Liverpool’s 3-0 capitulation at Wolves last Saturday was so insipid Jurgen Klopp decided to give the players two days off, while the manager himself went for a long walk to try and clear his mind ahead of the visit of Everton on Monday Night Football.
However, whether a week on the training ground is long enough for Klopp and his coaching staff to fix the team’s problems, which are multiple, is hard to say given their ever-worsening displays this year.
Klopp had called his side’s 3-0 drubbing at Brighton in January the worst loss of his 20-plus year managerial career and yet the defeat at Molineux was in many ways even more wretched as the visitors found themselves 2-0 down after just 12 minutes to a team fighting relegation and who had scored a league-low 12 goals all season heading into the game.
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FREE TO WATCH: Highlights from the Premier League match between Wolves and Liverpool.
Liverpool
Everton
Monday 13th February 7:00pm Kick off 8:00pm
And the final ignominy came with the hosts playing keep ball in the closing stages, while the home fans chanted ‘you’re getting sacked in the morning’ in Klopp’s direction as the German tried to understand his side’s latest rudderless performance.
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The reasons for Liverpool’s collapse from the team that nearly won it all less than a year ago to one that now cannot win at all have been poured over and analysed in great detail for some time now, from their draining 63-game campaign last time around, to the shortened close season for a partly ageing squad, coupled with injuries and so a much-changed lineup – Klopp has made 58 changes with 27 players used so far this season – and a subsequent loss of form to key individuals, all resulting in a huge drop in confidence with results falling off a cliff.
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Liverpool's next five fixtures
- Everton (H) – Monday February 13, 8pm – Live on Sky Sports
- Newcastle (A) – Saturday February 18, 5.30pm – Live on Sky Sports
- Real Madrid (H) – Tuesday February 21, 8pm
- Crystal Palace (A) – Saturday February 25, 7.45pm – Live on Sky Sports
- Manchester United (H) – Sunday March 5, 4.30pm – Live on Sky Sports
So much so, in fact, that Liverpool head into Monday’s Merseyside derby languishing down in 10th place in the Premier League and still looking for their first win of the year. If the season had started in 2023, the Reds would be bottom of the table.
After Everton’s visit, Liverpool also host Real Madrid and Man Utd, three season-defining fixtures, all at Anfield where in contrast to their struggles on the road this season, they have lost just one in all competitions. And with integral first-teamers like Diogo Jota, Virgil van Dijk, Roberto Firmino and Ibrahima Konate also all shortly set to return from injury, there maybe some light at the end of the tunnel for the Reds’ beleaguered manager.
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Klopp says training has been “super intense” in the build-up to Monday’s game, with the players looking “incredibly fresh”, so what will he and his coaches have been working on all week as they look for a reaction against their neighbours from Stanley Park?
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Liverpool manager Jurgen Klopp admitted that it ‘made sense’ not to see his players for two days after the 3-0 defeat to Wolves.
Set-play vulnerability
There are no prizes for guessing where Everton will look to hurt Liverpool at Anfield on Monday night, with even Klopp acknowledging as much in his pre-match press conference on Friday.
Image: Everton's winner against Arsenal came from a corner last weekend
“Set pieces will be very important for us,” he said. “You could see that in Everton’s last game. That’s how they scored in the end [vs Arsenal]. We prepare for the team we saw against Arsenal.”
New Everton boss Sean Dyche will have been licking his lips, though, when analysing Liverpool’s struggles in defending set plays, even more so since the loss of Virgil van Dijk to injury, with the Reds having let in five goals (excluding penalties) via this avenue this season compared with seven in the whole of the previous campaign.
The influential Netherlands central defender pulled his hamstring in Liverpool’s 3-1 loss at Brentford at the start of the year when the visitors looked like conceding from every corner, the same route Everton breached Arsenal’s back line last weekend.
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FREE TO WATCH: Highlights from the Premier League match between Everton and Arsenal.
And all this from a club that previously led the way when it came to training-ground innovations such as bringing in throw-in coaches, or the use of neuroscientists Neuro11 to help aid their penalty shootout record.
So, expect a lot of work to have gone into this area with assistant manager Peter Krawietz, who is in charge of set pieces, in training this week as they look to get back on track.
The case for the defence
Much of the focus in the aftermath of Liverpool’s loss at Wolves focussed on Klopp’s press-conference clash with James Pearce, after The Athletic’s Reds correspondent dared to ask the question that was on everyone’s lips at Molineux: Why have the team been making such slow starts to games this season?
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Jurgen Klopp refused to answer a question from Athletic reporter James Pearce following Liverpool’s 3-0 defeat by Wolves on Saturday, instead asking another reporter to ask the same question.
In fact, the stats are alarming, with Liverpool having conceded more times – five – in the opening five minutes of games than any other Premier League side this season, while they have also been trailing at half-time in eight of their 20 league matches.
The answer probably lies in the number of changes Klopp has had to make at the heart of his back line this season, with all four of his centre backs having been sidelined at some point, while he has also barely been able to field his first-choice central-defensive partnership of Van Dijk and Konate.
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Former Liverpool defender Jamie Carragher says Liverpool’s performances have been ‘shambolic’ and believes this is their poorest form under Klopp.
Neither will be available due to injury on Monday, meaning Klopp will have to once again rely on Joe Gomez and Joel Matip to bring some stability to a defence that has now let in more league goals than in the whole of last season, including just one clean sheet on the road.
With both men, who only played together for the first time this season at Molineux last weekend, having been badly at fault in recent games, Klopp will be hoping a clear week on the training ground may have ironed out some of those glaring errors and concentration issues.
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Mentality Monsters become mice
Klopp’s ‘Mentality Monsters’ played every single possible game last season, never knowing when they were beaten.
