Regular midfielders such as James Milner, Naby Keita, and Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain made the decision to leave Anfield without renewing their contracts.
Then Jordan Henderson and Fabinho sought new homes in the Middle East, attracted by interest from Saudi Arabia.
Needing to reinforce their midfielders more than originally planned, Liverpool pushed to rebuild their midfield, acquiring Alexis Mac Allister, Dominik Szoboszlai, Wataru Endo, and Ryan Gravenberch.
As a result, the team’s pressing intensity, which was said to be the cause of last season’s poor performance, has been restored, and this season they are competing fiercely with Manchester City and Arsenal for the top spot.
Jörg Schmatke became Liverpool’s sporting director last summer and was instrumental in the signings of Szoboslai and Endo, among others. And he has revealed that he was referring to the Hungarian midfielder’s transfer drama, claiming that the price paid was too high.
“Now in Liverpool there was someone who cost €70m, Szoboszlai, who we brought from Leipzig.”
“Then I said: It’s too expensive. From today’s perspective, that was a misjudgment on my part. The boy was an important Liverpool player from day one. He performed better than I would have expected him to.”
Zeit Online
As he said, the Hungarian captain’s performance in the first half of the season was impressive.
Although he has been tired since the middle of the season and has not played as well as he did at the beginning of the season, he has made his presence felt both offensively and defensively with his pressing, powerful dribbling, and surprising passing, backed up by his abundant athleticism.
It is no exaggeration to say that, in modern soccer, the acquisition of a player of this caliber for 70 million euros is a bargain.
On the other hand, the acquisition of the captain of the Japanese national team, who has now become a mainstay of the team, has also shown his skill, and has produced results in a short period of time.
Schmidtke, who had contributed to the acquisition of players from the Bundesliga, left the team at the end of the winter transfer window this year due to the transition to a new regime following the resignation of Jurgen Klopp.
Various sporting director names have been floated to replace him, but…?