Got an email about new lfc Addis’s range. Clicked the link and was taken to this page on the lfc app.

It's that time of the year again lads! What team names are we going for this time around? Try incorporating the names of the new signings although we haven't done much xD

https://fantasy.premierleague.com/en/

I love him

Just like part 2, we will now be moving on to the next part of the team I want to talk about. The middle of the pitch. 

As I mentioned before, Andoni Iraola is known for his 4-2-3-1 with a double pivot and attacking midfielder. I will be analyzing the two midfielders in the pivot together, but they do not operate the same. So I will make sure to highlight the differences between them and try to explain why that’s important. 
This was the hardest one for me to analyze because there is just so much work for these three midfielders to do and complete in Iraola’s system, and unlike with the defenders, I can’t just pick a select few important stats to analyze. 
Almost every stat available to me is important in its own way, and leads me to form thoughts around them. 

Midfield Pivot: 

Now the most important thing to remember is that even though they share the same on-paper formation, Iraola’s midfield pivot does not operate the same as Slot's. The double pivot has two main roles that both players who fill these slots need to work together to properly complete them:
-1 protect the backline, and support the press heavily. 
-2 Progressing attacks either through quick smart direct passes, short passes, or by carrying the ball forward. Being able to ensure that the team can transition from defence to attack in as few passes as possible 

The first thing I wanna talk about is how important it is for the pivot to win the ball back. 
The midfielders are the ones who jump once the trigger has been activated in an Iraola side. 

If we look at last year’s stats from Opta Analyst concerning defensive actions: 
Bournemouth had a total of 654 tackles (9th in the Prem) last season, being able to win 49.0% of ground duels (17th). In comparison, Liverpool had the lowest number of tackles last season with 494, winning 49.0% of ground duels. Liverpool was the only team to not make at least 500 tackles last year in the Prem; the next lowest team was Man City with 547. The difference between Man City and us is 53 tackles. That's almost the exact same difference between Man City and Arsenal (who are ranked 13th)  in tackles. 

But now this is where it gets interesting as team statistics: 
-Bournemouth had the second most Interceptions last season with 366 interceptions, only 5 behind first place Chelsea. 
-They also had 1967 recoveries, the most in the Premier League. A recovery in Opta's analysis is defined as such: “This is where a player recovers the ball in a situation where neither team has possession or where the ball has been played directly to him by an opponent, thus securing possession for their team.” 
Meaning: In these hard situations where Bournemouth’s press is able to distract and successfully “suffocate” the opposition, making the possession of the ball contested,  Bournemouth is the team that comes out on top the most in the Premier League. That is very impressive at face value. Now we must take that with a grain of salt, automatically because Bournemouth don’t dominate possession as much as other teams such as Man City or Liverpool did last season; an educated guess would be that a good portion of those recoveries came from defending their own box. 
Bournemouth had one of the higher amounts of allowing touches in their box; they were ranked 4th. 1083. 
Now, because of Bournemouth’s high pressing nature and just physical play, they were ranked 3rd in fouls conceded with 444. 

In comparison, Liverpool were ranked near the bottom alongside Arsenal, Fulham, Aston Villa, Burnley, Leeds and Sunderland around them with 1718 recoveries. In interceptions, we were ranked second to last with 264 (This one isn’t as bad and makes more sense, as we had a lot of the ball last season, so more of the ball = less chance to intercept a pass. Man City had 302 interceptions, Arsenal 269 and Aston Villa 238.) 
Liverpool conceded only 372 fouls. 

Liverpool also had the lowest amount of allowed opposition touches in their own box, with 853 (3rd lowest), only Man City (713) and Arsenal (618) allowed fewer. 
But I think we all know from watching our team last season, we were so so terribly coached in our mid block that it seemed any touch in our box could lead to a goal conceded. 

When it comes to the second role of the pivot, 35.5% of Bournemouth’s passes were directed forward. That is the 4th highest in the league, showcasing just how direct they are. 
Liverpool had 31.2% of their passes go forward according to Opta Analyst. 
Bournemouth were also ranked mid-table in Successful open play pass percentage (80.1%) and successful final third pass percentage (67.6), which highlights the riskiness Iraola allows his squad to take. 
Liverpool were 3rd and 2nd ranked, respectively. (85.7%) and (78.1%). 

Now that we got the main team statistics out of the way, it’s time to target individual players. 

Now it is entirely possible to do a good 1-to-1 showcase between players, as from my research Bournemouth had 4 main players (Tyler Adams, Alex Scott, Lewis Cook, Ryan Christie) who played in the pivot this season for them, and that is very similar to Liverpool, who also had 4 (Mac Allister, Gravenberch, Jones, Szoboszlai).  Sadly, two of the comparisons would be rather different, as Szoboszlai and Jones played a decent amount of time at right back for us. And Szobo even played some games at Right midfielder/wing and attacking midfield. So instead of comparing, I will purely analyze the 2 main  Bournemouth midfielders (Tyler Adams and Alex Scott) since they would be the starting pivot if both were available and draw conclusions from there concerning how our current players would fit in. I will still also do a quick overview of the other 2 as they were still integral to Bournemouth’s midfield success. 

