virgil, Trent, Mo).
3. I will also assume that Liverpool are out of the FA Cup on 7th of January. I think it’s a reasonable assumption given the difficulty of the fixture (playing Arsenal away) and the fact that Liverpool is more likely to focus on the EFL semifinal against Fulham in a period where they will be without their main goalscorer, any of their left full backs and the only experienced number 6.

What are the odds?
At this point in time, Opta (British sports analytics company) give City as favourites to win the title (55%), then Liverpool (27%) and Arsenal (15%).
Betting companies give the following odds: 1.8 to City, 3.5 to Liverpool, 5 to Arsenal (how to read this: bet 10 EUR on City, win 18; bet 10 EUR on Liverpool, win 35).

I also think there will be a three way race, but I think it will be quite a tight one, with all the 3 teams finishing above the 80 points mark. Unlike the betting and analytics companies, I believe Arsenal are the favourites to win it this year. They have a very good team which only improved after finishing last season with 84 points, they are more experienced and have their fixtures nicely spread out in the second half of the season. They do play 10 out of 19 games away and have a few difficult away fixtures (City, United, Tottenham), but I believe that they can finish close to 90 points. The recent loss against West Ham was a freak occurrence: from the chances they created it was more likely to score 5 than 0 goals. It will probably not happen again this season.

I expect City to improve on their 40 points half-season, as they usually do (I expect them to win their game in hand vs Brentford). But not by a large margin, for a number of reasons: the number of games they played so far and are still likely to play (would not be surprised if they reached the CL final again), the number of injuries (albeit they do have the squad depth to cope with it) and the fact that they look more fragile than last season (so far they lost 8 points from winning positions). They play more games at home than away and I expect them to finish the season with 85+ points.

What about Liverpool?
On the short term, they will be without Mo and Endo for about a month, they will need to cope without an established left full back for another 2 months and they have double legged EFL semifinal (and a potential Wembley final against Chelsea) to handle.
However, they will also restart their European season later, on 7 March, compared to City – 13 February and Arsenal 20 February.
If they keep the same pace, Liverpool will finish with 84 points, but as we seen above, I doubt that it will be enough.
I think it will all depend on the crunch period at the end of April – beginning of May.
I expect Liverpool to reach the EL quarter finals (hopefully without injuries), which means that in the second half of April they will play the 2nd leg of their EL QF and two tricky fixtures in London: Fulham (20) and West Ham (27). The second one will be interesting, with the Hammers potentially chasing an European spot (5th place might bring them CL). On the other hand, this might favour Liverpool, who had would rather play an open, basketball-like game rather than a cagey, all-the-men-behind-the-ball one.

Then, come May, Liverpool might have a tricky decisions to make: prioritize the EL semi-finals (2 and 9 May) or put everything into the Spurs (H) and Villa (A) games (4 and 11 May)? If they still have a chance at the title, I expect the latter. I don’t expect Liverpool to be successful on both fronts. But I think Klopp and his senior players (Alisson, Virgil, Robertson, Trent, Mo, Gomez) deserve more than one PL title and they only need a bit of luck to win it. And of course, they could do without perfectly valid goals being ruled out by distracted referees.

In conclusion, I expect Arsenal to finish with close to 90 points, City 85+, and Liverpool at least 84. Their chances to overtake City and Arsenal will depend on a lot of factors, including the European competitions for all the 3 teams, injuries, fatigue or simply luck. Either way, I think it will be an exciting second half of the season and a memorable title race.

The #yearly_roundup of things that I enjoyed this year.

1. Getting over the Covid period. It felt good to be able to travel, socialize and play sports again. With the added value that the working-from-home routine continued.
2. Reading. A bit less compared to the last year (according to Goodreads). I particularly enjoyed the “Three body problem” trilogy, which made my imagination run like never before. “In the future people will take neuro drugs that will selectively erase memories of this trilogy in order to be able to read them again for the first time.” #
3. Sticking to a healthy routine. More active compared to 2021. Smashed the 1000 days record for closing the Apple Health rings, kept doing 10.000 steps every day during the same period and played football 2-3 times every week. That’s a lot of dopamines 🙂
4. Driving my Tesla. Almost 5 years in, and it doesn’t get old.
5. Refereeing football games. I still regret not starting this earlier.
6. The wallpapers on my phone. I know, quite silly ? but we need to look for thin slices of joy. The iOS 16 lock screen improvements made me look for colors and emotions and in the process, increased my appreciation for the digital artists.
7. A few card games. Hearts and Spades from the Apple Arcade gave my mind some time off while bringing back some teenage memories.
8. Learning a new foreign language. I’m nowhere near speaking Spanish, but I am quite happy with the progress I made this year in learning new words and understanding the language.
9. A series: For all mankind. Because the third season is just as good as the previous two. And because it accentuates the impression that we’re leaving a new golden age for the space exploration (perhaps soon to be powered by fusion?).
10. Attending the first concert with my daughter. Not planned, but it turned out to be awesome.

