On Sunday, for the tenth time this season in all competitions, Liverpool conceded a goal in the 90th minute or later. On all ten occasions, that late concession has turned a win into a draw or a draw into a loss. No team in the top five leagues in Europe has a worse record when it comes to late goals against and dropped points.
The cumulative effect of watching miserable football week in and week out and only being able to get mediocre results from it is starting to take a toll on supporters, as fans
reacted to Tottenham’s late goal on the weekend by starting to leave before the final whistle and the remaining crowd audibly booing when the match ended.
The question now is if a tipping point has been reached. While there has been criticism of head coach Arne Slot away from Anfield, when the games kick off supporters have mostly tried to get behind the team—or at least not made any discontent clear, even if the team has repeatedly failed to give them much of anything to cheer.
“The booing at the end, that was proper booing from a disgruntled and unhappy fanbase,” former Liverpool defender and now Sky pundit Jamie Carragher said when talk turned to Sunday’s disappointing 1-1 draw on Monday Night Football. “I think it’s going to be really difficult now for Arne Slot to get them back.
“Once you do lose that crowd, though, it can be really difficult to get them back. It isn’t easy to get a Liverpool crowd to turn on a manager when he’s won the title less than a year before, but I felt there was maybe a big shift in the game on Sunday in terms of how the crowd were feeling about the team and the manager.”
Anfield has always had a reputation for backing the team and manager, but that has always been dependant on the team and the manager giving them something to latch on to—energy, effort, drive, determination. That things aren’t working and results aren’t there simply isn’t as big a problem as this side’s low energy approach.
That things aren’t working and results aren’t there isn’t as big a problem as that it’s March and nobody knows what this side is meant to be or what’s being built towards in a future where everything clicks into place. That it has no coherent press and goals only seem to come via individual brilliance or opposition mistakes.
There are no signs of passing patterns to break down opposition defences, no well-drilled buildup play to escape the opposition press, and no attacking intent. Instead, it’s all stale recycling as they carry the ball to the half-way line before inevitably checking it back to the defence and give the opposition time to set their defence.
It’s low energy, low event football. A seemingly conscious dialling back to limit opposition chances and preserve legs. Yet somehow, Liverpool always end up looking tired—while their opponents seem energized. On Sunday, Tottenham ran 9km more than Liverpool. And it was Liverpool that ended the match looking exhausted.
“I said on commentary yesterday that there are lots of things wrong with this Liverpool team, nothing’s working,” Carragher added. “But the biggest thing that stands out for me now is Liverpool have lost is the press. Is [Slot] going to be like Jürgen Klopp in terms of pressing all over the pitch? No. He wanted a bit more control.
“But we saw with the right players they won the league. The style of football hasn’t helped, but I keep going back to there’s players who have come into the club, but are they Liverpool players? So I’m not just going to throw all this on the manager that they’re not equipped to do what they need to do in the Premier League.”
