Football: What’s gone wrong at Liverpool this season?
From mentality monsters to fallen heroes, Liverpool are a shadow of the side who were chasing a historic quadruple last season. The Straits Times’ DILENJIT SINGH takes an in-depth look at the Reds, who are out of both domestic Cups and languishing in mid-table in the EPL
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Liverpool manager Jurgen Klopp reacting during the EPL loss against Wolverhampton Wanderers at the Molineux on Feb 4.
PHOTO: AFP
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Wounded warriors
At the heart of any club in crisis is often an injury crisis. Liverpool manager Jurgen Klopp has suggested the Reds’ fitness woes have become a vicious circle.
He said in January: “There is a lot of bad luck... You have too many injuries. The players who are fit have to play all the time, which means they cannot always fly. We don’t have exactly the opportunities to rotate.”
The data seems to bear it out. In the Premier League, no club bar Liverpool had nine outfield players clocking a minimum of 2,300 minutes each. The closest team had seven players, while most of the other Big Six had five.
Of those nine Reds players, only Diogo Jota started fewer than 40 games in all competitions, and he had 39. Last campaign, they returned from injury quicker (26.4 days) than the previous season (42.5 days) and suffered fewer days lost to fitness issues (968 compared to 1,722).
Ben Dinnery, founder of Premier Injuries, which tracks EPL injuries, warned at the start of the campaign that the Reds “may see a high number of smaller time-loss injuries, little niggles that ordinarily other teams will play through”.
On the impact of last term’s quadruple chase, he added that the physical demands have resulted in “slightly jaded players starting the season”.
He highlighted a table that showed Liverpool have the EPL’s highest instance of injuries and the most reported hamstring issues.
In January, data scientist Aurel Nazmiu from Twenty First Group published a graph that highlighted Reds players had missed nearly 160 matches this season, more than any other EPL team.
Before the season, club doctor Jim Moxon unexpectedly left and has since joined Manchester United, with former Reds defender Jamie Carragher suggesting this could be a cause of their injury woes.
Seventh-season syndrome
Klopp’s two previous coaching jobs at Mainz and then Borussia Dortmund did not see him staying for an eighth season.
Both times, he left following a stark drop in form during the seventh season of an otherwise successful tenure. At Mainz, he failed to secure promotion to the top tier, while at Dortmund, they were in the relegation zone at Christmas, before finishing seventh.
This is his seventh campaign at Anfield and there are parallels.
But the German has pushed back against this notion. He said previously: “I have absolutely no problem with energy and the situation is completely different here.
“I can understand that I left after seven years (previously) and now we are in a difficult situation... but the situation is completely different.”
Arguably, Liverpool are lucky to have Klopp for this long. The 55-year-old was widely expected to see out one of his earlier contracts and leave in 2022.
But he has since extended his contract twice, with the latest deal to end in 2026.
Brain drain
Behind every successful manager is a strong support team.
Klopp was part of Liverpool’s “three wise men”, comprising himself, Fenway Sports Group president Mike Gordon and sporting director Michael Edwards.
The Reds boss and Edwards discussed potential signings, staff recruitment and other football matters before presenting Gordon with their plans. He would then take it forward by providing financial and other support.
But Anfield’s holy trinity has been broken up. Edwards left his post in June 2022 after 11 years in Merseyside and reportedly recently turned down an offer to be Chelsea’s “CEO of Football”. He has also been linked to Manchester United.
Gordon, the conduit between Klopp and the owners, whom the German speaks to daily and calls “my man”, has been reassigned from the day-to-day running of Liverpool to a remit centred on the sale of the whole or part of the club.
There have been other backroom departures. Edwards’ deputy and successor Julian Ward, touted as the continuity candidate, resigned last November and will leave at the end of the season.
The Reds’ widely feted director of research Ian Graham is also leaving, with Sky Sports reporting the pair “no longer feel empowered to do their jobs to the best of their ability”.
The broadcaster also reported that Andreas Kornmayer, head of fitness and conditioning and one of Klopp’s most trusted figures, “wields too much influence and is hard to work with”.
A Liverpool employee was quoted as saying: “A lot of key people have left, some have gained too much power. There’s less faith in the decisions now.”
Pre-season woes
Liverpool began their pre-season in Bangkok in July with a 4-0 defeat by Manchester United beating EPL champions Manchester City 3-1
This came after two straight seasons when they did not leave Western Europe for pre-season, due to the Covid-19 pandemic.
