Liverpool FC Doom-Mongers Need To Remember 2021

After a 0-3 humbling on England’s south coast by Brighton and Hove Albion the mood surrounding Liverpool FC was grim.

During his reign as Reds boss, Jurgen Klopp has been known to approach the Liverpool supporting section of the stadium after an away game. Clenching his fists, lower set of teeth exposed, he’d punch the air to rapturous cheers.

His gesture after the comprehensive defeat to the Seagulls was very different. Pressing his palms together, like the Virgin Mary in a renaissance painting, he bowed his head to the fans. If the adrenaline-infused fist pump is one end of the emotional spectrum this was the other.

The German’s words matched his demeanor post-game.

“Bad. Really bad,” Klopp told television broadcasters in the aftermath, “Brighton was the better team, it was well deserved. They played really well. It was a very organized team against a not-very-organized team.

“I’m not sure if it’s because it’s only a few minutes since the game, but I can’t remember a worse game. I honestly can’t and I mean all [my career] not only Liverpool and that’s my responsibility. So that makes it a really low point.” he added.

Pundits were quick to seize on the defeat as a new nadir in Klopp-era Liverpool.

“Liverpool needs to do some soul-searching at the moment, find a way of bouncing back to what we all know they’re capable of,” former Reds striker Michael Owen said, “it’s now more consistent that they play poorly than they play well.”

Klopp might not be able to remember such a poor performance. But a quick google might help him out we don’t have to go back too far to find another occasion where a loss to Brighton prompted serious introspection from the German.

We’ve been here before

Wind the clock back a touch under two years to February 2021 and you’d find an equally somber-looking Jurgen Klopp puffing his cheeks out at a rain-drenched Anfield.

His team had just lost 0-1 to Brighton its second defeat in a row to lesser opposition, Burnley having taken the points off them a week earlier.

Coronavirus restrictions meant there were no fans in the stadium for Klopp to apologize to but his assessment was remarkably similar to this season.

“We looked really like we weren’t fresh enough, mentally and physically,” he told the media, “Brighton deserved to win, no doubt about it. For me, it’s more important to find an explanation for why we lost this game and understand what happened here tonight. We didn’t look convincing.”

The ‘mental freshness’ comment caused something of a storm, which Klopp would fight back against in later weeks arguing the quote was misinterpreted and overblown.

But it was hard not to feel like there was some truth in the idea the side had run out of steam.

Six months earlier they had ended the club’s 30-year wait for a league title in a spectacular fashion racking up an impressive 99 points.

It was a relentless streak broken only by the COVID-19 pandemic pause to soccer around the world.

The title was secured at the end of a unique condensed summer schedule which ran almost simultaneously into the next campaign.

Having racked up more than 50 games, a great deal of those in a shorter period than normal, Liverpool struggled to replicate its pre-pandemic form when the new season commenced.

A cataclysmic central defensive injury crisis then struck and, for a while, it looked like the wheels had come off the Liverpool FC train altogether.

But we all know that wasn’t the end of the story.

There’s always next year

A late rally in the 2020/21 season saw Liverpool secure Champions League soccer for another season.

This was followed by one of the most remarkable campaigns in the history of the club last year, 2021/22, where it played the maximum number of games, reaching the finals of every cup competition and missing out on the Premier League title in the last game.

The sequence of events that followed is strangely similar.

Just like a couple of years ago, rest was at a premium after a grueling campaign. This was because of another unprecedented interruption to the schedule from a winter World Cup.

Once again with most of its key players, like central defensive talisman Virgil Van Dijk, having played more than 50 games the previous time around, an unusual fixture list put even more minutes in the legs.

A PA agency study found Van Dijk had started 27 of a possible 28 matches in 2022/23 for club and country, with only Spurs duo Harry Kane and Hugo Lloris playing more.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, given his match load, he was injured in the round of fixtures before the Brighton game and, although he has not been at his commanding best so far this year, it is a blow similar to the injury crisis that was central to the 2020/21 collapse.

On the flagship British TV soccer show Match of the Day, former Arsenal forward Ian Wright suggested the mental and physical exhaustion Liverpool is exhibiting this season could be more permanent.

“Those seasons chasing [Manchester] City down [for the title], I think that has taken its toll,” he said.

The lesson from 2021 is that we shouldn’t be too certain of that yet. Let’s make an assessment next season.