Liverpool has lots of high-quality young players but one who was expected to make a big impact this season hasn’t yet. Next year, the new Reds boss will inherit a gem.
Last season, Liverpool’s struggles could be boiled down to one fundamental issue: its midfield. Fabinho’s performance level dropped off a cliff, Jordan Henderson was aging, and one of the players who could have been a solution, Curtis Jones, missed a huge amount of the campaign through injury.
There were other problems, but most stemmed back to the lack of legs in the middle of the pitch. And while the arrivals of four midfielders in the summer of 2023 was important — Alexis Mac Allister having made the biggest impression of those signings to date — it was assumed that someone else would step up again as well.
Nineteen-year-old Spanish youth international Stefan Bajčetić, though, has only made two appearances for Liverpool at senior level so far this season. In a year where he has struggled with injury setbacks, his progression has been stunted. But he should not be forgotten — and now he is back.
On Friday, Bajčetić came on as a substitute for Liverpool U21s against Manchester United. The young Reds won 3-0 in a game played at Old Trafford and the returning talent, playing at the base of the midfield, looked very sharp. Bajčetić has been back in training for a while but this was his first competitive action having been an unused substitute the night before in the Europa League.
Last week, he trained with the U21s to rebuild himself before rejoining the senior group this week. The signs are that he should make a senior appearance again before the season is completed.
It is likely, though, that the best of Bajčetić will only be seen when he has had a full pre-season. Under a new manager, Liverpool will instantly have another midfield option to choose from — and he appears to be of the highest level.
As well as Wataru Endō has done this season — considerably better than anyone could have reasonably expected when he arrived from Stuttgart for $20m (£16m/€19m) — Bajčetić has a considerably higher ceiling. At 19, he is already a first-team-ready star and while he has only played a total of 21 games for Liverpool to date, his talent has already become absolutely clear.
Klopp labeled him ‘cheeky like hell’ after he netted a superb goal against Aston Villa last season. Then in February, he called him an ‘absolute joy’ and explained that Thiago Alcântara had ‘taken him under his wing’. Learning from the veteran Spaniard can be no bad thing for the Liverpool talent hoping to emulate him.
If Rúben Amorim was to take over and implement the 3-4-3 system that he currently uses with Sporting CP — two big ‘ifs’ at this stage, with Liverpool also looking at other options and the Portuguese not 100 per cent tied to that formation — then Bajčetić might be perfect to play the right-sided center-back role. Wherever it is that he ends up, the Spaniard has a huge future ahead of him.
In a summer that could see Thiago depart, in Bajčetić, whoever succeeds Klopp will instantly have another player to select in the middle of the pitch without the need to even think about dipping into the transfer market. Still only a teenager, it won’t be long before Bajčetić reminds everyone just how good he is once again.
