The comparison with Liverpool midfield makes 0 sense. When they won the league and the champions league, they had fullbacks that contributed to a ridiculous number of goals, something never seen before. Also, Henderson and Fabinho have significantly better passing range than our midfield.
It's honestly weird to me that there are people actually pushing back to the idea that at least one between Mctominay and Fred needs to be upgraded. They are both good players, but as a partnerships they don't offer enough in terms of control or progressing the ball quickly when needed. This is not a problem when we're playing against the top teams that dominate possessions and we can hit them on the counter (in fact they work superbly well in those matches), but most of the pl games we play are not against top sides. We need a player who can effectively control the temp from deep, be able to switch the ball confidently, make a lot of passes through the lines (Fred does it quite a bit to be fair) and also protect the back 4 on his own.
A young Matic would be the perfect profile for us. Or Fabinho. I will never understand why weren't in for him when it was so obvious he was the perfect player for us.
And btw, I still think we should keep both Mctominay and Fred. Fred in particular already offers a lot to our game, and McTominay is still young so in a couple of years, I wouldn't be surprised if he's good enough to be one of our main players. He's already shown that at his best he's got all the attributes to dominate (in the Southampton game in particular he was playing some unbelievable passes). So, ideally, we sell Matic and replace him with a quality CDM who McTominay can learn from