Jurgen Klopp has done a pretty handy job of rebuilding Liverpool over the years.
Obviously, the most impressive thing the manager did was taking a bang average Reds team and slowly transforming them into English, European and then World champions.
However, once that super team Klopp had assembled started to drift away, the 56-year-old has also been adept at bringing through a second, top-class Liverpool squad.
Last summer was the biggest test for Jurgen yet in that respect. With six first-team players leaving Anfield, the manager had a huge task to get the group back to being something like challengers.
With the signings of Alexis Mac Allister, Dominik Szoboszlai, Ryan Gravenberch and Wataru Endo, Klopp managed to do that. According to former striker Troy Deeney though, it hasn’t quite been enough. Two players are yet to be fully replaced.
Liverpool told they haven’t replaced two key players
In our opinion, Liverpool did a really good job of replacing the players that left last summer. However, it was difficult to do it all in one summer.
Look at those who left. Legends of the club such as Roberto Firmino, Jordan Henderson and James Milner. Mixed in with that, Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain, Fabinho and Naby Keita had won everything with the Reds. These rebuilds take time.
As well as quality on the pitch, all six of those players brought various degrees of leadership to the team.
It cannot be ignored that Liverpool lost both their captain and vice-captain in 2023. And speaking on the Up Front podcast, Deeney claimed that neither Henderson nor Milner had been succeeded.
“They have never in my opinion replaced the leadership group they lost with James Milner and Jordan Henderson,” said the 35-year-old.
“I know people might talk about qualities, but the leadership group of James Milner – we all know he trains the best, every single day, he wants to do it. Doesn’t allow for anything. Jordan was similar. Who is showing the young players now?”
Do Liverpool miss Henderson and Milner
There will be plenty who will be utterly dismissive of Deeney’s claims about Liverpool’s two former stalwarts.
Although they can boast well over 800 appearances for the club between them, Henderson and Milner were slightly divisive figures within the fanbase.
In terms of what they offered on the pitch, it’s probable that Liverpool did indeed upgrade last summer.
If you take something basic like goals and assists, for example, Henderson and Milner managed just five between them last season. Zero goals, five assists. Mac Allister has 13 all by himself.
But as Deeney says, it’s more on the leadership side that Liverpool might have missed out. Would they have wilted quite so readily and bombed out of three competitions within a month this year with their two former figureheads around? We’ll never know, but it feels unlikely.