Has Marko Grujic Answered Any Questions About His Future at Liverpool?
by David Rice
In three years on the books at Liverpool, Marko Grujic hasn’t seen much of Anfield as he’s spent most of his time elsewhere. A successful loan spell at Cardiff City in which the team won promotion to the Premier League saw interest in purchasing him from the Welsh side.
The Reds weren’t going to budge on a player they signed only one summer before, instead handing him his next opportunity, a loan spell at Hertha Berlin where he could get regular game time. He did, making 22 appearances and scoring five goals in 18/19. You may not have noticed, what with the Reds running a 97-point tally in the league and grabbing a sixth European Cup.
In that time you were celebrating, Grujic was grinding. He went back on loan to Hertha the following season and watched the Reds win a handful of trophies from afar as he rang up 29 appearances and another four goals for Hertha. There was real interest all along the way from the German outfit in buying him, but the Reds still didn’t budge.
Coming into the new season, many in the media and the fan base believed that Grujic would be sold, myself included. The figures touted about are in the 15–20-million-pound range, good business for a player acquired for just a few million pounds. But as the close of the transfer window beckons on Monday, Grujic finds himself donning the Red shirt twice in the last week with an opportunity to make his case for inclusion in a squad replete with midfielders.
In his two games thus far, Grujic has made his case in convincing fashion, showing us exactly why he was sought after by the recruitment team at the age of 21. First, he’s a good-sized fella standing at 6’3”. I remember thinking when we signed him that he was a bit lanky, but he has come into his own, capable of playing physical if you want, while athletic enough to defend a quality attacker. And defend he does. Grujic rarely shies away from a tackle, rather he’s prone to stick a foot in where it doesn’t belong.
He’s a decent enough passer, but perhaps the most remarkable thing about his passing is how unremarkable it is. As Jordan noted on a recent podcast regarding Thiago, sometimes you just need that metronome player, a guy who keep the ball moving, the rhythm of play going and the ball in the Reds possession. Grujic can play that role, but he can also play the part of attacker.
Against Arsenal on Thursday, we saw this firsthand as he was one of the brightest parts of the Liverpool team Klopp put out, creating chances by applying pressure, popping up in dangerous positions and putting Bernard Leno to the test on a number of occasions. He no doubt left many a Red wondering what comes next for the Serbian.
Should He Stay or Should He Go?
The question people ultimately have about Grujic is about whether or not he should go and if he’ll get into this team.
There’s less of a question about whether he can fit with this squad or if he fits the mold of a Klopp player. With that in mind, I’m going to lay out the case for Grujic to stay and why we this player should be of greater interest to all of us.
Player Development
It’s natural to look at a player Grujic’s age and see someone who is no longer a project. Grujic is approaching a finished a product at the age of 24. As midfielders go, he is entering his prime age, the same age Oxlade-Chamberlain was when he signed for Liverpool, and just one year younger than Naby Keita. At this stage, Grujic isn’t in development anymore as much as he’s at the beginning stages of being the player he’s going to be.
At 24, however, he doesn’t need the pressure of being a key cog in a title chasing machine heaped on him, and if there is one thing that we can reassure him, it’s that he can play a part in that sort of picture, but isn’t going to feature centrally in it at this time.
In a season during which games will come thick and fast in an unorthodox schedule, depth and quality in that depth is going to play a bigger role in success than ever. Injuries, multiple competitions and unforeseen circumstance (Thiago getting COVID) will all play their part to create opportunities for Grujic to feature in the team. It will be good experience for him to be around a title chasing side and to feature in it intermittently, alleviating any concerns about hindering his development or wasting his potential.
Succession Planning
There’s another issue in Liverpool’s roster that Grujic addresses; the age gap. To see it, let’s take a look at the age of the midfield options we have at present and their ages. By this I mean true midfielders capable of plugging into a 4–3–3, not midfielders in theory or players Klopp has to change the system to fit.
