More leggy displays on cards as Reds bring bizarre season to end

AS Sid Waddell once nearly said: “When Alexander of Macedonia was 33, he cried salt tears because there were no more worlds to conquer . . . Andy Robertson’s only 26.”

That is not to pick on Robertson, even if he was one of Liverpool’s leggier players in their emphatic 4-0 thrashing at the hands of Manchester City on their first outing after their first domestic league title in 30 years. But his performance, and those of his team-mates, raised an interesting question which will dominate during the final weeks of the newly-crowned champions’ season: what do you do when you’ve already done it all?

Jurgen Klopp dismissed all suggestions that his side’s hammering was in any way a hangover from last week.

“I saw a brilliant attitude. I saw boys fighting with all they have. We didn’t behave like somebody who became champion a week ago.”

Could this result have happened at any time of the season?

“One hundred per cent,” Klopp insisted. “I think we’ve had games when we were not better than today and we won against City, that’s the truth as well.”

Plenty

And though Liverpool lost at the Etihad, there is still plenty they could achieve between now and the end of July.

Another 15 points from a possible 18 will be enough for 101 points overall, edging past City’s 2017-18 centurion campaign.

Another five wins will beat City’s total of 32 victories from that season, and whereas City finished with a record 19-point gap over the runners-up, Liverpool’s gap is currently 20 points wide.

None of those come with another medal to hang around your neck, though.

And if there were still Champions League games to find a rhythm for – or even if you’d simply never won it before – it would be easy to feel as though the rest of the campaign was at least building towards something bigger. That is not the case either.

Liverpool’s problem between now and the end of the season is simple, really: when you’re the reigning champions of England, Europe and the world, you can either start a space program or step back, take a second and enjoy it.

It will be no surprise if they break every points and win record between now and the end of the season because they have proven they are a spectacular football team.

But there is also a chance that this winning machine malfunctions slightly, now there is not as much at stake, and their achievement would be no less for it. (© Independent News Service)