-Tyler Adams is the only one of the 4 I mentioned to be an actual natural defensive midfielder (a 6), he played 25 games in the Premier League last season, a total of 1778 mins. He only had 10 touches in the opposition box the entire Premier League campaign; according to the PL official app, his best work was, as you would guess it, in the physical/more defensive part of the game. He won 96 duels and 27 aerial duels. 
He has 53 total tackles, 33 interceptions, and 9 blocks.
While going forward wise, he attempted 12 dribbles (50% complete), had an expected assist number of 0.61 while getting 2 assists, completed 87% of his 1010 passes and 49% of his 68 long passes. 

Now the insights from Opta Analyst: 
- Passing-wise: He was the second highest when it came to successful open play passes in the Bournemouth squad with 87.1%. He was also ranked highest in successful final third passes with 79.7%. Now again it must be noted that he only played 25 games (4 from the bench). He only attempted 227 final third passes in total, but compared to his fellow midfield partners, that is still more than all of them except Alex Scott. The same can be said for open play passes. He is ranked 3rd from the bottom in the team for chances created with 7; only Adam Smith (a full back with 22 apps) and Diakite (a defender with 18 apps) have fewer.

- Defense-wise: Tyler Adams had 53 tackles (5th in the team) and 33 interceptions (5th again). Now, if we go by per 90, he’s tied first in interceptions per 90 (1.67) and 3rd in tackles per 90 (2.68) 

This is an interesting stat that deserves recognition for how important Tyler Adams was defensively. I went through the match log: 
-Bournemouth kept 11 clean sheets in the Premier League. 
-Tyler Adams started in 7 of them. 

We don’t have anyone with his profile of calmness and composure on the ball while also being the best defensively sound midfielder in his squad. The closest is Endo, but Endo also doesn’t have Tyler Adams’ athleticism. 
Perhaps Iraola will be able to transform Gravenberch sorta into Tyler Adams because one thing I can guarantee is that Iraola will transform our players by platforming their strengths while also improving their weaknesses. So Gravenberch is one that may go through another renaissance under Iraola as he did with Slot. Gravenberch’s passing range is the most inconsistent in the squad; some games he will show off his passing range and barely misplace a pass. In other games, he messes up the simplest passes like Ugarte. 
One thing I can complement is Gravenberch’s ball carrying, which is by far superior to that of Tyler Adams. 

But off the ball, we need Gravenberch to improve greatly in the press, too many times this season he was caught away from his man or he just wasn’t strong enough in the tackle (again this is also another very inconsistent part of his game, I remember the Athletic Madrid game at home and the Everton game at home he was very physical and did it well but those games for him are currently just too few far between.) 

-Alex Scott: 

The midfield phenomenon. I am surprised this summer that Alex Scott hasn’t been given a price tag in the same range as other midfielders such as Fernandes, Wharton, Anderson and more. He is very well-rounded and performs exceptionally well on all metrics. 

Scott played every single game bar 1 and was by far the best-performing midfielder in the pivot. He had 49 touches in the opposition box; he attempted 52 dribbles and completed 56% of them. Most impressive is his defensive contribution; he won 185 duels and 37 ground duels, had 60 total tackles with 36 interceptions and 15 blocks. Something very, very surprising when doing my research was that Gravenberch actually had very similar defensive stats to Alex Scott in these metrics when using the PL Official App. This just helped reinforce my idea and hope that Iraola can definitely improve Ryan into an even greater defensive beast.
The reason I believe this is because of Alex Scott:
"Defensively, maybe in my first two seasons, I wasn't at the level to be playing in the Premier League... The manager has been amazing for me, working with me going forward, defensively, (and) being more aggressive." A quote from Alex Scott directly, talking about how when he first arrived his biggest weakness was the defense and he attributes it all to Iraola.
This is another quote from Scott praising Iraola for helping him: "I've obviously improved a lot. I think tactical understanding of the game, defensively I have been a lot better this season and it comes from the head coach."

This is the same for other members of the squad; Ryan Christie is normally an attacking midfielder, but he was used in the pivot for a great portion of this season because of Tyler Adams’ injuries, and performed to an elite level. 
For example, vs Arsenal at the Emirates, you wouldn’t even notice he was actually an attacking midfielder. 

