Perspective is what some Liverpool fans need to take a serious dose of at times. Yes, we were riding high after an outstanding first four months of the season but there was bound to be a bump in the road where our vision was slightly skewed and we’d all well and truly hit that stage, albeit it’s been a slightly bumpier ride than we all could comfortably manage.
A loss to lowly Swansea in the league followed by a deserved EFL Cup defeat to Southampton, capped by a third and final home capitulation to Championship Wolves have made the seven days prior to the Chelsea game exceptionally difficult to take.
It wasn’t long ago that Jordan Henderson was curling a delicious belter into Thibaut Courtois’ top corner in our win at Chelsea and Gini Wijnaldum was rising majestically to head home in our win at Man City. The wheels have well and truly been loosened and we’ve all been feeling slightly travel sick to have endured the last three games.
Going 15 games unbeaten in all competitions during August through to November, up until the 4-3 loss to Bournemouth, was something special with the depth of squad we have. Klopp was being heralded as the master and his ability to squeeze every ounce out of his tight-knit but still threadbare squad was being applauded.
The aforementioned big wins against City and Chelsea were just a snippet of many superb performances by Liverpool and the way in which we were winning was being met by fanfare style media attention. So where did it all go wrong? This is a more prolonged ‘blip’ than were the losses to Burnley (the 15-game unbeaten run came off the back of that game) and the loss to the aforementioned Bournemouth which was just one of those crazy games with a crazy outcome which could have gone either way.
The loss of Mane to the African Cup of Nations is being pinpointed as the reason and it is mostly but it still doesn’t excuse the fact that the whole team just hasn’t performed since his departure. His speed, directness and lethal ability to score have been a revelation for us this season and any team in the league would miss his ability.
But now he’s back fresh from his private jet and coming off the bench at Chelsea. The midweek draw, a game in which Liverpool looked a lot better than their opponent, proves a massive point. Yes, Chelsea missed a penalty but overall I think we deserved three points and were unlucky not to grab them and we can hold our performance in great regard when compared to the previous nightmare week of football.
Now that we’re out of all the cups and we’ve just got the league to look after, the Chelsea performance was a step back in the right direction. And with 15 league games left and a possible 45 points to play for, and Spurs and Arsenal still yet to come to Anfield, let’s make the end of the season as good as our start to the season.
Klopp summed it up perfectly last night with this:
At this club we need to learn – in a game like this we need to learn – to keep our nerves. Now let’s play 15 games with all [we] have – a full squad. Let’s go for it. Stay cool. We work really hard. As long as the club keeps the nerve, the kind of power we can generate is outstanding. Stay cool and let’s see what fun we can have at Liverpool. Let’s go for it. Let’s see where it ends.
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