There's real uncertainty over Liverpool's next move as it's confirmed that they're not in talks with a World Cup star.
Liverpool have not planned their midfield correctly, I think that's fair to say. There's massive uncertainty over what it'll look like going forward, made worse by the fact it's not particularly balanced.
They have, of course, locked down Ryan Gravenberch and Dominik Szoboszlai to long-term deals. The pair of them will play the foreseeable future at Anfield. Trey Nyoni looks like a long-term fixture, too, even if he'll need a better contract before confirming that.
Curtis Jones, though? Who knows what's happening there. His deal expires in under a year and there's next to no impression that he'll be signing a new one. We fully expect him to depart either in the coming weeks or in 2027.
And then there's Alexis Mac Allister. Talk around Mac Allister's contract has been conspicuously absent in light of the other 2023 arrivals getting deals. It's created a lot of speculation that he could be on his way, either now or in 2027.
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With Liverpool's midfield looking unbalanced, it's debatable whether locking themselves into this current setup actually makes sense. A new contract for Mac Allister would be an expensive one, after all, and essentially confirm that things remain as they are for the foreseeable future.
So it's not shocking that the Athletic reports there aren't any active contract talks between Liverpool and Mac Allister. He'll be 30 when this current deal expires and we imagine the club view that as either the right age to cut ties, or that 29 is the right age to cash-in before his final contract year.
It seems unlikely that they bump up his wages to commit to more years of Mac Allister, in other words. They struggled to do that with Virgil van Dijk and Mohamed Salah - Mac Allister, as good as he is, doesn't carry quite the same reputation as those two.
But then there's a cold reality: Mac Allister was Liverpool's best midfielder of the title-winning season. He certainly made the biggest controlling and defensive impacts.
Committing to a midfield without him is committing to one that badly needs investment, then. It seems like the road Liverpool will go down and if they're not committing to Mac Allister, they'll simply need to accept that a lot of work has to be done.