Why everyone is replaceable in Jurgen Klopp's surprisingly sophisticated Liverpool system

It might be tough for fans inside Anfield to accept, but 28 years without a league title and 12 without any major trophy means playing for Liverpool is no longer necessarily the peak of a footballer’s career. Philippe Coutinho’s £142 million to Barcelona, three years after the club’s last bonafide superstar Luis Suarez left for the Nou Camp, has proven that Jurgen Klopp’s side cannot expect to hold onto their best players indefinitely. There are several clubs – namely Paris Saint-Germain, Barcelona, and Real Madrid – whose trophy cabinets have been more recently filled and whose wage budgets are significantly larger than Liverpool’s.

Presumably the Kop are already nervously discussing Mohamed Salah’s future following his magnificent debut campaign in England (PSG would surely be interested should Neymar jump ship) while Roberto Firmino is arguably the most complete no.9 in Europe and possibly a target for the two elite clubs in Spain. And yet as the club continues to excel without Coutinho, having won 16 points from seven league games since he last pulled on a Liverpool shirt, it seems increasingly clear that fans have nothing to worry about.

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Klopp knows what he’s doing. The emergence of Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain in a driving central midfield role similar to Coutinho’s has already proven successful, his capture in the summer an example of Klopps’ foresight, tactical planning, and eye for talent he can mould into a gegenpressing heavyweight. Watching how the club have adapted admirably – nonchalantly, even – to life after Coutinho it looks increasingly clear that every player in the Klopp team is replaceable.

What post-Coutinho Liverpool proves is that, for tactically-astute managers with a clear vision, the system is considerably more important than the individual members of it; the sum of the parts vastly outweighing the importance of each separate component. Just as Mauricio Pochettino casually replaced Kyle Walker with Kieran Trippier with little fuss at the beginning of the campaign, Klopp is proving that astute coaching – of both the system and the individual players – is the key to success at a time of increasing player power.

The system at Liverpool, though appearing to prioritise the chaos of “heavy metal” football, is in fact remarkably careful and considered. Klopp’s frenzied pressing gives the illusion of being haphazard when in fact it is finely tuned, with each individual working to a complex set of instructions at any given moment. This goes for defensive positional play (something that has improved dramatically over the last six months) as well as the gegenpress and the attacking lines taken up by the front three. Plus, the system is always evolving. Trent Alexander-Arnold and Andrew Robertson have begun to persistently launch crosses into the box since Coutinho’s departure, helping to open those stubborn deep-lying defences which the little Brazilian so often pulled apart with his through balls from deep.

Liverpool fans, then, should not fear losing Firmino or continuing to improve over the coming years. Since Klopp is the man who sculpted the Brazilian into the player he is today, we can safely assume Klopp will find someone else: someone equally capable of being transformed into an elite playmaker-striker. That is the trust Klopp has earned following three years of steady improvement at the club and a series of good signings.

There is a reason why Salah so quickly found his feet at Anfield; listen closely to Klopp’s instructions, and every player will find themselves synchronised from within an acutely choreographed whirlwind, appearing in space in the final third because everything around them fits precisely with their own patterns of movement.

Salah himself might not stay long at Anfield, but there are other equally quick wingers who could insert themselves into the Liverpool side. The Egyptian was not considered a regular goalscorer before he came to England and so it is certainly possible that Thomas Lemar or Riyad Mahrez could similarly make dramatic improvements when running off Sadio Mane and Firmino. Assuming Liverpool only lose one star player this summer, they won’t take a noticeable step backwards – particularly not with Naby Keita, a slaloming central midfielder, joining in July.

Counter-intuitively, the sale of Philippe Coutinho to Barcelona should make Liverpool fans more optimistic for the future, not less. That Klopp’s side have so easily continued without the Brazilian is evidence of the manager’s tactical genius, and evidence that his unique system is so strong no individual – including Coutinho, Firmino, or Salah – is irreplaceable.