Speaking of the game vs Arsenal at the Emirates. It was arguably one of Alex Scott’s best performances of the season. By far the best that I saw him play. 
I recommend everyone watch his performance in that game, especially his goal to win the game, because that leads into my next point about his game that is very useful in the side. His attacking intent. 
The goal: Evanilson, the Bournemouth striker, received a direct pass into his feet and laid it off to Alex Scott, who followed the pass (he wasn’t the original one who made the pass), who cleanly finished off the chance inside the box with composure. 

Now time for Opta Analyst stats: 
Alex Scott had 1393 open-play passes (3rd rank in the team) with 84.8% of them being completed (3rd rank again). 376 final third passes (4th), 70.5% completed. 
He also has 27 crosses, with 7 being successful. 
He also had the 3rd most through balls in the team with 10. 
When it comes to chance creation, he had 20 chances created in open play (5th most), with an expected open play assist rating of 2.46 (5th again). 

When it comes to ball carrying, he had the second most total ball carries in the squad with 442 (only Senesi had more), and 218 progressive carries (4th most). 
8 of his carries ended with shots and another 8 ended with a chance.

In comparison, I will take Alexis Mac Allister (since Szobo and Jones' numbers won't be the same with the time they spent at RB): Mac Allister had 279 carries and 136 progressive carries. Very few.
Thankfully, that was never really Mac Allister’s game. He is definitely a passer, so he should have better passing numbers, right? It’s somewhat true, but compared to how much more Liverpool had the ball than Bournemouth, it just isn’t good enough. 

Liverpool averaged 59.3% possession to Bournemouth’s 50.1%
Mac Allister only had 1438 open play passes (86.6% success rate), 457 final-third passes (80.1% success rate), and 5 through balls. 
Mac Allister, however, created 29 chances through open play.
And generated an xG of 3.89. He also had 65 touches in the opposition box.

Overall, Liverpool players in general created more chances than Bournemouth players, which is a massive plus. To the surprise of no one, our players are better than Bournemouth’s individually; they just need to be given the right tools to showcase that consistently.

Now that we have analyzed both Scott and Tyler Adams, I need to bring up another point of Iraola that I have brought up consistently in former parts. He is able to adjust players to positions and make them competent in new roles. 
Ryan Christie is not a natural 6, yet he turned him into someone competent enough in that position who is able to start the game vs Arsenal and Man Utd in that role, filling in for an injured Tyler Adams, and you wouldn’t have even noticed that Christie wasn’t the designated starter, actually. 

I believe that if Iraola is able to transform Gravenberch’s defensive game as he did with Alex Scott, then we don’t need to sign a natural 6, another body in midfield who will then make us have to lose a midfielder. We have 4 possible bodies who can play in the pivot, and they all offer something and would compete for almost every team in the world. 

Attacking Midfielder: 

 When it comes to pressing, the attacking midfielder is immensely important. 
I will focus on 1 for now: Tavernier. 
Tavernier had 150 possessions won for AFC Bournemouth last season, according to Opta Analyst. He also won 138 duels.
His defensive contribution is insanely high for an attacking midfielder. But we must understand that not everyone who plays in the 10 role for Iraola operates the same.
Kluivert, Tavernier, and then Eli Junior Kroupi all had differences in their game, instructed differently to their strengths. All 3 are different profiles, and Iraola recognizes that. Which is a plus for us, as this means perhaps in games where Wirtz isn’t available, we won't have to worry about Szobo or Macca filling in his role, but instead performing new instructions tailored to them for the position.

Let’s talk about the breakout star last season, Junior Kroupi; he had 33 appearances with 12 off the bench. Once this man started to perform and his form increased, Tavernier was moved to the left wing role for Kroupi to stay central.

He scored 13 goals and had an xG of 8.35. He would box-crash a lot, with him being in around the box most games. He was fast, direct, and able to switch the intensity of the attack quickly. He would still drop deep to facilitate play, but much less than the other two I mentioned. Kroupi had 467 passes last season; Tavernier had 1128 (again, he spent a good time at left wing); Kluivert, the season before, had 680.

Kluivert got involved a lot with the build-up of the team, more than Kroupi, but he was still rapid and was a playmaker from central areas, playing balls to Semenyo and wide areas on the counter.

Kroupi was the top scorer for Bournemouth last season with 13 goals (for reference, Semenyo had 10 before he left), in only 1683 mins. Kroupi had a very impressive conversion rate of 25%, so for every 4 shots he took, 1 would go in. That is very effective.
For reference, in Liverpool, the attacker with the best conversion rate was Hugo Ekitike with 16.92%.
He was very much a second striker in my opinion. Not a classic number 10. But what’s the point of me pointing this out? It's to showcase how Iraola can change it up depending on player form, performance, and opposition. This is even more evidence of his qualities as a coach.

