Premier League 2018/19: SWOT Analysis Of Liverpool

We are less than 24 hours away from kicking off the 2018/19 season, as Premier League clubs prepare for another nine months of intense league competition.

One of those clubs is Liverpool, and the Merseyside team would have lofty ambitions of returning to the zenith of English football, having spent a total of €182.2m on new arrivals, including a £67m previously record fee for goalkeepers to bring Alisson Becker to Anfield from AS Roma.

The Reds were once the dominant force in England, dominating domestic and continental competitions in the 1970s and 1980s, as legendary players like Ian Rush, Kenny Dalglish and Bruce Grobbelaar led them to unprecedented success on the field.

However, those times are long gone, and the reality is that Liverpool has been replaced by Manchester United and more recently Chelsea and Manchester City at the pinnacle of English football.

There has been no domestic league title since 1990, while only three major trophies have been won since 2005.

The arrival of Jurgen Klopp from Dortmund in 2015 has helped restore some of the pride back to Liverpool, and there is a renewed sense of belief at the Kop, so The Reds would seek to build on the gains made in recent seasons by going one further and ending their 28-year wait for a league title.

They, however, have very tough competition in the form of the 'top six', and Liverpool would have to be on top gear if they are to achieve their season's objectives.

Using a SWOT analysis, I profile The Reds and their chances of success.

Outline

Strength: Key areas or qualities which the club possesses which puts it at an instant advantage, and makes it a contender

Weaknesses: Areas or qualities which put the clubs at an instant disadvantage and makes it weaker than its opponents

Opportunities: Areas or qualities with potential to make the team stronger than its rivals

Threats: Areas or qualities which have potential to make the team weaker than its rivals

LIVERPOOL - Strengths

Mo Salah

In an unexpected narrative at the beginning of last season, Salah had one of the greatest debut seasons in Premier League history, seemingly breaking records every week as he banged in goal after goal.

Salah set a plethora of Premier League records, including for most goals scored in a 38-game season (32) and most goals scored by a Liverpool player in his debut season (44). He was deservedly named PFA and PWA Player of The Year among other personal awards.

The 25-year-old Egyptian scored a total of 44 goals, helping Liverpool to a 4th place league finish and a spot in the Champions League final.

On the strength of his performance last season, Mo Salah is in the running to be the 2018 Ballon d'Or winner, and if he can maintain this form heading into this season, Liverpool will undoubtedly fancy its chances of winning a first league title in 28 years.

Blistering attack

Liverpool FC had the best attack in Europe last season

Although Mo Salah got most of the plaudits, he was just the headline act, the protagonist of a brilliantly talented Liverpool attack. Klopp's gengenpressing style of football is suited to the abilities of Salah, and together with Sadio Mane and the grossly underrated Roberto Firmino, form one of the most potent attacking tridents in world football.

The trio scored a whopping 91 goals between them last season, as defenses found it difficult to contain their brilliance. Firmino was the selfless runner, constantly drawing back to drag defenders out of position and create spaces for his teammates to explore.

Mane used his trickery and speed on the wings to devastating effect, while King Salah was downright unplayable at times, embarking on Messi-esque mazy runs en route scoring goal after goal. The 'terrific three' will come in handy once more next season.

The signing of Xherdan Shaqiri will also prove a useful addition off the bench (as his terrific overhead kick against United in pre-season showed) and if this attack can show the kind of form it did last season, then Liverpool might find themselves walking together with the Premier League title in hand come May.

LIVERPOOL - Weaknesses

Defensive frailty

Lovren is the weak link in the Liverpool defence

Despite the undeniable progress made by Liverpool under Jurgen Klopp, there have been some recurring themes which proved detrimental to their aspirations: inability to kill off small teams, goalkeeping errors and defensive blunders.