Back in December 2021, after a grim performance at Leicester, it seemed to me that it’s the end of an era for this Liverpool squad.
A second half of the season energized by a mid-season transfer gave me hope that, despite the heartbreaking end of the season, the young players (such as Konate, Eliott or Diaz) will fit in nicely among the world class core. But at the same time, I expected some big decisions from Liverpool in the upcoming transfer windows.

What I did not expect at all was another summer without properly reinforcing the midfield. The deadline-day loan signing of Arthur was only a consequence of a last-minute injury, but it had nothing to do with long (not even medium) term planning. It was reactionary, and it reminds more of the January 2021 fiasco rather than the swift, behind-the-scenes transfers of Fabinho, Salah or Alisson.

The consequences of this passive strategy are already visible: after 6 games against teams that finished last season outside the Top 5, Liverpool have only 9 points out of 18. During the 540 minutes played, they were only in front for less than 90. What’s worrying still, is the lack of intensity in all the departments and the declining quality of the midfield.

The injuries in that department certainly did not help, but they are hardly surprising and should not be an excuse for the bad start of the season. The medical history of players such as Thiago, Keita or Ox tells you that they will all miss significant parts of the season. Add to this the age of Milner and Henderson and you get a very fragile and predictable midfield, where Fabinho will burn out sooner rather than later and a lot will be expected from young players like Eliott, Jones or Carvalho.

The slow start of the season leads to two types of reactions among the LFC supporters. Some of them argue that we are only 5 points behind Manchester City (last season there were 14 at some point) and things will be fine once the players will return from injuries. Some others are writing this season off as a ‘transition’ season.

I think both reactions are wrong.

First, I think it’s a mistake to compare the current results only against Manchester City. Yes, they are the main contenders, and they will probably win the league easily. But I find it borderline arrogant to disconsider teams such as Tottenham, Arsenal, Man United or Chelsea, who are all stronger compared to the last season and are currently ahead of Liverpool in the PL table. Before comparing to Man City, compare to the ones ahead of you.

Second, when saying this is a season of transition, one has to ask the question: ‘Transition to what?‘. At the end of this season, 3 midfielders will be out of contract (Ox, Keita, Milner) and other 3 will be over 30: Henderson 33, Thiago 32 and Fabinho 30. Liverpool will have no midfielder inside the peak age band, as you can see from the chart below. Add to this the fact that Virgil and Matip will be 32 and Firmino (31) will be out of contract and you get a worrying picture. If the current season is one of transition, I cannot imagine a name for the next one.

On top of that, in a well-run club there should be no transition in the first place. The midfield should have been transformed gradually, over the course of the last 2-3 seasons, when Liverpool was in a position of strength. In reality, since the signing of Fabinho in June 2018, the only midfield signings were Thiago (2020), Carvalho and Arthur (2022). Considering the injury record of Thiago, the youth of Carvalho (20) and the fact that Arthur arrived in the last possible moment of the transfer window (on loan), you can see how the midfield area was neglected over the last 4 years during which Liverpool won both the CL and the PL.

There is no transition. This is decline

The decline doesn’t usually happen overnight. Just like bankruptcy, it comes slowly, and then all at once.
I believe that for Liverpool the decline started back in 2019, right after winning the CL. That transfer window, the only additions were Adrian, van den Berg and Minamino.
It continued with the inexplicable lack of reaction in January 2021, when despite half of the team being out injured, the only solution found by the club were two deadline-day sub-mediocre and forgettable loans.
Add to this the consistently neglected midfield area over the last 4 years (described above) and you get plenty of signs of a slow, but inevitable decline.

I believe that this is the season where the decline will become clearly visible. What does that mean? I’d love to be wrong, but I’m afraid that Liverpool will finish this season outside the Top 4 and will have a relatively short CL experience.

What could have been done better?

Liverpool operates with two important constraints: first, they have a ‘sell to buy’ transfer policy and second, they have a relatively risk-averse strategy when it comes to transfers. The first means that you will rarely see the club throwing money to fix expensive mistakes (think Kepa, Lukaku and Werner in Chelsea’s case). The second means that Liverpool prefer to wait for their target men (think Konate), unless other teams threaten to hijack the transfer (think Luis Diaz) and will only bring a player if they are 200% convinced that there is a need for him (think Alisson).

I have doubts that the ‘sell to buy’ policy is sustainable on the long run against other clubs that operate with more flexible financial limits. But it worked for Liverpool until recently, and to make sure it keeps working they should have compensated by making smart signings from a position of strength. Smart signing means players like Bruno Guimaraes, Ryan Gravenberch, Moises Caicedo or Matheus Nunes – all in their early 20s and available for less than 10m in the previous transfer windows.

It’s certainly frustrating to see the club in this situation, especially after an exhausting season when both players and fans were pushed beyond their limits. It’s frustrating to see the world class core of players struggling to make things work by themselves. It’s frustrating for players who are asked to play more minutes than they can handle at their age or to play in different positions because there is simply no alternative. And it’s certainly frustrating for the injured players who cannot help in any way.

But this is the consequence of long-time negligence that cannot be fixed overnight. I’m afraid that the best days of Klopp’s Liverpool are behind…