Liverpool reach World Cup break grateful for Alisson’s role in damage limitation

The beard, it transpired, was not the source of Alisson’s powers. Freshly shaven, the goalkeeper allied a new look with familiar excellence on Saturday, a hat-trick of second-half saves ensuring there was no comeback from Southampton. He was praised by a defensive ally – “Alisson was outstanding again,” said Virgil van Dijk – and mocked. “I said to him, ‘You look like an American guy’, just a random guy,” the Dutchman explained.

It was said with affection. Alisson goes to the World Cup as, in Van Dijk’s opinion, the best goalkeeper on the planet. They both head to Qatar as the constants in Liverpool’s inconsistent campaign, the only two men to play every minute in the Premier League. Go on form and Alisson has been the player of Liverpool’s season so far. Look at the narrative of the last three months and Darwin Nunez has been a hugely symbolic figure. Harvey Elliott has actually been the unexpected ever-present, the only footballer to figure in all 22 matches, from Community Shield to Carabao Cup. If that tells a tale in itself, in a sense this has been the season of Stefan Bajcetic.

Admittedly, the teenaged midfielder has only made one league appearance, a 20-minute cameo in the 9-0 demolition of Bournemouth. But, in all competitions, the Spaniard has been in the matchday squad for 17 games: as many as Andy Robertson, more than Jordan Henderson, Thiago Alcantara, Luis Diaz, Diogo Jota, Joel Matip, Ibrahima Konate, Curtis Jones, Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain, Arthur Melo and Naby Keita.

Go back a few months and Jurgen Klopp boasted what he described as the strongest squad he has ever had. He spent spring denying various high-class players a place on the bench. Now Liverpool have often had a couple making up the numbers: not just Bajcetic but Bobby Clark or Nat Phillips when there has been little chance either would come on, sometimes a third goalkeeper to provide company for the second.

It is a consequence of injuries. “Too many in the wrong moment,” Klopp rued. The knock-on effect has been found in the starting 11, but also in the closing stages of games. There have been times when Liverpool have been hanging on awkwardly, lacking the replacements to add solidity and security, others when their bench has looked short of potential scorers and creators. It has all exacerbated a situation where starters have been overworked in a particularly congested calendar.

“Who would have thought two strikers would be out long term?” Klopp mused after Southampton were overcome. Diaz and Jota have been missed, especially as neither Divock Origi nor Takumi Minamino, scorers of a combined 16 goals last season, has been replaced; perhaps the thinking was that attacking midfielders, in Fabio Carvalho, Oxlade-Chamberlain, Jones and Elliott, could in effect be the extra forward, but two have often been absent and the teenager required in deeper roles.

A result is that Liverpool have only had one league goal and one assist from a substitute since the start of September. A team who have conceded first so often they have invariably found themselves chasing games have had to do so without potent reinforcements. It may offer an explanation for their inability to score in the second half against Everton, West Ham, Nottingham Forest and Leeds, all currently bottom-seven sides.

That the overworked Alisson has made the fifth most saves is a sign of a lack of control, of a difficulty in closing down games. It highlights a lack of strength in depth, a midfield that has been less dependable and more open, the mistake of not signing another defensively-minded midfielder last summer and the way Van Dijk’s premier partner, Konate, has been limited to a solitary, but outstanding, league start.

That both Klopp and Van Dijk pronounced themselves pleased to reach 22 points was instructive. Ambitions have been reduced. The last few weeks have become a damage-limitation exercise. “There is going to be a such a big break coming up and the World Cup and players getting injured, players not fully fit, it was strange,” Van Dijk reflected.

A seven-point gap to the top four does not feel unbridgeable. A seven-man contingent at the World Cup seems small, with injury denying Jota a trip to Qatar, the inability of Egypt, Scotland and Colombia to qualify offering a prospect of rest for Mohamed Salah, Robertson and Diaz and the decisions of the Brazil and Spain managers bringing players disappointment but maybe providing Klopp with a further fillip. Thiago is injury prone and Roberto Firmino can burn himself out with incessant running, but neither is headed to Qatar. Liverpool could be the beneficiaries.

They can hold out hope they will have a stronger squad for the second half of the season: that Konate and Matip can bring ballast at one end of the pitch, Jota and Diaz incision at the other. Klopp may even have the luxury of rotating fully-fit premier players, of holding game-changers in reserve, perhaps of giving Elliott a game off or even of seeing Keita don a Liverpool shirt again. If time will tell whether Bajcetic becomes a footnote in the club’s history or player with a sizeable future, Liverpool’s fortunes in the last five months of the season may depend on whether the perennial substitute can be spared bench duty.