After Liverpool trotted off the pitch with all three points against crosstown rivals Everton, all signs were pointing to yet another title challenge for the Reds. Five wins in five. Top of the pile.
How
quickly things change.
Liverpool fans were spoiled during the Klopp era. It was rare that we faced consecutive defeats, let alone 4 league ones on the trot. That makes 5 losses of the last 6 in all competitions. Worse still, it’s hard to argue that we’ve not gotten what we’ve deserved, late goals and contentious VAR decisions notwithstanding.
They say form is only as good as your next match, and Liverpool are proving that adage with every match, as last year’s league title and this season’s 5-match opening win streak moves further in the rearview mirror.
This will not be a post calling for anyone’s head. Nor will one that looks deeply into the tactical shortcomings. I’m not one for the former, and there are better people on this website for the latter. Instead—and perhaps controversially—I’ll delve into the nebulous idea of mentality.
Mentality is a dangerous topic for anyone not actually inside the club to discuss, but I’ll throw my two sense in anyway. We know Liverpool have a great squad. Despite summer departures, the core of the team is still the one that cruised to a league title last season. It seems unlikely that they would all collectively forget to play football overnight.
However, I think there is something much deeper going on, and one that I can only sympathize with: the continued grief over the loss of Diogo Jota.
Grief is a funny thing. It comes in waves. It hits you when you least expect it. It can drive you on to greatness. But it can also leave you mired in deep, seemingly unending paralysis. It can make the bad times worse, and harder to bounce back.
To me, it seems like this is precisely what’s going on right now. Jota started out as a rallying cry to start the season, but when things started going wrong, it was even more difficult to stay focused and get back on track.
As evidence of this, let’s look at this post from Andrew Beasley:
Since posted 5 days ago, Liverpool went on to concede the first shot goals against Frankfurt and Brentford. The fact that they’re routinely giving up big chances—and more often than not conceding them—at the beginnings and ends of matches proves that something just isn’t right.
Of course we’ve seen this in recent seasons, the two that come to mind are the COVID season when we were down to 6th and 7th choice defenders, and 22/23, when our midfield was a burnt-out disaster and we couldn’t stop conceding first.
To me, it is interesting that you could draw parallels to both seasons. During COVID, Liverpool were reigning champions, but living through grief, both at the general state of the world, and also personally, with Klopp and Alisson in particular suffering personal losses during the course of the season.
In 22/23, it was also immediately after a historically phenomenal season that saw the Reds come up just short. And due to a variety of reasons, our press wasn’t as effective, our midfield was too easy to play through, and we were constantly conceding first and having to play with additional scoreboard pressure. Sound familiar?
It feels like we might be dealing with a terrible combination of both of those seasons right now.
The silver lining is that in both cases, we were able to right the ship, though not without considerable difficulties in the short term.
However, both of those seasons were under Klopp, who had a nearly supernatural ability to motivate and get players to dig deeper, even in the worst moments. It is now Slot’s biggest challenge of his managerial career to get The Reds back on track.
As for us fans, we need to continue to support them, and try to have some sympathy. They all lost a dear friend over the summer. A player who we no doubt miss both on and off the pitch.
We need to lower our expectations for the season, enjoy the wins when they come—and they will come again—and help them along while the new players continue bedding in. Liverpool might be off the pace in the league already, but it’s not too late to have some incredible memories along the way, and maybe even a good cup run or two. Let’s back the lads, wherever this journey takes us.
