ডাকবাংলা

Liverpool’s Lot

Any idea that Liverpool are back to their level was heavily dismissed with the Manchester City result. I mean, the frustrating thing is that if you saw their second half performance against West Ham the other week, which was great, and then their performance against Brighton – I think they played as badly as they did against Southampton, which in my opinion has been their poorest performance so far this season. 

Then come Manchester City – in the first half, I thought they had a chance, they were creating opportunities and in some parts, they looked like the so-called ‘old Liverpool’ – the one what was visible in the first half of the tournament and the one that was indomitable. But in the second half, Manchester City changed things up – they changed their formation and for Liverpool to then get an equalizer, we all thought they had a chance.

Manchester City recovered from Ilkay Gundogan’s first-half penalty miss, but it was Alisson who was having a really bad day at the office and that was a big factor in costing Liverpool the game. When Alisson played the ball, and it was a really bad ball, it was Phil Foden, who has to be the best English player at the moment, who did so well to get in a position to cross the ball and allow Gundogan to score had that ball gone to anyone else, it would have been a bad pass and it wouldn’t have cost Liverpool the game.  But if you make a mistake versus this team – Manchester City score. No one really knows what was going on with the second goal – Alisson, who is usually a hundred percent reliable, was just totally fallible.

I empathize with Alisson because I have been in that position – I have been there at Anfield making mistakes against a side that is likely to win the League a few years ago. Liverpool are making this mistake with 16 games to go, where there is still a chance to overtake and win the league. But when I did it against Manchester United, there were about four-five games to go. Had we won, there would have been a chance to catch Manchester United. So, there is a lot of empathy there.

The telling story, and the fact that I am now repeating it, is Jurgen Klopp’s post-match comments, saying that Alisson might have had ‘cold feet’. I have always mentioned and spoken about how Klopp and Guardiola have always been very honest in their appraisal even if they win, draw or lose. When Klopp came out with that excuse, it was almost like a different Jurgen Klopp. It might have been an excuse, or might have been tongue-in-cheek, but what it did was overemphasize the mistake. As the manager of a top team, every word you say has an impact on the players, on the team. If Klopp had spoken about how Alisson has rescued them so many times in the past, and unfortunately these things happen, then this incident would only be remembered as that – an incident – and people would have gone over it quite quickly. But him talking about cold feet, now everyone has been associating Alisson with cold feet and that’s a bit of a double whammy for him.

If you psychoanalyse and look at Klopp, he is usually a chirpy person and in that sense, he has a lot of synergy with Pep Guardiola. If you go back two months, Pep was complaining how Manchester City aren’t scoring enough goals, they were drawing too many games – he was being negative in his pre-match and post-match comments.  As soon as he signed his contract, he became happier again. It is like a demonstration of how influential a manager he is on his team. They coach a team, they manage them, yes, but when you hear them talking they reflect the confidence of the team. If I could give Jurgen Klopp some advice, it would be to start laughing and be happier.

If Liverpool had lost 2-1 against an excellent Manchester City, it would have been one thing, but it wasn’t a close game – where both teams were playing excellent football. Combine that with Klopp’s post-match comments, Liverpool are in a tough spot. They do not look like they are playing as a team – it just looks like 11 players playing for the field and that makes me wonder what it is that they are doing in training. Something needs to happen in Liverpool to prepare for the Leicester game and for them to win, or else, we are headed towards what would be a catastrophic season for Liverpool.

The issue of fans not being in stadiums is also an interesting one. Some players, some teams do need that support from the fans to get that extra kick. I was talking to Luke Ayling, the Leeds United defender recently, and he said they just wanted to stay in the Premier League because they wanted their fans to be able to watch them play. Leeds have been the dark horse this season along with Aston Villa. Their training methods seem top-notch because they look like a well-oiled machine on the field.

If you look at the Premier League this weekend, Liverpool play Leicester – and if the latter win they go six points ahead of Liverpool. That game on its own would still leave Liverpool in the fourth place but then Chelsea play Newcastle – and Chelsea at the moment have recovered and are winning games again, so they could potentially overtake Liverpool. You have also got West Ham United, who find themselves in a very unusual position – they play Sheffiled who are at the bottom of the League, so one can expect West Ham to scrape through that one and jump over Liverpool. Then we have Everton with two games in hand, one of them against Fulham, which the former will most likely win – so theoretically Liverpool might be at eighth place by the end of the weekend.

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