My thoughts are Gravenberch and Mac Allister are Slot’s first choice for the double pivot. Endo and Jones backing up.
We know that Slot doesn’t think Endo can play the way he wants his deep midfield to work, and he looked really shocking in the pre-season games, so I would keep Bajcetic (who looks tailor made for Slot) and sell Endo, knowing you can also drop Szoboszlai deeper if necessary. Or use Trent there, to get Bradley time at RB.
First choice: Grav and Mac
Back up: Baj and Jones
Emergency: Dom and Trent
Or alternatively, keep Endo because why not. You never know when we might need a body.
I wouldn’t be playing Elliott as a deep midfielder. I think it’s him and Szoboszlai for that advanced position.
Whilst not our best midfielder, he is a solid and reliable type that you know you will always get a consistant 7 out of 10 from him, which, as a back up/squad option is perfect. Plus he comes across as the sort of character that won’t rock the boat or make a fuss if he doesn’t play every week.
This is understandable but this is a key position in a side that is notorious for being injury-prone - and to rely on a backup that is not suited for Slot’s kind of football might not be the smartest thing to do. Unfortunately, with Bajčetić’s long-term injury and necessity to play regularly and prove his fitness and credentials elsewhere, likely on loan, I’m afraid that we don’t have other option but to keep Endo for now.
It’s a lot less of a physical league and you play 4 fewer league games, 1 less cup competition etc but looking at the minutes the Feyenoord players played last season, let’s take the midfield for instance…Arne kept Timber (31/34 league starts) and Wieffer (29/34 league starts) in that double pivot more or less all season long & then it was most Stengs playing that advanced midfield role (26 starts in 29/34).
So I reckon a similiar pattern could play out if Grav/Mac both remain healthy.
All of our midfielders are now technically gifted and have the ability to score. Having more defensive fullbacks will allow them to attack more and contribute more to our attacking play.
However, I do have one concern, which is Szoboszlai’s fitness. His workload is vital, and we have no alternative for him, whereas the other three (Mac, Jones, Grav) can replace each other. Additionally, both Mac and Szoboszlai play a lot of national team football, which can easily affect their performance. We’ve seen them get overplayed many times. Although Endo is slowly becoming solid, he’s more of an additional option than a main one.
Not all of them and my prediction is that we will still feel another quality central midfielder will need to be added, but our 4 main options (even if so far I don’t count Szobo as a double-pivot option) are players who are well rounded and respond well to a lot of our needs, in different phases of play.
Their numbers though are still nothing special, they’re closer to a minimal standard than something that merits extra praise.
The fact that Mac is I think on the same number of goals and assists as Szobo so far at Liverpool tells us more about Szobo than Mac…
You’d like Mac (he’s good when he arrives late, a little bit like Gundo) to be on around 5+5 and Szobo in his role to be on around or at least 10+10. Slot touched on that with Szobo a few times.
It’s nothing too ambitious to expect from them given their qualities (apart from the team’s), styles, skills, roles and tasks.
That’s not to say that you cannot win something important with slightly unusual numbers; we won the league when Salah had his least productive season in terms of goals, when Bobby’s numbers were already on the decline (9 league goals, out of which 1 at home), etc.
But what does the coaching staff do other than constant daily work, planning, challenging players to push, improve where they can, etc.
