No Taki, no party: Assessing Minamino's extraordinary 2021/22 season
There would be no quadruple quest without Minamino's vital contributions.
The world was, in many ways, a very different place way back in December 2019. So much so that it almost feels like a parallel universe in hindsight. Covid-19 hadn’t yet entered the global public consciousness, Donald Trump was still president of the US, and Ukraine, outside of the Donbas region, was a country at peace.
Liverpool’s 30-year wait for an elusive 19th top flight English league title wasn’t quite over, but entering its final chapter, as Jürgen Klopp’s side marched relentlessly towards the finish line, confirming their status as Premier League champions elect before the turn of the year.
Over in Austria, meanwhile, Takumi Minamino was playing for Red Bull Salzburg alongside a certain Norwegian striker whose explosive Champions League performances had catapulted him from relative obscurity into the European limelight. While Erling Haaland moved to Borussia Dortmund in January for what now seems like a ludicrously paltry €20m (£17.1m) transfer fee, Minamino was snapped up by Liverpool for just £7.25m. Judging by his reputation at the time, and, in particular, his exceptional display in Salzburg’s thrilling 4-3 defeat at Anfield, it felt as though Liverpool had secured a bargain.
As it turned out, Minamino’s arrival could hardly have come at a more difficult time. Not only was he joining a finely tuned winning machine with arguably the best attacking trio in the world, playing an extremely physically and tactically demanding style of football in a much higher quality league than the Austrian Bundesliga, he also just so happened to arrive in England at the start of a global pandemic as football paled into relative insignificance against an unthinkably grim external backdrop.
As the country plunged into lockdown for several months, Minamino was deprived of the opportunity to get up to speed with the specifics of Klopp’s system, the chance get to know his new teammates properly on a personal level and to fully settle into a new country. The circumstances could hardly have been less ideal.
Once football returned behind closed doors, it was very much a case of Liverpool finishing the job, which only took a couple of games, followed by an unsurprising drop-off in the team’s performance level thereafter. Amid the title celebrations at Anfield following the chaotic 5-3 victory over Chelsea, Minamino was present, but visibly on the fringes of the party.
Fast forward to May 2022, and it’s been quite the journey for the Japanese international. Following a challenging 2020/21 season in which Minamino struggled to force his way into the Liverpool side before joining Southampton on loan in January – a move which started promisingly before fizzling out – Minamino has carved out quite a legacy for himself over the course of the current campaign.
Opportunities have yet again been extremely limited, with Minamino clocking up just over 1000 minutes across nine starts and 15 substitute appearances in all competitions – and only one of those starts coming in the Premier League. And yet, he was Liverpool’s top scorer en route to winning both the League Cup and the FA Cup. Without his vital contributions in the early rounds of both competitions, any talk of an unprecedented quadruple would never have been able to materialise.
Following his powerful near post strike to draw Liverpool level against Southampton on Tuesday night (a goal which deserved so much more than Martin Tyler’s strangely miserable response), Minamino hit the 10-goal mark for the season. That puts him above the likes of Jack Grealish and Jadon Sancho in the scoring charts, two players who moved for £100m and £73m respectively last summer.
His three league goals have come from a total of just 1.8 xG, making him the biggest over-performer in the Liverpool squad when it comes to finishing – albeit, from a pretty small sample size. Only Divock Origi has over-performed his xG by more, with three league goals from only 1.6 xG.
He’s averaged a goal every 102 minutes in all competitions, a rate which places him second in the Liverpool squad, behind only Origi (a goal every 101 minutes), and ahead of Mohamed Salah (130 mins), Roberto Firmino (162 mins), Diogo Jota (166 mins), Sadio Mané (170 mins) and Luis Diaz (255 mins).
It’s worth caveating, of course, that a significant chunk of Minamino’s goals have come against fairly low quality opposition in the early rounds of the domestic cups, but nonetheless, to hit double figures while only being sixth or seventh in the attacking pecking order is an achievement worthy of recognition. Six of his 10 goals have been breakthrough goals, equalisers or winners, too, so his contributions have had a significant impact on Liverpool’s results.
While the small sample size should be taken into account again, it’s worth noting that Minamino has also made more successful pressures per 90 minutes in the league (10.5) than any other Liverpool player this season, which reinforces what the eye tells us: he also works extremely hard off the ball, along with being an excellent penalty box finisher who has the positional intelligence and anticipation to consistently get himself into prime shooting positions.
He also ranks in the 99th percentile for successful pressures out of all wingers and attacking midfielders in Europe’s top five leagues over the past year – and you’d imagine that tireless work ethic, alongside his technical ability, would have played a major part in Liverpool’s decision to sign him from Salzburg in the first place. Having been harshly written off at times, he’s provided an excellent return on Liverpool’s low-risk investment, even if that hasn’t resulted in him forcing his way into the team on a regular basis.
At this point, it’s quite likely that he won’t make another appearance for Liverpool this season, such are the sky high stakes of the remaining two games and the sheer strength of competition for places. There’s also a reasonable chance he might have already played his last game for the club, depending on what kind of offers come in from elsewhere this summer, and whether he’s content to stick around for a while longer and be part of squad pushing for major honours, or whether he feels the best move at this stage in his career is to move on in search of regular first team opportunities.
Given he’s under contract until the summer of 2024, there’s no pressure for Liverpool to sell anytime soon, and you get the distinct impression he’s a really well liked and respected character, both among the playing squad and the coaching staff. If he wants it, there’s certainly a role for Minamino at Liverpool beyond this season. Having players of his ilk, who don’t kick up a fuss when they don’t play and who you can count on to deliver when dropped in cold, is ultimately how you build a squad capable of going the distance on all four fronts.
Regardless of what happens next in Minamino’s career, he’s already written his own memorable chapter in the Liverpool story under Klopp. Whether Liverpool go on to win the treble, the quadruple, or even if they finish up with just the two trophies they’ve already put in the cabinet, Minamino will be able to look back and say he’s played an integral role in one of the most thrilling Liverpool seasons of all time.