Liverpool's swashbuckling style of play means they score goals aplenty, it also means they concede goals by the bucketload. While this makes for entertaining excitement for the neutral viewer, it is a disastrous pattern for a club aiming to challenge for top honours, especially if the goals conceded come about due to comical non-league defending, which most of them are.

The chief culprit of this malaise is 29-year-old Croatian international Dejan Lovren, and the culmination of his palpability came about in a 31-minute farce against Tottenham, where he made two errors gifting Tottenham goals, and was run ragged for the duration of his half-hour stay on the pitch before being hauled off by Klopp.

He also shows a tendency to repeat mistakes, as evidenced by Eden Dzeko's first goal in Liverpool's 5-2 first-leg victory over Roma in the Champions League, where Lovren misjudged the flight of the ball, leaving Eden Dzeko to bury into the net, in an erringly similar way to the goal he gave Harry Kane in the aforementioned match.

Other guilty parties include Joel Matip and Alberto Moreno, and moving ahead, Liverpool's weak defence is an issue Klopp must address if they are to fulfil their ambitions.

Inability to kill off small teams

Liverpool have constantly gone toe-to-toe with their direct rivals in the Premier League, and Jurgen Klopp's Liverpool have the best record against the top six sides since he arrived in England.

Liverpool's wonderful performances against their rivals are supposed to see them in a favourable position challenging for the top spots, however, that is not the case, as another of Liverpool's banes has been their inability to finish off the small teams.

A hallmark of Mourinho's greatest Premier League sides was their capacity to totally decimate lower quality opposition, while playing it safe against the big teams, and this proved immensely successful, owing to the number of Premier League titles he has won.

Liverpool would do well to learn from this, as they have frustratingly dropped points which they had no reason to, particularly in the 2016/2017 season, where Liverpool lost only six matches, but of those six, four came against teams who were in the bottom three at the time they played Liverpool. while the club also threw away a 3-1 lead against Bournemouth to lose 4-3, and drew away to Sunderland.

Beyond the psychological advantage it gives, there are no extra points awarded for defeating your rivals, so a win against Manchester City is worth exactly the same number of points as a win against Wolves, and since there are more 'small teams' than 'big teams', Jurgen Klopp would do well to banish under-performances against the small teams to the past for Liverpool to meet it's objectives.

LIVERPOOL - Opportunities

Alisson Becker's arrival

Alisson could make Liverpool genuine title contenders

Jurgen Klopp sanctioned the purchase of Brazil international goalkeeper Alisson from Roma in a previous record £67m deal.

While eyebrows were raised over that figure being expended on a goalkeeper, the truth is that the amount of money available to clubs means that such figures will become commonplace (as evidenced by Kepa's subsequent record purchase by Chelsea), and there's nothing we can do about that. Moreover, that is beside the point.

The goalkeeping area was one aspect that had given Klopp a lot of headaches over the last three years, as neither of his first-team goalkeepers could find any sort of consistency meriting the first choice shot-stopper of a top European club.

Both Simon Mignolet and Lorius Karius took turns in committing laughable schoolboy gaffes, leading to numerous dropped points in the league for Liverpool. If league errors were not bad enough, each also had their horror moments in cup final games with Mignolet costing Liverpool in the League Cup final against Man City in 2015, while Karius infamously handed Real Madrid two goals in the Champions League final only three months ago.

Alisson's arrival will help address that, as he is an extremely confident goalkeeper, who can be depended upon to bail his team out with world class saves, coupled with the marked improvement of their defense since Virgil Van Dijk's arrival.

It is a known fact that title-winning teams are mostly built on having a good goalkeeper, and Alisson is as good as they get, being referred to as the 'Messi of goalkeepers' by Roma Sporting Director Monchi.

A world-class goalkeeper could pull off saves worth at least 10 points in a league season, and those saves could be the difference between achieving the season's objectives and failing to do so.

In Alisson, Liverpool finally has a dependable goalkeeper that could aid in their title-winning quest.

