Frank Leboeuf has admitted that one Liverpool player has taken him by surprise with the form that he’s shown so far this season.
Having been on the periphery for much of his first year at Anfield following his £34m move from Bayern Munich, Ryan Gravenberch has now become an integral figure in the Reds’ line-up under Arne Slot, having played the entirety of every Premier League and Champions League match up to now.
Leboeuf pleasantly surprised by Gravenberch
Speaking on ESPN FC, the 1998 World Cup winner proclaimed that the return of Alexis Mac Allister for the win over RB Leipzig on Wednesday night made ‘a huge difference’ for the Merseysiders.
Leboeuf then segued into praise for Liverpool’s number 38 as he said: “I really think that guy [Mac Allister] is very special when he’s in the middle of the park with Gravenberch, who really surprises me. I never thought he would be at that level. He’s a great midfielder.”
Gravenberch was superb yet again last night
Gravenberch showed glimpses of his potential in his first season at Liverpool, but not even his fiercest admirers could’ve anticipated just how crucial he’d become for the Reds this term.
He’s already played more than half as many minutes in the current campaign as what he had in the whole of 2023/24, and he produced arguably his best moment of his time under Slot so far in the win over Leipzig with a heroic block to snuff out a Xavi Simons cross, duly earning raucous congratulations from Virgil van Dijk.
He was almost flawless in possession last night, completing 60 of his 63 passes (95%), while he won five of his seven duels, made three tackles and three interceptions and lost the ball only four times in 90 minutes of action (Sofascore).
Only Virgil van Dijk has averaged more interceptions per game than Gravenberch for Liverpool so far this season, while just two players have a better rate for tackles and dribbles per match (WhoScored).
The 22-year-old’s star continues to rise, and to be fair to Leboeuf, he’s far from alone in being pleasantly surprised at the scale of improvement from the Dutch midfielder over the past few months.