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The world is a more complicated place than it was when Liverpool’s progress was mapped by a group of coaches who sat on overturned beer crates in a former windowless kit shop called the Boot Room.
But having brought the title home at last, the most curious minds at Anfield are sure to ask what kept him going? How did they win it six times in eight years?
Certainly a lack of pomp. The medals were ritually distributed in a cardboard box. But also a relentless renovation process. Not a year went by in those great years without the club paying substantially for a newcomer, and it was usually just one.
Liverpool’s performance against Leeds did not show the lethal intensity that we have come to know
Mo Salah’s contribution suggested that the debate about what goes on behind him is academic.
Phil Neal, David Johnson, Alan Hansen, Alan Kennedy, Frank McGarvey, Ian Rush, Mark Lawrenson marked the change of seasons.
The club did not always need these improvements. Rush waited two years to break through. Kennedy was initially unconvincing. McGarvey didn’t play once. But the idea was that a little more competitive tension was good.
There are risks associated with drawing conclusions from the first installment in defending the current squad’s title. These are the early days and the extraordinary times. But this was certainly not the lethal intensity that we have come to know.
They kill you the way of football. They just don’t stop. ‘ That’s what Liverpool coaches often say. Actually, it was Jurgen Klopp’s description of Leeds.
The promoted team’s second draw was a metaphor for Liverpool’s informality.
Jurgen Klopp unconvincingly suggested that Van Dijk’s mistake was a ‘misunderstanding’
The high ball that Virgil van Dijk tried to ease around the corner for Andy Robertson, presenting Patrick Bamford with his goal at a plate, screamed complacency, for all his coach’s attempts to disguise it as something else. “A misunderstanding between Virgil and Alisson, one of those things that can happen,” Klopp suggested unconvincingly.
But Van Dijk’s mind had also drifted elsewhere moments before, when he couldn’t see Bamford loitering freely in the space behind him. The forward could have capitalized if Pablo Hernández had found a better ball from the left.
Klopp didn’t listen, or wouldn’t, when asked if Leeds’s intensity was the reason Liverpool had struggled defensively or if there was “ more to it than that. ” So the question was raised again.
Jack Robinson scored Leeds first, he said, because both Trent Alexander-Arnold and Robertson were higher than the center halves. “That should never happen in soccer,” Klopp said.
Mateusz Klich scored Leeds’ third, he said, because no one closed it and the center halves were perhaps too far apart. ‘Our formation was moving and it didn’t close a gap. We let it go, that’s true. And there was fatigue, of course. An international break and minimal preparation time. “Defending is not like riding a bike,” Klopp observed. “You have to constantly work on it.”
The value of adding a new face adds up, especially if that newcomer was Thiago Alcantara.
These conversations emerged at the beginning of last season, when analysis showed Liverpool’s high defensive positions had accounted for them facing 40 shots on goal in their first three games, compared to 19 in the same period last year.
Once again, Van Dijk had just returned from international service, where his defensive approach had been to mark the man, not Liverpool’s way of playing against the ball, in which the formation moves in sync with every inch the ball travels. .
Liverpool’s defense turned out to be the best in the Premier League last season. But the value of adding one to the ranks still adds up, especially if that newcomer was Thiago Alcantara.
The Bayern Munich player could help more against less ambitious teams than Leeds. He does not push opponents to death as all Liverpool midfielders do, but instead brings the control and vision to find the pass that goes through the teams sitting deep.
However, their presence would ease some of the pressure on Alexander-Arnold and Robertson to attack and defend, a workload that contributed to Saturday’s chaos. Klopp hardly seems to view these two as defenders. “You need both wingers to be 100% involved in defense,” he said.
Mo Salah’s electrifying contribution suggested that the debate about what’s going on behind him is purely academic.
Liverpool have won each of the last 35 Premier League games in which Salah has scored, a sequence that surpasses Wayne Rooney’s record of 34 consecutive Premier League wins by scoring from September 2008 to February 2011.
But Klopp has never been in the habit of sitting still. “We know we have to improve,” he reflected, which sounded sinister to the rest of the league.
