Liverpool 1-2 Leeds United: Final thoughts
The Reds' struggles have left everyone, Klopp included, searching for answers and fearing the worst
“Shite, Neil. Make sure you write that.”
Not for the first time, the angry fan summed it up better than any journalist ever could. His verdict, barked in my direction as he made his way past the Press Box to the exit, will have been shared by plenty inside Anfield, I’m sure.
Halloween came early, as far as Liverpool were concerned. October looked like it could be the month they finally got it together, but as far as the Premier League is concerned, it has finished in quite shocking fashion.
To lose away to the bottom club is careless. To lose at home to the second-bottom club, a week later? Ouch.
Liverpool used to be the team nobody wanted to face, but now they’re the ones you call when you want to get your season up and running now. Nottingham Forest last weekend, Leeds United this. Another struggling side given a lift, by one that is absolutely miles away from where it needs to be.
You don’t need me to run through Liverpool’s issues. They’re there for everyone to see, and have been since pretty much the first whistle at Fulham in August. There’s a lack of conviction, a lack of legs, a lack of midfield protection and defensive aggression. To focus on one is to miss the point. It all looks wrong. All of it.
When you see Fabinho turning to the Kop to tell them to lay off a teammate, you know things aren’t right. When you see Jordan Henderson thinking the best thing to do in stoppage time, at 2-1 down, is to try a 25-yard half-volley, you know things aren’t right. When you see James Milner, with the last attack, blast a long, straight ball right into the arms of the goalkeeper, you…..well, you get the point.
More interesting to me is Jurgen Klopp’s demeanour, and the way he is dealing with his side’s swift fall from grace. More interesting to me are the fans, and the way they are adjusting to the new reality.
When you’ve been used to champagne, it can be hard to go back to beer, and Liverpool supporters - and patch journalists - have had plenty of champagne in recent years. I’m loath to say we’ve been spoiled, as it suggests we don’t deserve it, but it’s certainly been something special. Memories that will last a lifetime.
I joined GOAL as Reds correspondent in March 2018, and since then I’ve been to three Champions League finals and seen Henderson lift seven trophies. I’ve been all over England, all over Europe, watching Liverpool win. Expecting Liverpool to win. I’ve felt like the luckiest person alive at times, and I know a lot of supporters who feel exactly the same. I see them on the trains and in the service stations, in the airports and the bars and the plazas. Having the time of their lives.
Had just a handful of games gone differently, Klopp’s side could have had three European Cups and three Premier League titles in the last five seasons. It works the other way, I know (they won three of those seven trophies on penalties) but wow, doesn’t that show how good they’ve been, how much they’ve been in the thick of things?
Right now, this team is not that team. The shirts are the same, most of the faces are the same, but the football isn’t. The principles which underpinned their rise to the summit have been lost, either through design or circumstance. They’re being outworked, outfought and outmanoeuvred, and not just by the best teams either.
The question, among just about everyone I speak to, is whether it’s a short-term slump or the end of an era.
Me? I think we are seeing the end of the team we know, and I suspect Klopp is starting to realise that too. Liverpool’s form will pick up this season, and they still have plenty to play for, but can this squad get back to the levels we saw in 2019 or 2022? I don’t think it can, sadly. I think this is a team in transition, and I know football fans hate that word.
It’s already lost four league games this season, and if you want a statistic to illustrate why that feels such a big deal, consider this; with supporters in stadiums, they lost only four games in the 2018-19, 2019-20 and 2021-22 seasons combined - Manchester City, Watford, West Ham and Leicester. Klopp’s Liverpool + fans = scary.
So when you see supporters walking out of Anfield en masse after Leeds’ winner, it stands out. When you see Fabinho remonstrating with the Kop after a few groans at a loose touch, it jars. And when you hear Klopp saying he “would easily have taken” a 1-1 draw at home to a relegation-threatened team, it raises eyebrows.
