After hundreds of millions spent on players, what was Liverpool’s plan?

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If it had worked, how would this team have played?The champions spent £424m (about $550m) on new signings in the summer, but if all had gone well, they would have spent an additional £40m ($53m) to land Crystal Palace centre-back Marc Guéhi. While neither central defender is playing well, Liverpool’s baffling openness this season has been less about individual form than structure – and that’s despite, in recent weeks, returning to last season’s midfield.Against Aston Villa last weekend, Slot selected an XI consisting of 10 players who were at the club last season, plus Hugo Ekitike.

Take out Trent Alexander-Arnold, for instance, and Liverpool no longer have a player at right-back who naturally inverts to become an auxiliary holding midfielder alongside Ryan Gravenberch, shielding the centre of defense while liberating central midfielders Alexis Mac Allister and Dominik Szoboszlai, while also being capable both of sweeping long passes to switch play and accurate quick balls forward to release Mohamed Salah.Slot had become convinced by the end of last season that opponents had worked Liverpool out, to an extent a consequence of the club’s limited transfer activity last summer. But that, it turned out, left Liverpool hopelessly open at the back – something apparent even as they won their first five games of the season.Wirtz may adapt but, for now, he is struggling with the physicality of the Premier League.

It’s very hard to see how he and Salah, for whose lack of natural defensive capacity Liverpool have always had to compensate, can play in the same side without risking the midfield being overwhelmed – at least not in the Premier League; Madrid simply did not provide the same physical challenge.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionIn fact, it may be that no more than two of Isak, Ekitiké, Wirtz, and Salah can play together. Even if the summer were part of the transition to a post-Salah future, it’s very hard to understand what the plan was, unless Liverpool always had in mind some sort of 4-3-1-2, with Wirtz to play behind Alexander Isak and Ekitiké, with width provided from full-back, which would at least help to explain why they signed Milos Kerkez and Frimpong.