As with every club that changes manager this summer, the Liverpool squad will have a clean slate from which to start on when pre-season begins and the start-of-campaign pecking order is worked out.
Arne Slot will be taking over from Jürgen Klopp at Anfield and there will be decisions across the course of the summer that influence who is in the starting XI when the Premier League restarts in mid-August. Will it be Ibrahima Konaté, Jarell Quansah or someone else who partners Virgil van Dijk at center-back, for instance? Who will be the first-choice number nine?
It is not just those in the squad this season who will be eager to impress, however. Liverpool has had a number of players out on loan this season and some of them have a chance of coming back into the fold and re-establishing themselves in the Anfield set-up.
Fábio Carvalho is perhaps the most obvious of those. On loan at Hull City in the second half of last season, the Portuguese attacking midfielder was impressive in the Championship but struggled to get on the field while at RB Leipzig in the Bundesliga.
That perhaps suggests that Carvalho might face an uphill battle to properly cement himself in Slot’s plans for next season — and there is also a question mark about his best position and whether Liverpool will play with someone there. But the 21-year-old has already admitted that he has eyes on making a positive impression.
Speaking about the situation of both himself and Tyler Morton, another Liverpool midfielder who was at Hull last season, Carvalho told the Liverpool ECHO: “Whatever happens in the future, I’ll leave it to God. The way I see it, it’s a fresh start.
“We’ve just got to take the chances that come and really grasp it and take it with both hands. Ultimately, it’s a fresh start for both of us. We’ll just go back there with nothing to lose and everything to gain.”
Of all of those who were out on loan last season, Carvalho and Morton have the best chance of making a big enough impression this summer to make themselves a big part of Slot’s 2024/25 plans. The pair clearly have enough talent — the question is whether there will be enough game time for them in a very well-stocked midfield department.
Sepp van den Berg did well with Mainz as the German side avoided relegation in the Bundesliga but this week, BILD reported that the Dutchman could make that move permanent for a fee of around $10.8m (£8.5m/€10.0m). The chances of him being at the required level to end up playing regularly at Liverpool are slim but that would represent a healthy profit on the $1.7m (£1.3m/€1.5m) he cost.