If an opponent ever scored first, which was rare, there was never any panic, or concern that the team would not turn things around, which they did on numerous occasions, and often in the dying embers of matches.
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Liverpool manager, Jurgen Klopp believes the club can show how special they are as they look to bounce back from poor recent form in the Merseyside derby.
This season, however, the opposite is true as heads collectively drop whenever Liverpool concede first in the league, which has happened 12 times, with the Reds only going on to win two of those games – a sign of waning confidence levels among the players.
Meanwhile, Klopp’s side have only scored seven times in the final 15 minutes of Premier League encounters this season, while they also lost at Brighton in the FA Cup after taking the lead, something that last happened at Leicester City in December 2021.
Much of this comes back to the players’ – and even the manager’s, judging by his exasperation in the Molineux dugout last Saturday – body language, although Klopp did report his charges had shown “aggression, determination, readiness, focus and intensity” in training this week.
Now they need to bring all those fighting qualities with them on to the pitch on Monday night.
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Ahead of the Merseyside derby, check out some of the best strikes from both Liverpool and Everton, featuring Steven Gerrard, Tim Cahill and more!
Where have the rampaging full-backs gone?
In Andy Robertson and Trent Alexander-Arnold, Liverpool possess two of the top three defenders when it comes to Premier League assists, with the former having recently moved to head of the list on 54, while the latter sits in third place with 46 to his name.
Image: Alexander-Arnold and Robertson have been integral to Liverpool's success in recent years
Incredible, then, to think Alexander Arnold has set up just one league goal so far this campaign, in sharp contrast to last season (and in 2018-19) when he laid on 12 goals, while he had 13 assists when the Reds won the league in 2019-20.
In fact, one of the abiding memories of that title-winning campaign was the duo’s almost telepathic relationship as they bombed forward on opposite flanks, perhaps best demonstrated in the build-up to Liverpool’s second goal against Man City at Anfield in November 2019 as the England international found his partner with a raking crossfield pass, before the Scotland left-back picked out Mohamed Salah to nod the Reds 2-0 in front.
Tellingly, though, goals from those sources have been all too rare this season, with the full-backs suffering from the team’s collective malaise, meaning Klopp and his coaching staff will have been working hard all week on ways to reinvigorate two of Liverpool’s most creative attacking forces in a bid to get the side firing again.
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Former Liverpool defender Jamie Carragher says Jurgen Klopp is the man to lead a summer rebuild at Anfield, suggesting they need four or five new players.
A midfield minefield
Image: Jordan Henderson may return in midfield for Liverpool on MNF
Most of the blame for Liverpool’s annus horribilis has been laid at the door of their stagnating midfield, the first choice of Jordan Henderson, Fabinho and Thiago Alcantara who appear to have aged significantly in front of our very eyes this season.
So much so, in fact, that Klopp has even resorted of late to axing his skipper and Fabinho, who has been a shadow of the player oft dubbed last season as the world’s best holding midfielder, with Stefan Bajcetic and Naby Keita, who is reportedly set to leave the club on a free this summer, taking their place.
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Gary Neville shares his thoughts on Liverpool’s current poor performances which he believes are well below the level they should be at.
And while 18-year-old Bajcetic has shone as a No 6 in recent weeks, that change of personnel has not had the desired effect, with opponents still finding it far too easy to get at Liverpool’s back line.
An obvious sign of that is two revealing statistics you just would not expect to see Liverpool appearing under, with the Reds having offered up a mind-blowing 64 big chances in the league – the second most behind Fulham (66) – while the club’s player of the season, Alisson, has faced 68 shots, the fourth most of any goalkeeper this season.
All of which has resulted in Liverpool conceding on average 0.25 goals from fast breaks this campaign, compared to 0.02 in the previous campaign, while their metrics are also down comparatively when it comes to possession won in the final third and high turnovers as their previously famed gegenpress has malfunctioned.
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Melissa Reddy explains some of the problems Liverpool head coach Jurgen Klopp needs to address if they are to see an improvement in results.
And when a team’s pressing goes awry, it can go “gradually, then suddenly” as Ernest Hemingway once wrote about going bankrupt.
The problem for Klopp is he has already tried mixing things up in the middle of the park, but nothing has changed, and with few real alternatives, his options are limited, although Henderson should replace the injured Thiago on Monday night.
When will the front line stop misfiring?
While there has been plenty of attention on Liverpool’s labouring midfield of late, that has actually tended to camouflage their front line which used to operate as a well-oiled machine, but is now spluttering and misfiring as a result of two new cogs being added.
One of those new pieces in the three-man attack is Darwin Nunez, signed from Benfica in a club-record £85m deal last summer to replace the Bayern Munich-bound Sadio Mane, but has just five league goals to his name so far.
Liverpool's malfunctioning forward line
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The Uruguay striker has missed a league-high 16 big chances in the league this season, although he, and fellow new forward Cody Gakpo, who only moved to Anfield in January, should be cut some slack in their debut campaigns at the club.
The same, however, cannot be said of their strike partner Salah who has netted just seven times, with four assists, in the top flight after finally getting the bumper new deal he had been after last summer.
Salah, who turned 30 in June, had 16 goals and nine assists at the corresponding stage last season, but as with Nunez, has been hit and miss in front of goal for much of this campaign, spurning 12 big chances.
And with the defence currently leaking goals at an alarming rate, Klopp could really do with his strikers re-finding their scoring touch, which is more likely to happen the more the trio play with each other as the Reds boss waits for the likes of Jota, Firmino and Luis Diaz to all return from injury.
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Sky Sports News’ Mark McAdam examines the possible reasons for Mohamed Salah’s struggles in front of goal this season.
Watch Liverpool vs Everton on Sky Sports Premier League on Monday from 7pm; kick-off 8pm
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