What will Liverpool do next?

Liverpool showed against Spurs that they are here to stay

I can’t remember the last time Liverpool started to a season with a squad that was this good. For the first time in god knows how long, we haven’t had to worry about going in for quality or quantity in the summer transfer window. This time, we’ve decided to go in for both. As a result, we can now approach games knowing that we’re capable of setting up our teams in multiple ways with different combinations of players.

This is mainly due to the swathes of attacking talent we’ve signed this summer. With the acquisition of Mario Balotelli, we finally have a striker who is good enough to start up front alongside Daniel Sturridge, allowing us to return to our 4-4-2 midfield diamond that brought us so much success last season.

Alternatively, we can play one striker in the middle in a 4-3-3 formation as we did in the first couple of games. I have to admit though that we’re clearly stronger with two up front, so it is perhaps a formation I would only recommend playing Sturridge in; Rickie Lambert lacks some of the pace necessary for playing alone in the centre, and while Balotelli could possibly thrive when supported by Raheem Sterling and Coutinho – providing the latter isn’t marked out of yet another game – if his service is cut out and he finds himself isolated and having to come back deeper to start moves, I could see him getting angry and picking up some cards, much in the same way that Suarez used to.

We could also line up with wingers/wide forwards supporting a lone striker. We already know Sterling is capable of that but we also have new signing Lazar Markovic who often played out wide for Benfica last season. The man is technically gifted and has pace to burn along with tricky footwork. We didn’t see him do too much when he came on during the win against Spurs, but on his debut against Man City he looked particularly impressive. I’d expect to see more of him in a starting role once the Champions League kicks off and there are more fixtures to play.

Our strength in depth now is crucial. We don’t even have to change our formation to fit new players in, we have excellent backups for our current starters. Adam Lallana is perfectly capable of playing at the tip of the diamond, and I expect him to start against Aston Villa as he will be one of the few players in our squad who hasn’t gone away on international duty and will spend the break getting his fitness up and preparing for the next game. He’ll be ready to slot straight in. The addition of Emre Can in central midfield means we no longer have to rely on keeping Gerrard, Allen and Henderson fit (though it would be a massive problem if the latter became injured). The acquisitions of Lovren, Moreno and Manquillo have automatically seen us upgrade our defence, and suddenly even better than we did last year.

So hold on to your hats everyone, because I think we’re in for a hell of a ride.