Liverpool does not have the expected start this season and these days without competition, due to the death of Queen Elizabeth, surely served to make self-criticism and understand the reason for the serious problems that the team has shown in almost all its lines.
The critics have fallen from all sides and the historic ones, like Jamie Carragher, do not hide their concern before the seventh place in the Premier League and the 4-1 win against Napoli in the Champions League debut.
“The problem is not that match (vs Napoli). Forget about this game,” said the aforementioned analyst. “For me, the big concern is: is this going to continue throughout the season? Is it the end of a cycle? Has Liverpool made a mistake in the summer transfers? Because this team seems to be very far from it.”
The figures are indeed not good and point to the cause not only the departure of Sadio Mané (to Bayern Munich) but also the injuries of key players such as Thiago and the slow adaptation of Darwin Núñez, which cost 75 million euros (could be 100 with bonuses) and has already been sent off and penalized once, leaving his squad in serious trouble.
“Shameful, it really is,” Carragher said without hesitation. His doubts, like everyone else’s, go through the defensive problems that Van Dijk or Alisson Becker, two of the best in the world, can no longer hide: “I’ve said it before, they defend like children and this is the big problem right now”.
The mystique, the sacrifice, the devastating physical display are gone, according to the critic: “that energy doesn’t exist now, so the four in the back have to adapt and have to go back three or four meters. That’s all we’re talking about. But if they keep playing like this they are going to have a big problem in terms of the Premier League and qualifying for the next round of the Champions League.”
The doubts also go through an attack circuit that, although it continues to generate a large number of options, has lost aim. Luckily, the Colombian Luis Díaz has been the most salvageable, in the midst of a bad streak of Mohamed Salah, the great star.
Will Klopp go?
The problems are so serious that there are not a few who point directly to the much praised Jürgen Klopp, responsible for hiring and finding solutions to the many absences due to injury.
Will you pay for it with your fee?: “Not really, but who knows? There are different types of owners. Our landlords are pretty laid back and wait for me to resolve the situation and don’t expect someone else to do it. This is how they always saw it and the day they change their minds they will tell me, ”explained DT himself recently.
And it is worth saying that it is true, that Liverpool is not the kind of club that quickly loses its mind and that with everything he has achieved, the manager deserves patience. He knows that the situation is very complex and he admits it publicly: “with Alisson in goal, you have to be very bad for that to happen. It seems that we have to reinvent ourselves. Many things are missing… It’s not that we have to invent a new kind of football, we have to improve. I need time to say the right things because right now it’s not all 100 percent clear.”
