Daily Mirror (Northern Ireland)
Liverpool need a massive reboot to kick-start them out of their dreadful funk
I CAN’T remember a Liverpool trip to Old Trafford being met with such apathy. Jurgen Klopp’s side still have things to play for on Sunday: Pride, a chance to put one over on their bitterest rivals and keep alive their slim Champions League hopes.
But the feeling among many fans is a win would only give false hope that would be dashed when Southampton visit Anfield the following week and take points from a team that is mentally shot.
After Saturday’s woeful surrender to lowly Newcastle at least Klopp had the decency to reflect what the rest of us were thinking when he said Liverpool don’t deserve to qualify for the Champions League.
More honesty, much earlier, about why they were unable to sustain a title defence would have been welcomed from a club that seems happy to hide behind the excuses of an empty ground (which all their rivals have) and seasonending injuries to Virgil van Dijk and Joe Gomez (which happened last autumn). Watching their trajectory since the opening of the January window, when the arrivals needed to fill the gaping hole in the middle of the defence never arrived, it feels too many players absolved themselves of responsibility and psychologically wrote off the season.
But when the owners appeared to do just that by refusing to sanction moves until the window was closing – possibly because they were more focused on shady projects aimed at getting richer – maybe Liverpool have been mentally rotting from the head down.
The statistics are horrendous. At Anfield in 2021, 146 shots have produced just four league goals, they have dropped a staggering 24 home points since Christmas and in 10 games this season against the bottom six they have only won twice, both times against relegated Sheffield United.
But if the numbers are damning, so too is the body language of many players and the lack of quality options in the squad.
When Klopp needed to put the game beyond Newcastle on Saturday he looked past Naby Keita, Alex Oxlade-chamberlain and Xherdan Shaqiri and went for 35-year-old James Milner.
Despite Roberto Firmino and Sadio Mane stinking out Anfield again, there was no feasible attacking option on the bench.
After an incredibly intense three-year period that squad needed quality fine-tuning last summer to allow overused first-teamers a chance to rest. It didn’t happen.
Between them, the front three of Mane, Firmino and Mohamed Salah have missed just six Premier League games this season.
The attacking full-backs – Andy Robertson and Trent
Alexander-arnold – have missed just two, because Klopp clearly doesn’t trust £12million buy Kostas Tsimikas and Neco Williams.
Transfer guru Michael Edwards has been highly praised for his work, but in the past three windows only Diogo Jota has been an unqualified success.
Edwards needs to get his mojo back this summer, helped by moving on the likes of Oxlade-chamberlain, Keita, Shaqiri, Divock Origi, and possibly Takumi Minamino, and reinvesting heavily.
Klopp has mocked suggestions his squad needs a rebuild, stating “little readjustments” are all that’s required. But that sounds like bluffing.
He knows the returns of Van Dijk, Gomez and Jordan Henderson alone are not going to turn this side back into a lethal winning machine. This squad is at the end of its cycle and needs a substantial reboot.
Firmino has lost the right to automatic possession of the No.9 shirt, so a new centre-forward is a must.
A maturing Curtis Jones will be a bonus next year, as should the returning Harvey Elliott, but they need a topclass midfielder to replace Gini Wijnaldum and a quality partner, who can stay fit, for Van Dijk.
More than anything the club as a whole needs to stop feeling sorry for itself and mentally toughen-up.
The dreadful This Means More motto may thankfully have been trashed out of existence by the owners, but the decades-old concept of sticking together and fighting through a crisis, known as The Liverpool Way, still stands for something.
The club as a whole needs to stop feeling sorry for itself