· Gini Wijnaldum (29)
· Jordan Henderson (30)
· Thiago Alcantara (29)
· James Milner (34)
· Naby Keita (25)
· Alex Oxlade Chamberlain (27)
· Fabinho (26)
· Marko Grujic (24)
· Curtis Jones (19)
At the time of writing, it appears Xherdan Shaqiri’s future may be moving away from Liverpool, so I will not include him. Additionally, he, like Harvey Elliot is really more of an attacking option than a true Klopp midfielder. The same may be true of Harry Wilson. I’ve not included him as he seems a likely candidate for a transfer with greater doubt around his potential place in the team.
As you look at this list, what you see is that of the nine midfield players listed, three are just a few years from the end of their prime, one already is and one is still a child (Jones). That leaves just four players in that crucial age range of 24–28, a prime moment in a player’s career in which they have both the experience to step in to a squad and make a difference and the confidence in who they are as a player for a manager to build around. While I think Curtis Jones is going to feature heavily in the years to come, Grujic has acquired legitimate experience and helps address the age gap needed create a succession plan for players looking to follow in the footsteps of Henderson, Wijnaldum, Milner and Thiago as they age out of the team.
Along the way to Grujic taking on a more pivotal role, he’s flanked by Keita, Ox and Fabinho, with the former pair proving a bit injury prone and the latter being needed in a variety of roles. As it turns out, Grujic may have more of a role to play in Liverpool’s future than anyone initially planned.
The Modern Roster
Let’s be honest, Mo Salah, Sadio Mane, Roberto Firmino, Gini Wijnaldum and others have endured the amount of football they’ve been asked to play in freakish ways. Actually, you could make that argument for much of the Liverpool roster, which has in recent years, largely avoided injury.
But it is rare that players remain healthy and play the volume of matches these lads have in the last three seasons for years and years on end. For most footballers, and in particular those who ply their trade in a workmanlike midfield such as Klopp’s, seasons have injuries and dips in form. It’s a peaks and valleys kind of story.
The manager butters his bread, so to speak, on his ability to see players through these crises and ensure the team has what it needs to succeed in the wake of any absences. A prime example is Alex Oxlade Chamberlain, a player whose seen his share of exhilarating highs and frustrating lows.
But last season, having fully recovered from that nightmare ACL tear, Ox appeared in 30 times, though rarely for a full 90 minutes. This is what depth looks like. Certain players have certain roles.
The Anfield Wrap’s Neil Atkinson often uses an expression that I quite like, “horses for courses.” The idea being that when a manager needs something a bit different, he can turn to a specific character within the squad and ask for it.
What Ox brings to the team is perhaps more unique than Grujic, capable of driving the side forward, but neat in possession, skillful in tight spaces and able to hit a banger from 30 yards that turns the game on its head.
Grujic doesn’t give you that obviously, but the players who do what Grujic does are an average age of 30. The fact is that modern rosters aren’t built with the idea that players of any age will play 40–45 matches per season across all competitions or if they are, it’s not long before their legs give up the ghost and the squad has to turn to alternatives either due to injury or burnout.
It’s true there are players that defy this, but given Wijnaldum’s contract situation, Milner’s age and the combined injury histories of Thiago and Henderson, there’s an argument to be made that Grujic being groomed by these players is merely a bit of coverage in for the current moment planning for the future. If nothing else, it’s an example of how Liverpool are plotting their depth in budget savvy ways for the short and long term.
Keeping Grujic does little to his resale value. In fact, one could argue that any bid that comes in now would likely be on the low end of his valuation given the current state of the football economy and that spending a year fighting for a place in a winning side will likely hold value in a future market. Given Liverpool’s stature, there is no guarantee they’ll find someone better and of the same age for a reasonable price to replace Grujic should he leave. If they could, I’m confident this recruitment team would have identified someone already.
What Grujic lacks in grace he makes up for in poise and guile. What he lacks in quality, he makes up in effort. In the end, perhaps he’s exactly the type of player Klopp wants. Come Monday, he may well be off to pastures anew, but I hope that if this the case, Liverpool have collected a fee that makes it worth letting go of something worth holding onto.
