Liverpool's £87m nightmare: Star left without place at Anfield

One Liverpool star doesn't have a clear place at Anfield right now. That's despite the club spending a fortune to get his future sorted.

Liverpool spent a lot of money under Richard Hughes. An awful lot. Record amounts. It was unlike anything we’ve ever seen from the Reds and no one can currently say if it was actually a good idea.

The squad undoubtedly has some brilliant players it in right now but is the squad actually good as a whole? No one is able to say for certain that’s perhaps the worst indictment of Hughes’s time in charge as sporting director.

Yes, he went and spent loads but was it even worth it?

And that money spent wasn’t just on incoming players. He also renewed some contracts for massive money and in ways that we’re no longer sure were correct.

The Ryan Gravenberch contract

Liverpool spent around £87m on Ryan Gravenberch this year. That's the reported amount put into his new long-term contract, one that keeps him around for the foreseeable future.

We called it a nightmare back in April, around a month after it was signed. Why? Because it was quickly apparent that Liverpool had no idea how to use Gravenberch, despite committing all that money to him.

His best form as a sitting midfielder in the title-winning campaign but once teams had sussed out Liverpool's way of playing, he was no long adequate in the role. It's why we were comparing him to Curtis Jones in that article - the Scouser was doing that holding role far better, with much more involvement and a lot more consistency.

Andoni Iraola has recognised that. Gravenberch started the first game of the season in the role but was moved away from there and hasn't really been back since. Alexis Mac Allister and Trey Nyoni have instead played it, with the Dutchman operating further forward.

However, Gravenberch doesn't have an obvious other role. He's not very solid in the no.8 position, rarely getting the ball and operating as a bit of a purgatory on the pitch. He played there against Chelsea on Wednesday, for instance, and while that should have been a possession-heavy role with lots of involvement, he only completed 22 passes.

Trey Nyoni, playing slightly deeper, completed 65 in 10 fewer minutes for comparison.

His desire to burst forward doesn't work without a defensive midfielder, either. This was clear against Manchester City even when he was getting plaudits. It was enormously clear against Newcastle United in the first game of the season, where Gravenberch was caught too far forward on both goals.

The player also struggles to operate with Florian Wirtz, frequently getting into the same space that Wirtz wants to play in but offering far less. But if you play him instead of the German, you get an incredible drop of quality from the entire team because Gravenberch cannot play the no.10 role.

So where does he play? Liverpool signed a contract worth a massive amount this year because they wanted to commit to Gravenberch. They did that without a long-term idea of where he actually plays.

And that, given the implications it could have on a new contract for Mac Allister and the development of Nyoni, is a disaster.