How Ryan Gravenberch went from no fixed role to early player-of-the-season candidate

Ryan Gravenberch is the defensive midfielder who thinks like a playmaker and dribbles like a winger; the Liverpool anchorman seeking to conduct the orchestra more than disrupt the tempo of the opposition.

Ask Liverpool’s early player-of-the-season candidate to name his heroes and there is no reference to those one might expect to be the subject of video analysis as he fills a gap vacated by Fabinho over a year ago.

“Messi. Ronaldo,” says Gravenberch. “But my other idol was Zidane. I never saw him live, but I saw clips of him and it was really great.

“Obviously, when you’re a kid on the streets you want to be like him and what he achieved you want to achieve as well.”

Not the average midfield workhouse, then. Gravenberch’s attacking skills were honed in Amsterdam with his older brother, Danzell, now a professional at the lower-league Dutch side FC Den Bosch.

“He toughened me up and he did everything for me,” Gravenberch recalls. “He played at Ajax at the time and I remember going with him to Ajax and watching him play.

“He’s like eight years older than me. When I was younger I just watched him play and when we were a bit older I would go with him to play on the streets. He’s a big boy so it was difficult for me.”

By the time Gravenberch Jr followed the path to Ajax’s academy, the first page of what would become a bulging Liverpool scouting dossier was being written, the scout reports glowing after they saw the 13-year-old prodigy playing in an Under-16 tournament.

Three years later, Gravenberch was given his senior debut by Erik ten Hag – eclipsing Clarence Seedorf as Ajax’s youngest player aged 16 years and 130 days. Liverpool’s chief recruiters, Barry Hunter and Dave Fallows, were by now members of a growing fan club.

“I’m very proud of that because if you saw the career of Seedorf and what he achieved, the prizes he won and what kind of player he was,” says Gravenberch of his milestone. “He is an idol of mine.”

So began a journey to Anfield full of quirky twists and turns, Gravenberch’s path to the heart of Arne Slot’s midfield owing as much to circumstance as design.

Take Gravenberch’s recollection of the phone call from Slot promising the positional shift which changed his Liverpool career.

“After the Euros, he called me and he said he wants to give me a chance,” says the 22-year-old. “And then he said, ‘I want you to focus on the No 8 position… but I also want to see you in the No 6 position’.”

Liverpool’s failure to sign Real Sociedad’s Martin Zubimendi last summer is the most obvious ‘happy accident’ to befall Gravenberch as those immediate plans to evolve as an attacking midfielder were shelved while his No 6 ‘experiment’ accelerated. Few anticipated it would prove so spectacularly effective, Gravenberch an emblem of how Slot is putting his stamp on Jurgen Klopp’s blueprint.

Rewind another year and there were at least two other lucky breaks which led Gravenberch to Anfield, with Chelsea’s arrival on Merseyside this weekend a reminder that the Dutchman was initially (and wrongly) regarded as a ‘third choice’ acquisition.

Liverpool spent the summer of 2023 chasing Romeo Lavia and were scuppered in a late move for Moises Caicedo, both lured to Stamford Bridge in what – at the time – was presented as a humiliating snub to Klopp. Had either midfielder preferred Liverpool, it is unlikely Gravenberch would have been affordable.

Short of midfielders as deadline day approached, Liverpool’s recruitment team championed revisiting a bid for Gravenberch, who would actually have been signed much sooner if circumstances permitted. They had been disappointed to lose out on his multi-dimensional skills when he opted to join Bayern Munich in the summer of 2022.

Gravenberch’s arrival in Germany presented a tactical conundrum to Julian Nagelsmann and then Thomas Tuchel, who could identify the physical and technical attributes, but were unsure how best to utilise them in a squad where midfield competition was fierce.

Gravenberch saw himself as an attacking midfielder playing from the left. Instead, he was tried in a variety of different roles, with none of his 33 starts ending in a complete 90 minutes, a goal or an assist. Liverpool were unperturbed by his troubles. Having been initially informed Gravenberch wanted to fight to prove himself in Germany and Bayern were not willing to sell, renewed efforts to secure a £35 million deal were fruitful.

“The package is really interesting,” Klopp said, when unveiling Gravenberch alongside the initial Fabinho replacement Wataru Endo. “I don’t know where he is going to end up.”

The immediate consequence was more of the same as at Bayern, Gravenberch in danger of being a utility player with no fixed role.

“The coach [Klopp] didn’t say to me, ‘OK, you will get a starting XI position’ you know… so it was already in my head that I will get my chances, that my time will come,” says Gravenberch.

Klopp’s exit and Slot’s arrival was the catalyst for immediate change. It makes for a better story to suggest Gravenberch would still be a back-up had Klopp stayed or Zubimendi joined, but the truth is more likely his positional switch would have been later rather than sooner.

A year ago, Klopp said of Gravenberch, ‘I think definitely in the future he has the potential to play as a No 6,’ although he never used him as such, even when the title-chasing team was running out of gas last April.

Slot would have tried Gravenberch in a defensive midfield role eventually, but it would be naive to believe he would not have been part of a rotation with Zubimendi. Instead, he has been relishing interpreting the position in his way – a midfield inventor more than a spoiler.

Pressed on whether he is scrutinising any specialists in his role he says, ‘not really’. “I have to adapt more because I’m not like a natural defending No 6,” he says.

“When I played at Ajax I also played this role, not a lot, so I knew a little bit of what I had to do. I was like a more attacking midfielder.

“I spoke to Macca [Alexis] Mac Allister because obviously last season he played a lot there and also Endo about what they used to do, anticipating where the ball will come, just some little chats.

“[The coach] showed me a few clips and John Heitinga – I had him in Ajax so he knows me really well – and I had chats with him about good positioning, where the ball can come and also about attacking-wise where I have to stand.”

The overall impression is of a free spirit who finally has the tactical discipline and purpose to make a position his own. Gravenberch is redefining the perception of an Anfield No 6 as the team evolves from the era of Fabinho retrieving possession and deferring to the creative forces, to a deep midfielder who is eager to do it all.

Ryan Gravenberch was speaking as part of club sponsor Standard Chartered’s ‘Futuremakers’ campaign. For more information and the chance to bid on his match worn shirt, visit here