Now into the international break, Jurgen Klopp and Liverpool have even more work ahead of them than they did when the manager first arrived. He has now had time over the last seven games to assess the players, their strengths, and weaknesses alike. Now is the time for improvement following the period of self-reflection that the international break will offer.
With roughly eight players remaining at Melwood in the next 10 days, the majority of which will have spent the majority of the season occupying a seat on the bench, there is not a vast amount which can be done on the pitch. The Crystal Palace game was, in a way, perhaps the best thing that could have happened prior to the break. Otherwise, we would have walked out of the other side of the break claiming Klopp was seven games unbeaten and the slightly more optimistic/deluded amongst us saying we could possibly push for the fourth spot/the title, if we keep up this form. However, the defeat has forced our hand into looking at our frailties, both defensive and offensive.
The game on Sunday at Anfield exposed us. Once again, Palace, through one means or another, stripped us bare and showed that we cannot defend balls in from wide areas and we remain terrible at set pieces. It was two defensive errors that cost us two goals – one from the defence and the second from the goalkeeper. Simon Mignolet remains a top-rate shot-stopper and showed signs of improvement in claiming high balls into the area; he collected confidently and commanded his six yard area. However, it should be noted that he did not have a strong centre-forward stood on him at the corners making his job difficult. One of the flaws he still has comes from not pushing balls wide when parrying, instead he knocked it straight back into the danger area to a waiting Scott Dann.
The first goal was a series of smaller errors which essentially stemmed from someone not putting their laces through the ball and clearing the danger. Sakho failed to clear and fell in the process and as the ball came to Emre Can he took too many touches and again failed to deal with it, and it ended up straight in front of a grateful Yannick Bolasie.
The other end of the field wasn’t much better. Once more we created a huge number of chances but did not test Wayne Hennessey in the Palace goal. There was little the Welshman could do about Philippe Coutinho’s goal and aside from that attempt, he only had to save one shot on target of any note with a total of four on target in the 90 minutes. With 22 shots by the Reds overall, that leaves our accuracy at just under 20% and our conversion at less than 5%. It is a similar story for the majority of our games in recent weeks.
In the coming days during the international break, Klopp, as he stated in his post-match interview, will be looking at the team and analysing what went wrong and why. Undoubtedly the right thing to do, but without a cutting edge to the team we will continue to struggle for the remainder of the season. I can see the positives in what Klopp is getting out of the team but the same issues that plagued Brendan Rodgers are still there for the German: defensive frailties and the lack of someone who rarely requires more than one attempt without having something to show for it.
With our next game against a formidable looking City team that were only held by a superb Brad Guzan performance at the weekend, we could well come undone at the Etihad. Our hopes for any kind of performance rest too heavily on too few players and it, after a string of close successive performances, was almost visible at Anfield on Sunday. Similarly, our hopes are too heavily tied to the return of Daniel Sturridge. The phrase ‘The Group’ may have left with Rodgers but the practicalities of it show that the group of players on which we rely for a result is dwindling as the injury list grows.
There may come a point where we may need to cut our losses and invest in a couple of world-class players who are established, rather than spend another £20m on a potential prospect. Whilst this flies in the face of the FSG approach, this is not baseball. Or, conversely, we continue to hope for a return to fitness for Sturridge, who has barely laced up his boots in anger in the last 12 months along with a raft of other players. This second option has been buoyed by the fact that Jordan Henderson has returned to full training this week – that paired with the continuing progress of Jon Flanagan, the only Liverpool born first-team player at the moment is a big plus, but one that we will have to wait to realise.
Whichever approach the club decide to take, there needs to be a more clinical approach in front of goal and a more settled defensive solution. As we all know, the hope is that the free-flowing, fearless football soon returns to Liverpool and we are on the edge of our seats once again, and that we remain on them for the full 90 minutes as mentioned by the manager on Sunday.
