Liverpool legend Jamie Carragher has told Reds’ boss Arne Slot that he must find how to play Alexander Isak and Hugo Ekitike together in order to get the best out of his side.
Jamie Carragher has urged Liverpool boss Arne Slot to figure out a way to get Alexander Isak and Hugo Ekitike on the pitch at the same time. The Dutch manager had a busy summer transfer window, bringing in a host of big-name players to Anfield.
In addition to bolstering his defence with Jeremie Frimpong and Milos Kerkez, Slot persuaded the Liverpool board to fork out a whopping £116million for attacking midfielder Florian Wirtz, who has yet to live up to his hefty price tag. The Reds snapped up Ekitike in a £79m swoop from Eintracht Frankfurt, while they bagged Isak in a last-minute £125m deal from Newcastle United.
However, with an attack brimming with talent, Slot faces a real conundrum about how to fit all his star players into the starting line-up. While Ekitike can play on the left flank – freeing up the centre for Isak – Cody Gakpo has been in decent form.
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The idea of playing two strikers also seems unlikely given Mohamed Salah’s stellar performances over recent years on their right wing. A change in formation also appears off the cards, given the crucial defensive contributions from Ryan Gravenberch and Dominik Szoboszlai this season, leaving Slot with a tricky puzzle to solve.
Yet former Liverpool defender Carragher believes the 47-year-old manager needs to work out how to field both Isak and Ekitike simultaneously if he wants to maximise his current squad’s potential. Speaking on The Fan Debate by The Overlap this week, he said: “It felt like a Real Madrid summer, not a Liverpool summer.
“And there was something about it that… We all love our teams buying players, don’t we? Spending money and big names. But there was something about it that I was a little bit; ‘Oh, it doesn’t feel Liverpool like this, but okay, great. We’re buying, we’re doing this, we’re doing that’.”
“And I was thinking on the way – because everyone’s had an opinion on; ‘He should play him, he should play him, he should do that’. Because it’s been a Real Madrid summer in terms of buying big players, does Slot almost need to be like the ultimate Real Madrid manager?
“And I always think of [Carlo] Ancelotti, and I feel like Ancelotti every summer, you’d almost be thinking; ‘What’s he going to do with that’? Even last season there was; ‘How should he get [Kylian] Mbappe and Vinicius Jr in the same team’?
“But if you go back to his AC Milan teams or his Real Madrid teams, that was his greatest strength as a manager. He’d find a way, whatever system – and he just he’d get the best players on the pitch where they wanted to play and almost do it for the players rather than…
“I think in this day and age the game’s almost a manager’s got his way of playing. It might be a system. It might be his style, and they’ve all then got to fit into that. It might be a case of actually, you know what, we’ve got to make this work, not so much they’ve got to come into the Liverpool team or the Slot idea and and play.
“So we always play under Slot, don’t we, 4-2-3-1? That may now have to change – in terms of getting the players in. Because you know, when you’ve spent that sort, you know, type of money on the players. I mentioned about Wirtz maybe coming out the team, but that couldn’t last forever.
“He’s cost over £100m. You’ve got to try and make that work. So I’m sort of intrigued how he how he does it going forward, how he gets these players into the team. Because I even think Ekitike and Isak, he’s got to find a way. Find a way.
“You can’t have it every week if Isak starts and he comes on off with 20 minutes to go. You have got to find a way where they can play together at some stage.”
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