One Liverpool star was named their best player against Manchester City. Not only was that not true, he is actually a massive problem.
Liverpool fell 3-0 to Manchester City on Sunday. It was a difficult game and was always going to be once Cody Gakpo, Alexander Isak and Dominik Szoboszlai were all ruled out of it.
All three would have started and their injuries forced Andoni Iraola to pivot to something else. It meant Ryan Gravenberch started in midfield, Lewis Koumas went up top for his first Premier League start and Victor Munoz played from the right.
Liverpool were well in the game, too, before going down to 10 men. Once that happened, all control was lost and City’s 3-0 goals followed fairly quickly.
The Ryan Gravenberch problem
A lot has been made of Gravenberch’s performance in midfield. The Dutchman did, admittedly, look more like his 2024-self, driving forward from midfield and beating players on the turn.
It led to plenty of praise, even with the red card, from Sky’s pundits. Gravenberch, they said, was arguably Liverpool’s best player. Both The Mirror and the Liverpool Echo hailed his display.
Honestly, it’s madness. He did not have a good game and the reasons why continue to damage Liverpool. It increasingly looks like Gravenberch cannot play in a midfield two that requires discipline.
Even just in the data, Gravenberch completed 72 per cent of his passes in the match and that was just 18. 18 passes in over an hour of football - Ayyoub Bouaddi completed one more than that in 10 minutes.
His eight line-breaking passes were half as many as Alexis Mac Allister and fewer than Ronald Araujo managed in just 12 more minutes. Nor did he win a particularly strong number of duels - 5 of 9.
But this isn’t even the big issue here. Gravenberch has increasingly shown that he can’t play in a two or with a no.10 who wants the ball. It’s something we’ve mentioned before, particularly with Florian Wirtz.
The Dutchman’s desire to break into attacking areas takes the space away from the no.10. It also leaves a giant gap behind him that Mac Allister can’t cover. That was a particular problem at the start of the season as Newcastle United ran rampant behind Gravenberch, scoring twice before he’d pushed far forward without cover.
And ultimately, that’s how the red card happened. Gravenberch burst foward for a pot-shot at goal, leaving lots of space behind him. He had to chase back to stop Jeremy Doku attacking that space and while playing catch-up, fouled him to stop a counter-attack.