Every player in Jurgen Klopp’s Liverpool squad: Stay or sell?

LB Alberto Moreno: STAY

Moreno divides the opinion for some. I reside on the side of the argument that has a general thesis of he’s a good player now and will continue to improve. He’s gotten better since last season, specifically in positioning and concentration, and the trend seems to point upward still. For the doubters, come on over to this side of the Alberto Moreno island. The water’s nice.

His criticisms are fair: if he didn’t have his exceptional pace to blanket his mistakes, he would struggle mightily to get a game. But Liverpool wouldn’t have bought him if he didn’t have that ability. Taking any player’s best quality away from them would leave them a much lesser player. If you took James Milner’s work rate, or Philippe Coutinho’s dribbling, or Christian Benteke’s aerial prowess or Lovren’s– erm, yeah, whatever it is that once upon a time made him a good player, then all of those players would be dulled.

Last season, Moreno’s positioning and concentration let him and the team down. But that’s gotten better. He still doesn’t know how to pick up a player for a cross– how many times is he just going to smash a ball at knee height generally into a crowd, never to beat the first defender? Or get his calculations slightly off and hit one into the outside of the goal when things look promising?

Hopefully that’ll improve, too. And time is on the 23-year-old’s side. So keep him, nurture him, allow him to improve.

Next: Brad Smith