Liverpool Football Formation

Lineup (4-2-3-1)

A Slot 4-2-3-1 with emphasis on progressive central midfield and industrial wing-backs. Trent would receive the ball deep often, and would always have 4 players in front of him all interchanging in the half-spaces.

Defensively, Bajcetic (with Endo as back-up) would drop deep, often joining the same line as VVD and Quansah, while Trent sweeps the space in-between. Macca and Szobo would be general midfielders, while Harvey leads the press alongside Salah.

Note 1: Salah obviously interchanges with Jota, where I believe Darwin will be sold or frozen out due to incompatibility, wingers or inside-forwards will probably be bought and otherwise interchanged with Harvey and Szobo, while Gravenberch possibly plays something like Macca's role here. Joemez plays all over the defense, including Bajcetic's position. A new defender is probably needed, and Geertruida probably fits the bill perfectly.

Note 2: no inverted wing-backs due to Trent and Bajcetic filling that space naturally. Furthermore, Quansah leaps into midfield often, so the midfield space is sorted.

Note 3: this line-up is heavily inspired by Feyenoord's 2-3 match against Atletico. Wieffer and Zerrouki played the DM pivot (where Wieffer was the deeper one, i.e. Bajcetic), then you had Stengs in Harvey's role, Macca in Timber's role and Paixao in Szobo's role. The wingers or inside-forwards in Slot's system do not generally matter, as he switches these roles so frequently even during matches. Therefore we could easily have Harvey and Szobo switch, and any one of Lucho, Gakpo and any new potential signing rotate between them. An extreme improvement of this line-up vs. Feyenoord's is Trent to Zerrouki; Slot himself noted that Zerrouki has had an awkward time at Feyenoord due to not finding his proper space, as Wieffer probably plays the position he's closest to naturally play, but he is frequently played as an 8. Here, Trent plays this role, where he has defensive obligations (but not as extreme as that of Bajcetic), but also is in prime condition to rapidly receive the ball during transition. Zerrouki is not very natural at playmaking, but Trent would absolutely thrive in this role. A slight downgrade in this line-up is Geertruida to Bradley; Bradley is better defensively than Trent at RB, but less so than Geertruida. Here it could make sense to in fact sign Geertruida, but also another very solid RB to effectively replace Trent and to give competition to Bradley. That being said, I have no doubt Bradley will develop into an excellent (defensive) RB in the upcoming couple seasons.