Liverpool star who was on course to be a £100m player now looks finished

Rome wasn’t built in a day, and neither was Jurgen Klopp’s Liverpool.

Liverpool want to challenge for the Premier League title this year, but as things stand, this is not the reality for Andoni Iraola’s side, who on Sunday were dealt a sobering reality check as they fell to a 1-0 defeat against Arsenal at Anfield.

The reigning champions have been criticised for their defensive nature and mastery of the dark arts, but this should not detract from the fact that Mikel Arteta’s side are the best team in the country, perfectly rehearsed as a unit.

Liverpool might have one of the most expensively assembled teams in Europe, but they aren’t clicking yet, and it’s the £100m+ superstars who need to be doing much more.

Why Liverpool’s £100m superstars are struggling

Glass half full: Liverpool have some of the most talented attacking players in Europe. They have, on paper, the tools to create for Anfield an exciting new era challenging for the shiniest prizes each year.

However, a more pessimistic (or perhaps realistic) perspective would be that Florian Wirtz is still underperforming, more than a year after Liverpool paid £116m to sign him from Bayer Leverkusen.

Wirtz is neat and tidy, but seems unable to take games by the scruff of the neck, to stand up and play with the talismanic conviction of one of the world’s finest playmakers.

There is so much to improve on. Liverpool are basically one of the least creative teams in the Premier League, and it’s hampering Alexander Isak at No. 9. Isak is world-class, with six Premier League goals to his name already this term, but he’s not reached the heights of his Newcastle United days, to be sure.

Isak and Wirtz need Bradley Barcola to up his game too. The club’s marquee signing of 2026, the former Paris Saint-Germain winger joined for a whopping £123m, but he’s ebbed and flowed so far, with an uninspiring display against Arsenal illustrating the improvements he still needs to make.

The hard truth is that Liverpool’s attackers are not playing well enough. They are not sharp or incisive enough when it matters. A wall will stand against an invasion if an army throws only pebbles at it. And Arsenal have quite the wall in front of David Raya’s goal.

The Gunners really aren’t impregnable as a defensive unit, though. Yes, they are formidable, but Liverpool’s inability to fashion even a shot on target at Anfield is an indictment of their shoddy offensive synergy.

A few fans will inevitably have turned mutinous against Iraola, but the Spaniard deserves plenty of time to plant the seeds and grow a system which can challenge the likes of Arsenal for the top spot in the Premier League.

However, changes need to be made – and it’s not only the forwards who are letting the team down right now, with a Liverpool star who once looked like a £100m player now anything but.

Liverpool must sell Klopp signing

Klopp is the greatest manager Liverpool have had at the helm in decades, but he wasn’t infallible – especially in the transfer market.

However, it would be unfair to criticise Ryan Gravenberch as a total flop on Merseyside.

The Reds paid £34m to bring the Netherlands international over from Bayern Munich in 2023, and after a bit-part maiden year, he bloomed into a superstar as Arne Slot won the Premier League. The rebuilt central anchor claimed the Young Player of the Year in the Premier League. He was immense.

Slot fashioned him into a different kind of midfielder, but Gravenberch’s success appears to have been a flash in the pan. He is now into his fourth year in England, and so far, he has left a lot to be desired.

Gravenberch is falling out of fashion under Iraola’s wing, and his role as an unused substitute against Arsenal illustrated the manager’s thinking toward his role in Liverpool’s starting system.

It was somewhat damning that Iraola opted for Dominik Szoboszlai in the double pivot when Liverpool were chasing parity in the second half. That should have been Gravenberch’s wheelhouse, but he was instead kept on the bench, a decision which will have irked him after such a flat performance against Chelsea in midweek.

Sent off against Manchester City, poor throughout against Chelsea in the Carabao Cup, missing his penalty in the shootout and fouling Morgan Rogers to hand Chelsea a first-half spot kick, Gravenberch will surely be concerned about Liverpool’s questing for a new big-money midfielder in 2027.

He is an experienced member of the squad at this point, but the 24-year-old has lost his burgeoning reputation at Liverpool, lost his way and made the likes of Michael Owen look foolish in having declared him a £100m player in 2025.

Gravenberch fit a well-wrought system, but his poor levels far outweigh the peak year under Slot’s wing by now. It’s time to make a change, and the fact that FSG will double down on a midfield signing next year cannot bode well for the struggling Dutchman.