Now it is very obvious that our starting number 10 will be Florian Wirtz. I very much doubt he will play similarly to Junior Kroupi. I have very high hopes that he will shine under Iraola, but I wanna show, with data analysis, just why I think that.

Wirtz will fit well into Iraola’s pressing style; I will use stats from his time at Leverkusen and last season.
Wirtz averaged 1.25 high turnovers per 90 minutes in all competitions in 2024–25, the most among all Bundesliga players. 
In the Champions League, Wirtz made by far the most pressures of Leverkusen players (679)
As well as common theme with Kroupi and Kluivert during their two seasons was as attacking midfielders, their heat maps and touch maps showed they drifted wide to the left side of the pitch a lot.
We all know how much Wirtz loves to do this subconsciously to get on his right foot more, yet he still covers all the ground in the central space. I posted above the 3 heat-maps of all 3 players. For Wirtz you can notice with Liverpool last season he had to stay central a lot more under Slot because slot demanded it, with Iraola, he won’t have any problem reverting back to being more left side dominant like at Leverkusen.

According to the Premier League analysis, Kluivert was defined as a “support striker” to attack the space in and around the number 9. Wirtz is an elite creator, something Iraola hasn’t had before. Not a single player in his time at Bournemouth had the creativity or level of Wirtz. I very much think we will see him adapt the 10 role again for Wirtz from what it was at Bournemouth on the ball.
Wirtz had more chances created in open play (54) than any other Bournemouth player. Kroupi had 22. It’s even better for Wirtz when you look at per 90, same from Opta analyst, Wirtz had 2.04 chances from open player per 90, the closest Bournemouth player is Kluivert with 1.80. Kluivert played 20 games. 13 less than Wirtz.
Kluivert, in the 2024/25 season, created 45 chances from open play according to FotMob.
In BCC (Big Chances Created), Kluivert had 6 all season; Wirtz had 4. 

While doing my research, I just did not feel it was right and found it hard to analyze this position, not because the data was not clear, but because it did not translate well to Liverpool. 
Our starting number 10 will definitely make Iraola adjust how he operated the number 10 position before to fit Wirtz, as this is a generational player, and with Salah gone, Wirtz needs to make up for the loss of Creativity.

Conclusion:

If I were to pick my starting XI now, and pick a midfield pivot and attacking midfielder based only on current Liverpool players. My duo would be Gravenberch and Szobo (or Jones, but I'll get into that in the next part), and Wirtz in the 10. Szoboszlai or Jones, both of them, I firmly believe can do the exact job Iraola demanded of Scott, but they are just individually and technically better than Scott, which means they should be able to perform it at a higher level.

The 10 is definitely one role I will, and anyone else interested, should be paying attention to during Pre-season. I really wanna know just how Iraola will instruct Wirtz; maybe he will make Wirtz into more of a box-crashing “support striker” (I doubt it; that would be a waste of his abilities, imo), but only time will tell. 

Another important thing will be rotation between the pivots. We will be competing on 4 fronts all with high intensity, and also including the high-intensity training we have seen (I don't know if he will lay off the training intensity once the season finally does get going)
Gravenberch covered 410 km during all his Premier League games last season, with 8.1 sprints per 90 minutes during his league and European campaigns (from ESPN on that last stat, I was not able to find another source purely for Premier League games).

Alex Scott in the pivot was the league leader in distance covered in his match vs Arsenal at the Emirates with 10.9 Km. The out-of-possession distance with high-intensity running will be a massive workload for our midfield this season; they need to be properly rotated so all players able to play in the pivot and attacking midfield need to be ready to shoulder that extra out-of-possession responsibility, which may be the biggest worry.
For the pivot, we have 8 (5-6 realistically) possible players: Gravenberch, Szoboszlai, Alexis Mac Allister, Curtis Jones, Trey Nyoni, Wataru Endo, Stefan Batjetic, and James McConnell
For the 10, we have 6 possible players: Wirtz, Szoboszlai, Alexis Mac Allister, Curtis Jones, Harvey Elliot, and Trey Nyoni. 

Of course, this is just the players who can competently play there in the squad, not who I think will. For example, I don't see a single instance where Trey or Jones will play in the 10 next season.

I hope you understand that, for me personally, I felt out of all the parts so far this was the least analytical and analyzed in my opinion. I just found it super difficult to do so. So if you do find something I didn’t or feel it's subpar, I have no problem revising it on a later date and hearing your feedback and criticism.

Thank you for taking the time to read this!

Good to see the big man enjoying some family time before he joins preseason training.

Turn on captions with translation

Me and my buddy went down to training yesterday, it was closed but we found some spots to sneak some peeks. Security was friendly, asked us to stop taking photos and videos but let us creep thru the gaps in the fence for a bit before saying the gaffer didn't want anyone watching anymore. Can't wait to see them in action August 3rd.