After the Miracle of Anfield beating Barca 4-0 and Liverpool's first Premier League title, the Liverpool team in Uncle Scum's hands is no longer invincible, but when all opponents are not worth mentioning, the biggest enemy is himself. Today's Liverpool are not afraid of strong opponents, the most feared are injuries and off-field factors. Salah's state this season is extremely hot, Mane, Jota and other people are also close behind, and the only "cosmic team" that can fight with Liverpool is Manchester City, as long as Liverpool can tenaciously hold out until the end of the season, who the champion belongs to is not certain.
Chelsea at the beginning of the season did pose a certain threat to Liverpool with a strong squad, but Chelsea did not continue its previous excellent state, and finally lost the top position in the league, was overtaken by Manchester City and Liverpool, and then collapsed, from the position of the title to the fourth, which has a lot to do with the stability of this Chelsea, in contrast, Liverpool and Manchester City are the main force in the Premier League, in recent seasons, Liverpool in addition to the African Cup of Nations during the performance is not eye-catching, The rest of the time the play is more stable.
The only factor that can really influence Liverpool's title race is from within the squad – Van Dijk's absence. Van Dijk joined Liverpool for just three seasons and helped the team win the league title and the Champions League. After Van Dijk was injured last season, Liverpool seemed to have changed the team, and in the end, the four were empty, and the team's defense could only rely on Phillips and Matip to support it. This is enough to see how important Van Dijk is in liverpool today, and it is no exaggeration to say that Liverpool cannot be without Salah and Mane, so the first priority of the current Liverpool coaching team is to find a successor to Van Dijk.
After a few seasons of painstaking searching, the real candidate is in the team, he is the local center-back Gomez, who seems to be physically fit, and his defensive awareness is also very different from Van Dijk. Incredibly, Gomez is the most tacit cooperation with Van Dijk among liverpool's centre-back candidates, he can use his rigor to make up for Van Dijk's mistakes, and he can also bravely grab when Van Dijk retreats, and is the best of the new generation of centre-backs.
As a young centre-back who moved to Liverpool during his youth training years, Gomez occasionally made cameo appearances at full-back, and his style is similar to that of Real Madrid centre-back Nacho, an indispensable piece of oil in the team's backline. Gomez's physical qualities are not good, but his speed allows him to quickly make up for mistakes after losing his position, which is one of the reasons why he was allowed to play full-back. Since Van Dijk joined Liverpool, Van Dijk's partners have changed one after another, but unfortunately only Gomez and Van Dijk have the highest winning percentage in the same start - the season when Liverpool won the Premier League title, Gomez and Van Dijk partnered Liverpool almost all won, which is the ironclad evidence that Gomez became the next Van Dijk.
At present, Manchester City and Liverpool squads are still at their peak, but counting these top players, among them Liverpool Trident, Henderson, Van Dijk, Matip, etc. are all over thirty years old, this lineup has reached the end of the peak, so uncle scum must find a replacement for these players.
Jota and Elliott have been able to carry the flag on the front line, and the midfielder Jones has begun to become an indispensable main player for the team, and it is good to have Konat on the center-back line, and Van Dijk's replacement is Joe Gomez. Imagine the combination of Cornart and Gomez in the Liverpool defence in the future, both in terms of speed and physical confrontation, in the fiercely competitive Premier League, the young Gomez can learn more in the years when Van Dijk peaked, and it is only a matter of time before van Dijk will succeed him in the future.