Liverpool tried to sign a deep-lying midfielder in the summer, but Ryan Gravenberch has since stepped up to stake his claim for the spot.
When Manchester United hosted Liverpool in the Premier League on Sunday, there were five players on display who used to play for Red Devils manager Erik ten Hag when he was at Ajax.
Of those five, unfortunately for Ten Hag, the standout player at Old Trafford was the only one representing the visitors, who secured a comfortable 3-0 win against their bitter enemy.
Ryan Gravenberch became Ajax’s youngest ever player when Ten Hag gave him his senior debut against PSV in September 2018.
At the age of just 16 years and 130 days, he broke the record held by the legendary Clarence Seedorf.
Now at Liverpool, few expected Gravenberch to start the Reds’ first three games of the season. Fewer still will have expected him to not only start in a deep-lying role in midfield, but to shine doing so.
Since Fabinho was sold last summer, Liverpool have struggled to find a suitable replacement at the base of their midfield.
They missed out on the duo of Moisés Caicedo and Roméo Lavia to Chelsea just over a year ago, eventually opting for Wataru Endo, while another new arrival Alexis Mac Allister filled in there early on in the 2023-24 season before flourishing in a more advanced role.
Endo had more good games than bad last season but at the age of 31 and with a new head coach in Arne Slot, Liverpool looked for another option this summer in Real Sociedad’s Martín Zubimendi.
However, the Spain international ultimately couldn’t bring himself to leave his beloved hometown club.
Much to the chagrin of many Liverpool fans, the club decided the next best option was to stick with what they had, but given Slot had already hinted with some of his team selections in pre-season that he didn’t see Endo as a regular starter, how would they solve the problem internally? Enter, Gravenberch.
The Netherlands international left Ajax for Bayern Munich in the summer of 2022, but things didn’t work out in the Bundesliga.
He made 33 appearances in all competitions for Bayern, though only six were starts, not even amassing 1,000 minutes overall in the 2022-23 campaign.
That led to a move to Anfield last summer as part of Jürgen Klopp’s midfield rebuild, and Gravenberch initially impressed, particularly in the group stage of the Europa League, primarily playing as one of two advanced eights. Again, though, he didn’t nail down a regular place in Klopp’s starting lineup.
In his first season at Liverpool, Gravenberch made 38 appearances in all competitions with just 21 of those as a starter, recording four goals and two assists. He only started three games in a row once, and prior to the beginning of 2024-25, had not done so since last October.
However, his new head coach and fellow Dutchman, Slot, has not just handed him three starts out of three already, but he has tasked Gravenberch with playing as a deep-lying midfielder, and the 22-year-old is thriving.
After three games and three wins for Liverpool in 2024-25, only Virgil van Dijk (220) has attempted more passes than him, with Gravenberch finding a teammate with 88.8% of his (159 of 179).
Only Luis Díaz (45) has attempted more carries (moving at least five metres with the ball) than his 40, while no-one has followed a carry with a pass as many times as his 36, showing that he is not only moving the ball with purpose but is doing so as part of passing moves.
Gravenberch is also playing a key role in Liverpool’s build-up play. His pass to Mohamed Salah at Ipswich on the opening weekend of the season allowed the Egyptian to lay the ball to Trent Alexander-Arnold, which led to the England man’s fabulous return ball to release Salah, who then teed up Diogo Jota for the opener.
He thought he’d played a part in Liverpool taking an early lead at Old Trafford, too. He received a pass from Van Dijk, letting the ball roll across him to dupe Kobbie Mainoo before dribbling away from the United youngster and feeding Díaz.
The resulting goal from Alexander-Arnold was ruled out for offside against Salah, but it was a sign of things to come.
Gravenberch then intercepted a pass from Casemiro before again dribbling forward. After looking several times over to the numerous teammates bursting towards the box to his left, he waited and laid a perfect ball into the path of Salah on the right, who crossed for Díaz to head in the opener at the back post.
The trip to Man Utd was Liverpool’s first big test under Slot, but it was also a big test for Gravenberch after two impressive showings against Ipswich and Brentford. Like his teammates, he rose to the occasion.
For the visitors on Sunday, only Salah (21) attempted more passes in the final third than Gravenberch’s 17. He won seven of his 10 duels, with only Van Dijk winning as many, while he made four interceptions and won three fouls, both the highest totals for Slot’s men.
His boss was pleased with Gravenberch’s performance, saying after the game when asked what qualities he brings to the six role: “His quality on the ball could be my first answer but I think coming from the Netherlands we all know how good he is with the ball.
He can be a really important player for our build-up game, but what impressed me most when I started working with him [was] how much he can run and then still how good he is when he arrives in the duel.
“Today, you saw with him, Dominik [Szoboszlai] and Macca [Alexis Mac Allister] how much they were able to keep on running. Sometimes you’re late, but then they just kept on running and arriving in the duel. So, that is the one thing that impressed me most about him: how good he also is without the ball.”
Gravenberch has indeed been impressive without the ball in the opening weeks of the campaign. He has made the joint-most tackles for Liverpool along with Mac Allister (8) and has made the most interceptions (7).
In fact, just four players in the Premier League have made more interceptions.
Only Dominik Szoboszlai (19) and Mac Allister (18) have made more recoveries of Liverpool’s outfield players, while his 17 duels won is the joint-most along with Mac Allister and Díaz.
Gravenberch appears to be looking after the ball better as well. ‘Possession lost’ is a metric that doesn’t always tell the story it suggests; players like Kevin De Bruyne, Bruno Fernandes and Alexander-Arnold can fall foul of it because of their high-risk, high-reward approach with the ball.
However, it is a metric Gravenberch has always ranked highly in, which could have been a worry for Slot ahead of playing him in a deeper position where keeping the ball is so important.
As is to be expected for a young, developing midfielder, Gravenberch has improved year on year in reducing how often he loses the ball, and he has brought his per-90 average down to 9.4 from 13.8 last season.
That’s not to say it’s because he’s being too careful with his distribution either, with 25.1% of his passes going forward. By comparison, his midfield partner Mac Allister has only sent slightly more of his passes forward (28.4%).
It’s interesting that Gravenberch is playing alongside a player like Mac Allister. The Dutchman may have spent most of his career in more advanced areas, but he did play in a deeper role for much of the 2021-22 season for Ajax.
However, that was largely playing next to Edson Álvarez, now of West Ham, who is more of a destroyer-type midfielder than Mac Allister.
Despite that, the duo are complementing each other well, and dovetailed particularly nicely in the win at United on Sunday, with the ever-willing running of Szoboszlai ahead of them giving them nice balance in midfield.
Gravenberch has the number six position in his possession, and in a huge game at Old Trafford, he delivered.
It may only be early days, but Zubimendi’s refusal to leave the Basque country could be the best thing that’s ever happened for the Dutchman.