Speed has always been at Anfield. But under Arne Slot, it’s more systematic — speedy play the basis of the game. The Liverpool manager has had the summer of 2025 to build a squad where speed is an option and, after a couple of weeks of the 2025/26 Premier League season, it’s working. Here’s a look at Liverpool’s quickest players and what the speed of their play means for the team’s counter-attacks.
Jeremie Frimpong — The Benchmark
Frimpong is Liverpool’s quickest player. The Dutch right wing-back clocked 36.34 km/h in his last season at Bayer Leverkusen, making him the fastest when he signed. This speed immediately transformed the right flank into a potent source of attacking threats off counter-attacks.
Frimpong’s not just quick. He was also second in the Bundesliga 2024/25 sprint count behind Ridle Baku with 1,021 sprints. What impresses most about the wing-back, though, is that he finds a way to repeat this, which works perfectly for Slot’s system for wide players. When Liverpool win the ball back, Frimpong doesn’t need to wind up; he’s already moving.
Hugo Ekitike — Taking Full-Backs for a Ride
Hugo Ekitike is Liverpool’s quickest striker at 35.53 km/h, which is impressive for a centre-forward. Most centre-forwards only reach this pace when chasing lost causes. Ekitike attacks transitions, however, taking up channels before the ball has even been passed. He’s a forward defenders struggle to deal with because they don’t know whether to hold their line and risk him running in behind, or step up and leave space elsewhere.
Data from the start of the 2025/26 Premier League season show Ekitike making high-frequency runs behind the defence, giving team-mates someone to pass to who isn’t static. The point is that he opens up the game for those around him, not just himself.For fans eager to back Liverpool this season, provides a R50 sign-up bonus to new users.With a squad this fast, there’s plenty to be excited about heading into the new campaign.
Florian Wirtz — The Surprise
When Liverpool signed Florian Wirtz, most fans expected a clever playmaker who would do things at his own pace. Few expected him to be a pacey player in transition.
Wirtz is Liverpool’s third quickest player at 34.3 km/h. The playmaker’s pace shows itself in a specific way on the pitch. In the early stages of this season, he has been making forceful attacking runs forward from midfield, often into the centre-forward position when Ekitike drops deeper. He’s a runner rather than a static creator between the lines. This unpredictability makes him hard for defenders to handle.
Cody Gakpo and Mohamed Salah — Still Dangerous at the Top Level
Cody Gakpo and Mohamed Salah are in the mid-30s for Liverpool’s speed rankings, but their pace is still impactful. Gakpo reaches 34 km/h compared to Salah’s 33.4 km/h, but neither needs to be the club’s quickest player to be effective.
Salah’s speed has always been deceptive. He looks effortless running on the pitch until you replay the footage and find that he’s left a centre-back three metres behind. At 32, he’s one of the most efficient movers in the league — knowing when to go and when to stay, which is something raw pace alone cannot teach.
Virgil van Dijk — The Counter-Pressing Foundation
Van Dijk reached 34.9 km/h during the 2024/25 Champions League campaign — a number that tends to stop people mid-sentence. For a 33-year-old centre-back to top the squad speed charts in Europe says a great deal about the foundations of Liverpool’s defensive organisation and how much freedom that gives everyone else to take risks in attacking areas.
A defender who can recover that quickly gives other players freedom. The full-backs can push higher. The midfielders can press more aggressively. The whole team has more confidence when the last line of defence has real mobility. Van Dijk doesn’t burst forward often, preferring to conserve energy before accelerating at exactly the right moments. That is elite defending, and it also happens to make Liverpool faster as a team.
Milos Kerkez — Pace Down the Left
Kerkez rounds out Slot’s new signings in Liverpool’s fastest players, registering a speed of 32.8 km/h — pacey enough to get beyond his winger during transitions and provide effective width. Kerkez plays the same role as Frimpong on the other side of the pitch.
The Sum Total
Without doubt, pace was a key criterion in Slot’s transfer window this summer. All four outfield signings — Frimpong, Ekitike, Wirtz and Kerkez — are listed among Liverpool’s top 10 fastest players.
Under Slot, Liverpool will press high and win the ball back quickly. But it’s in those moments of transition — switching from defence to attack — that pace will have the biggest impact. If Frimpong is already overlapping down the right as Liverpool win possession in midfield, if Ekitike is already running in behind before the pass is played, if Wirtz has time to arrive late from deep into attacking areas — opponents will simply be outnumbered before they can even begin to reset.
In this system, it’s not just the fast individuals who cause problems; the whole team moves with an explosive collective pace that may make this Slot’s fastest Liverpool side yet.