And when you see Liverpool raise their game for Manchester City and then lose to Forest, it brings back worrying memories. That’s what Liverpool used to do, upset the big boys, get everybody hyped up and then pop their own balloon a week later.
That’s what Roy Evans’ Liverpool, Rafa Benitez’s Liverpool and Brendan Rodgers’ Liverpool would do, but Klopp’s Liverpool have taught us that it doesn’t have to be like that. They’re built differently. They don’t distinguish between City and Southampton, United and Bournemouth. Every game’s the most important one, and is treated as such. You don’t have a day off at Klopp’s Liverpool.
Can they get that consistency, that mentality back? I have no doubt that Henderson and Milner, Virgil van Dijk and Andy Robertson and Mo Salah and Trent Alexander-Arnold will be seething at the way things are going. I’ve no doubt that Klopp, Pep Lijnders and Peter Krawietz will be doing longer hours and getting less sleep, thinking and plotting and worrying about how to fix things.
I’ve no doubt that some of the key players will find form again, that others will return from injury and make a difference, and that some of the players we see now as ‘projects’ will come good. I wrote about Darwin Nunez here last week, but in Harvey Elliott and Fabio Carvalho there is serious, serious potential, and the club seem to feel the same way about Stefan Bajcetic. We should see Calvin Ramsay in the first team soon, too. Derby, I’d imagine.
But you can’t bury your head, either. This squad needs to undergo some big changes, if not in January then most certainly in the summer. Milner, Naby Keita, Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain and Roberto Firmino’s contracts are up, and my gut says none of them will be renewed. That’s four first-team players gone, and two of them are featuring pretty much every week at the moment.
In addition to that there’s the general age of the squad. Henderson will be 33 in June, Van Dijk, Joel Matip and Thiago Alcantara all turn 32 next year, and even Salah, the club’s best and most well-paid player, will be 31 by the time next season starts.
Liverpool needed a midfielder last summer and didn’t get one - well, they got Arthur Melo on deadline day, but the less said about that deal the better - but now they could need two or three of them, and they probably need a forward as well.
And the other thing is, they could be looking to recruit those players without Champions League football, and without the money that goes with it. Lose at Tottenham next weekend and Liverpool could be 11 points adrift of the top four, and even the optimists (I’m one) know that’s a hell of a tough place to be so early in the season, and that falling off the European gravy train could be mighty damaging for a club which is run the way Liverpool is, and which is so specific in the players it targets in the transfer market.
Short-term, I’m not sure what the solution is. It wouldn’t surprise me at all if the Reds tear into Napoli on Tuesday, get Anfield rocking and pick up a good result. But then it wouldn’t surprise me either if they went to Spurs and looked ragged, timid, wide open. That’s Liverpool at the moment. Hard to fathom, hard to predict.
Hard to watch, to be perfectly honest. But hey, they should have enough credit in the bank, with all of us, to see them through this testing period, right?
Right?
This is one of the toughest time of being a Liverpool fan. Buh am gon keep the hope and walk on. YNWA
We need to be patient and raise the pressure on FSG not Klopp. I've heard and seen many fans say or write Klopp out. These are blind to see what the real problem is. Klopp is still the same coach and the only difference is there are no legs to execute his thoughts anymore. FSG should have allowed Klopp to replace the cult heroes who played a few games with huge impact. Minamino had 10 goals last season, when we barely saw him on the pitch. Origi had the most important goals. If you look behind Klopp today you don't see anyone who can come in and make the same impact. Shakiri's goals when we most needed a solid rock to intimidate and out-muscle defenders are gone. The fact that FSG didn't renew for Mike Edwards tells a lot about FSG's recruitment ambition. And now he might end up in Man United among all clubs. Some fans say he is going to betray us but maybe it is us who did.
Why FSG are not getting booed yet Neil?? When should they start getting that agression? Look at the Glazers and how Man United's fans treat them.