Klopp’s Kop flflopsflops face chop

LIVERPOOL may have cared about the League Cup, as Jurgen Klopp insisted; the trouble was… so did Southampton.

And if missing out on a potential blockbuster Wembley final with Man United wasn’t gut-wrenching enough for the Reds, a season of rich promise could be over next week.

Anything other than three points from Chelsea’s visit on Tuesday would effectively end Liverpool’s title challenge. In between, there’s the FA Cup fourth round tie with Wolves in which Klopp may have been tempted to rest his main men. Now it may be too much of a risk: going out of two cups in four days would look an awful lot like carelessness.

Koppites will be scratching their heads and wondering how it has come to this. The way a rampant attack with quicksilver passing and cutting edge finishing was taking all before it bore the hallmark of champions.

Brazilians Coutinho and Firmino were playing as if they were back in the favela; Adam Lallana was reinvented and, at the head of the arrow, Sadio Mane so quick he could have been Usain Bolt on Fast Forward. So slick and joyous was their movement that obvious weaknesses at the back were glossed over.

They thrashed Chelsea at Stamford Bridge, Arsenal at the Emirates and convincingly outmanouevred Man City at the Etihad on New Year’s Eve. Even though there had been slip-ups against Burnley and Bournemouth, the telltale stat was that they were top of the top six’s own mini table.

But since the turn of the year, their form has been more like that of relegation candidates. Just one win in seven games and that a narrow one over fourth tier Plymouth in an FA Cup replay – suggests something is fundamentally wrong.

They missed Coutinho for a while and he’s still to regain the form that has Barcelona among his suitors. They are missing Mane even more but there is an overall lethargy that is currently afflicting them. And, ironically, it has come when the much-maligned goalkeepers have begun to remove the Teflon from their gloves.

Indeed, Loris Karius kept them in one avoidable absence has been that of Joel Matip whose height and steadiness at the back has been missed as much as the forwards’ attacking brio.

Jamie Carragher, who has become as forthright a pundit as he was defender, fears that “Liverpool have run out of legs”, and suggests the intensity of the pressing has taken its toll. Saints’ fans of a certain vintage may have a wry chuckle at that as it’s not the first time they have met opponents in this competition who were “legless”.

The last time they reached the final was in 1979 when they were underdogs to Brian Clough’s Nottingham Forest who were League Champions and would go on to win the European Cup weeks later.

Like Klopp now, Cloughie was concerned that his players were succumbing to the pressures of a mounting fixture list and, having sleepwalked through the first half to be behind at halftime, it looked like his worst fears were justified.

However, a few harsh words from the great man and the sobering effect of 45 minutes in the Wembley sunshine did the trick, Forest turned on the style and won comfortably. Only when asked to explain their first half performance, did they admit to being legless from the night before - Cloughie had taken them out for quite a few tension-reducing beers.

As Carra pointed out, if Liverpool’s problem is rather more deep-rooted and from which they cannot simply sober up. And for a club without a trophy for five years and the title for unmentionable aeons, it is a serious concern.

Indeed, it brings into focus whether he and the American owners can actually land the title on the cheap – and he may rue his own preference for improving players over buying new ones. It also raises the question of whether his intense pressing and training are what’s required to be successful in English football.

He admits that the joy has gone out of his players. And this is when they have been spared the demands of Europe. Maybe he should take them out for a few beers.