Liverpool’s title defense never really got off the ground and what’s instead become a disappointing season is finally – perhaps mercifully – coming to an end. 12 losses in the Premier League, record signings that for myriad reasons didn’t ever fully gel, and head coach Arne Slot has not really shown the capacity to figure it out.
The postmortems will come – and the premortems have been written all season, if we’re being honest – so maybe we’ll leave the reflections on how uneven or deflating or outright
terrible this season has been. We know that; we’ve all lived it together over these past 10 months.
What we can’t avoid, though, is the fact that Mohamed Salah and Andy Robertson are both calling it curtains on a brilliant run at Anfield. Two Premier League titles – including Liverpool’s first title win in the PL Era. A Champions League. And likely to be remembered in any accounting of the best to ever man their positions.
It’s time to say goodbye to legends.
Liverpool’s most successful and stacked team since the 80’s officially sees its era end with the departure of Mo and Robbo. And while they weren’t the first, they do feel like the actual signal of the end, given their announcements were quickly followed by rumblings that Alisson Becker might be headed back to Italy given interest from a few clubs in Serie A.
Over the past three years, we’ve seen Jurgen Klopp’s best XI all take new jobs elsewhere, with the exception being Virgil Van Dijk. And that kind of drain is really hard to capture.
When you add the departure of Trent Alexander-Arnold to these impending losses, you’re talking about losing players in the argument for the club’s best ever left-back, right-back, goalkeeper, and right-winger. In the case of Mo, we’re talking about entering the rarefied air of being mentioned in the category of Kenny Dalglish and Steven Gerrard in terms of importance and value.
We’ll talk about the individual players momentarily but let it sink in that under Jurgen Klopp we saw no less than 5 of Liverpool’s best – if not ever, certainly in the Premier League Era – at their position (we’ve included Virgil into that group). That was the “standard” set. And I can’t help but think that part of the reason this season felt so pedestrian is not merely because it was, but also because we’d been spoiled watching greatness in display, week in and week out.
In a just world, those Liverpool squads would have had at least two more Premier League and one more Champions League trophy. The level of play running through that team is obviously difficult to replicate – this season is evidence of that.
Replacing pantheon-level players doesn’t really happen. At least, it doesn’t happen often unless you’ve got bottom-less pockets. As someone on the other side of the pond, I’ve watched teams like the Yankees, Lakers, and Dodgers employ limitless bank accounts to stretch championship-caliber windows when iconic players managed to make their way onto their respective rosters.
The money itself isn’t a guarantee of winning it all – you do have to play the games. But what it does to is extend the life of the team and help cushion the blow when moves don’t “work out” as expected.
Liverpool, for the first time in my tenure as a fan, decided to dig deep into their pockets and unload last summer, bringing on Alexander Isak and Florian Wirtz at over $300m combined, and adding Hugo Ekitike, Milos Kerkez, and Jeremie Frimpong at significant fees. It was the outlay that most fans will have dreamed of. It is also the kind of outlay that puts a target on your back and ratchets up the pressure if things don’t end up as expected.
The jury is still out on all of those transfers, with all of them bar Alexander Isak – whose injury issues give him a pass – showing enough over this year to at least give them one more year to bring something more consistent in terms of their performance; a consistency that warrants the investment. It’s a lot to sort out for next year and the worry, perhaps, is that Liverpool’s financial structure isn’t exactly made to operate like the Yankees – or even Chelsea or Manchester United. At least, we’ve not known them to work that way under Fenway Sports Group.
Which means it’s still a bit left to be seen if last year’s transfer behavior represents a one-time gamble on the part of the club hierarchy, or if it is part of a longer standing strategy that includes looser purse strings and a willingness to look at the market as a means of bridging gaps. Are Liverpool looking to lengthen the window of, say, Virgil Van Dijk as an elite center-back by spending to construct a squad that might be able to rise to the challenge? Or was it merely a matter of the club being in love with both Isak and Wirtz, knowing they’d both be available, and throwing caution to the wind?
Time will tell.
The left-back position before Andy Robertson arrived was a bit erratic. The most memorable players at that spot for me were Jose Enrique and Alberto Moreno. Moreno presented an electric athleticism but did not really seem to have the football IQ to become an elite player. And Jose Enrique ended up sustaining some serious injuries.
Robbo, though, came to typify that spot once he locked it down. And, under Klopp, became the standard at the position for the Premier League. The Scotsman flew under the radar, but putting him in the same breath as Jordi Alba doesn’t sound quite as obscene when you consider that he sits atop the all-time assists chart for left-backs in the Premier League. He was the best at his position during his tenure and a leader to boot.
Mohamed Salah, meanwhile, needs no argument except when trying to divine where in the all-time ranking he belongs. He is, to my mind, the singular greatest scorer I’ve ever watched. Singular not just in terms of the numbers, but also in terms of the sheer ability to make it all look so easy. There were times when I’d want to scream about the value of Sadio Mane or Roberto Firmino because their work off-the-ball helped to keep things open for the Egyptian. What I failed to appreciate as I got lost in that train of thought, was how much of Mo’s greatness would force defenses to collapse onto him, thereby making the lives of both Sadio and Bobby that much easier.
Mo set the single season goal involvements record for a 38-match season. It’s hard to imagine, even with the likes of Erling Haaland, that record being equaled any time soon. It’s a generational achievement that managed to bypass the likes of Thierry Henry, Didier Drogba, Robbie Van Persie, and Wayne Rooney. Iconic strikers in their own right, but lodged behind the Egyptian King in the record books.
The idea of losing these two with Ali potentially right behind – and after already losing Trent, Bobby, and Sadio – is what’s tugging at me most. Sunday’s match is going to be a relief of sorts for a lot of reasons; not the least of which being we can finally turn the corner (momentarily) on the drab football we’ve been subjected to.
But I wouldn’t fault anyone for wanting to maybe have it go a little bit longer; to get just one more taste of this Golden Era. Cause that resonates with me – the desire to luxuriate in this greatness and remember the good times.
On Sunday, there’ll be tears from me. Tears of missing a bygone time that still feels so fresh. Tears of knowing we’ve left behind an era that Andrew Bernard would have called “the good old days.” Tears because those days don’t come as often as we wish.