New arrivals

Liverpool are the Premier League's highest spenders in the just closed transfer window, spending a total of £182.2m on new arrivals such as Alisson, Naby Keita, Luis Fabinho and Xherdan Shaqiri.

All of these transfers are important arrivals, and strengthen areas of weaknesses for The Reds. Shaqiri would be a useful addition off the bench as backup for Liverpool's terrific front three, Naby Keita's energetic style of play will bring grit into the engine room of midfield, while Luis Fabinho is a multi-functional utility player adept at playing numerous positions, and as touched earlier, Alisson is an absolutely necessary addition.

With the good piece of business Liverpool have done in this market, if all the players live up to expectation, all the missing pieces of the puzzle may have just come in place for Liverpool to finally achieve something.

Virgil Van Dijk's presence

Virgil Van Dijk is Liverpool's defensive marshall

After a prolonged transfer squirmish lasting two windows, former Southampton skipper Van Dijk finally arrived Anfield in January for a record fee for defenders of £75m.

The 27-year-old Netherlands international is a natural leader, and on his Liverpool debut in the Merseyside derby could be heard shouting orders and organizing his defensive teammates in scenes not seen in a long time at Liverpool.

The club showed marked improvements defensively upon his arrival, with The Reds conceding 21 goals in 22 Premier League matches before his arrival, but just 12 in 16 after he came to Anfield.

Van Dijk is a calm and calculating defender, and this trait would help keep the rather irrational and impulsive Dejan Lovren in line. All great title winning teams are built on a solid defense, and in Virgil Van Dijk, Liverpool have a long-yearned-for quality defender who could aid them in their Premier League quest.

LIVERPOOL - THREATS

Manchester City

Manchester City is still the favourite in the EPL

All the impressive signings made by Liverpool in this transfer window would have the club going into the new season with lofty ambitions, and rightly so, as smart buys by the club will likely address some lapses from previous seasons. However, The Reds have a genuine threat to their title aspirations in the form of last season's runaway Champions Manchester City.

Guardiola's army totally decimated all and sundry before them last term, breaking and setting a plethora of EPL records, including; Most points in a single league season (100), most wins in a season (32), most consecutive victories (20), highest goal difference (79), highest points difference to second place (19), most passes (28,242), most goals scored (106) and most away wins (16) among others.

The Cityzens have already wrapped up their first title of the season, with their 2-0 victory over Chelsea in the Community Shield. The emphatic nature of City's win at Wembley on Sunday means that more of the same from last season is to be expected, as the players of Man City seem to have absorbed the entirety of Guardiola's methods.

In almost any other era, Liverpool would have gone into the league season as genuine favorites owing to their impressive transfer dealings, however, this is very much Manchester City's title to lose, and whether Liverpool can usurp them to the crown remains to be seen, although it would be a thrill watching them try.

Unsettlement of new arrivals

While a lot of emphasis is always placed on how new arrivals can strengthen a team, not too much attention is given to its very likely opposite: non-adaptability of new signings to the Premier League.

Without a doubt, all the players signed by Liverpool in this window are quality players who will upgrade the squad, unlike the ill-advised spending spree embarked upon post-Torres, and if the new arrivals gel, Liverpool would be much stronger than last term.

However, the draw side to the influx of new players is the adaptability. All of Liverpool's new arrivals bar Shaqiri have yet to taste Premier League action, and we've seen numerous examples of players failing to adapt, as the culture change proved to be too much of a shock to them.

Footballers are very much humans like the rest of us (despite what Instagram and other social media pages would make us believe), and they experience the same emotions as we the fans. Going to a new country with a different language, different foods, different way of life, and most times in the absence of your family and loved ones would prove a difficult situation for most of us, and the same applies to footballers.

If Liverpool's new players blend into Jurgen Klopp's system, then the club can genuinely challenge Man City for the top spot. However, if the opposite occurs, which is something no Reds fan would want to contemplate, then it could be back to square one for Liverpool.