Carragher Sounds Alarm Over Liverpool's Midfield Issues

Jamie Carragher has sounded the alarm over Liverpool’s midfield, warning that Andoni Iraola’s new-look side is nowhere near ready to mount a serious Premier League title challenge.

With the 2026/27 season just over a week away, Liverpool are still trying to shake off the hangover of a disappointing campaign that ended with a scrape into fifth and the final Champions League spot, a brutal comedown from being champions only a year earlier. Iraola has been brought in after Arne Slot’s dismissal to jolt the club back to the top, but one of Anfield’s most influential voices is far from convinced.

Carragher’s warning shot

Speaking on the latest episode of The Overlap Fan Debate, brought to you by Sky Bet, Carragher didn’t dance around the issue.

“The midfield issue for me is still a huge problem for Liverpool,” he said.

He hasn’t poured over every minute of pre-season, but he has seen enough. Liverpool’s recent friendlies against Leeds and Monaco told him what he needed to know.

“The problem Liverpool had last season was there was space everywhere in Liverpool’s midfield. That has not gone away at all.”

That space — those gaping channels opponents love to drive into — remains the recurring nightmare.

Too much talent, not enough balance

Liverpool’s summer has been relatively restrained. Only two new faces have arrived so far in Victor Munoz and Ronald Araujo, with Jeremy Jacquet also coming in after a deal was agreed with Rennes back in February. The club are still searching for a new winger after Mohamed Salah’s departure, with Bradley Barcola a key target.

Yet for Carragher, the real fault line runs straight through the middle of the pitch.

He is particularly uneasy about how Iraola seems set to use Dominik Szoboszlai.

“That’s only going to get bigger with the deployment of [Dominik] Szoboszlai in midfield – it looks like they’re going to play him, rather than as a number 10, almost as a central midfield player alongside [Ryan] Gravenberch and that is just pure box-to-box.”

Carragher sees quality, but not chemistry.

“I look at that midfield three and I worry about Liverpool. When you name six or seven of Liverpool’s players, you can’t say they’re not top players – you can’t say Gravenberch is not a really good player, or [Florian] Wirtz, or Szoboszlai.

“But as a midfield three, I look at that and think, oh no – there’s almost too much quality, but they all want to go and play and run. And even in pre-season, the space is coming through the middle.”

The concern isn’t about individual talent. It’s about structure, discipline, and the absence of a clear anchor when so many of Iraola’s midfield options are naturally forward-thinking, aggressive runners.

Title hopes on shaky ground

Liverpool are trying to reset under a new head coach, with a squad that still boasts star power and attacking threat. Yet Carragher believes the unresolved issues in midfield will drag them down again and block any realistic push for the Premier League crown.

For him, unless Iraola finds a way to close those gaps and bring control to the centre of the pitch, Liverpool’s season may be defined not by how often they dazzle going forward, but by how often they’re cut open through the heart of their team.