It is no surprise that Klopp has suggested his side were undercooked for the current campaign. While major clubs see pre-season tours as crucial branding exercises, managers sometimes view them as an imposition to their preparation.
This, coupled with a jam-packed schedule due to the mid-season World Cup, put an even bigger premium on pre-season preparation.
The Times reported that just three games into the season, a source was struck by how tired Liverpool staff looked before home matches. In contrast, following pre-season at Klopp’s favoured base in Evian in 2021, staff organised barbeques and “put table tennis tables in its hallway, to keep the Evian vibe going”.
‘Quadruple’ fatigue
Last season was an exhilarating ride that saw Liverpool chase an unprecedented four trophies, before a deflating end which saw them lift just the FA and League Cups while falling just short in the Premier League and Champions League.
That meant they played the maximum 63 games, ahead of a packed schedule this term owing to an unprecedented mid-season World Cup.
Fabinho said ahead of Liverpool’s last two matches in 2021-22 that the team were “physically and mentally tired” and this has shown in performances this term, particularly his own.
Renowned German journalist Raphael Honigstein, who wrote the seminal book Klopp: Bring The Noise, said of his high-octane gegenpressing style: “With him, there’s a very defined playing style and mantra of togetherness.
“The moment that belief in that general direction and project as a whole wanes, the football that he plays does not work any more.
“You can take away maybe 10 per cent from Man City and they still will be absolutely brilliant. With Liverpool, with the running, the effort, the intensity, if players believe maybe we should do things a bit differently… he’s worried that the whole thing will come crumbling down.”
Klopp insists it was impossible to foresee the issues that have arisen following a 63-game season, despite the fact the Reds played the same number of games in 2000-01, as did Manchester United in 1998-99.
Ownership impasse
Things rarely go swimmingly on the pitch for clubs when there is uncertainty in the boardroom. That first surfaced when news broke in early November that FSG was interested in selling the club.
While the news came as a shock to many, according to The Athletic, privately FSG has long admitted that the Reds are “at play”, with regard to a full takeover and selling stakes in the club.
The sale of Chelsea for £2.5 billion (S$4 billion) last May
FSG was never in it for the long haul. Its £300 million takeover of Liverpool in 2010 was a business opportunity with the goal of exacting a massive profit for the club in the future, which could be 10 times its purchase price according to some estimates.
According to The Athletic, other reasons for exploring a sale include the failure of the European Super League – which FSG was heavily involved in – a realisation of squad-rebuilding costs after prolonged success, and frustrations with what they perceive to be the poor enforcement of Financial Fair Play rules.
Liverpool chairman Tom Werner said previously: “We certainly made it clear that part of the reason we came into this over 10 years ago was that FFP would be with us.”
Midfield muddle
While Liverpool’s ownership impasse lingers, Carragher insists the recruitment team are far more culpable in the Reds’ current malaise.
He told Sky Sports: “It’s down to the staff and the players and the recruitment team. For the last four or five years, everybody has used Liverpool as a model… to follow. Buy cheap, sell high...
“They tried to buy the lad who went to Real Madrid (Aurelien Tchouameni)... They couldn’t get him and Jurgen Klopp and his staff, or the recruitment team, decided ‘we don’t need to buy a midfielder’. That is on them.”
While midfield may not be the sole source of the Reds’ travails – with previously irrepressible players like forward Mohamed Salah and defender Virgil van Dijk having both struggled for form – the engine room may be the chief cause of Liverpool stalling.
Of their regular starting trio last season, captain Jordan Henderson and Thiago Alcantara are in their 30s while Fabinho is 29 and in poor form. Naby Keita and Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain are rare transfer duds, James Milner is 37, Curtis Jones has not kicked on, and Arthur Melo has played just 13 minutes.
While the Reds have an overall average age of above 28 – only Fulham, West Ham United and Tottenham Hotspur have fielded older teams – there are talented youngsters in Harvey Elliott (19), Stefan Bajcetic (18) and Fabio Carvalho (20). But it is asking too much, too soon for them to solve the midfield muddle.
Former Liverpool captain and manager Graeme Souness sees that position as a microcosm of their downturn.
He said: “They basically bullied teams. Now they’re being bullied in midfield, and that’s making them vulnerable at the back and they’re not creating the same chances up front. Liverpool are a shadow.”
