Danny Murphy has named a number of players that he believes need to leave Liverpool in the summer as Jurgen Klopp seeks to overhaul his squad.
The Reds have struggled for consistency this season and find themselves out of all cup competitions and 10 points adrift of the top four.
The Anfield outfit are expected to be extremely busy in the upcoming summer transfer window and although the focus will be on new signings, ex-Red Murphy believes a number of current Liverpool stars won’t be plying their trade on Merseyside next season with ‘major surgery’ needed.
“Fabinho’s got to go. [James] Milner’s got to go. [Naby] Keita’s going. [Alex] Oxlade-Chamberlain is going. That’s four midfielders there,” the 46-year-old said (as quoted by @TheAnfieldTalk on Twitter).
“Liverpool need major surgery. They don’t just need a huge chunk of money pumped in, they need to sell a lot of players who aren’t good enough and free up the wages.”
Fabinho has become recognised as one of the world’s best holding midfielders since his arrival from AS Monaco in 2018 but he looks a shadow of his former self at the moment.
James Milner, Naby Keita and Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain, meanwhile, are all out of contract at the end of the season and it’s clear that midfield is the main area that we need to strengthen come the summer.
Although the BBC Sport pundit has tipped a number of players to bid farewell to Anfield, he does believe two players in particular have ‘got to stay’ as Liverpool look to once again be as competitive as possible next term.
“[Jordan] Henderson’s got to stay,” Murphy added. “[Andrew] Robertson’s got to stay, 110%. [Kostas] Tsimikas isn’t good enough as an understudy.”
Jordan Henderson may be showing signs of ageing but we still believe that he remains a solid option for Jurgen Klopp to call upon while Andy Robertson has also struggled for form but there’s no doubt that on his day the Scotsman is one of the best full-backs in the world.
To claim that Kostas Tsimikas ‘isn’t good enough’ is rather harsh, though.
The Greek international has performed well when called upon by our German tactician and he offers strong competition to our No. 26 at left back – something that Trent Alexander-Arnold could potentially benefit from on the other side of the pitch.
It’ll be interesting to see which players leave the club in the summer while we’re also excited to see what new faces are added to the squad.