Another Saturday, a trip to Wolverhampton, another stunning defeat and another call to return to the basics of Liverpool.
Self-inflicted wounds decided the outcome of this game within the first 12 minutes, which we can only hope represents the bottom reached. Although there are absolutely no guarantees.
Our next assignment is against Everton, filled with Sean Dyche, who has just beaten league leader Arsenal.
At Molineux, the energy and confidence that we just can’t match right now has been destroyed, and it was almost an exact reconstruction of the Premier League defeat at Brighton a few weeks ago, except for more anxiety.
Where’s your head?
While Brighton are now considered a hipster favorite, with sincere dreams of qualifying for Europe, even more emboldened by high hopes of reaching a second FA Cup final, Wolves are an organization that is working hard to fix its dysfunctional first half of the season. .
This is the team that entered this game, returning to the top three worst before the start of the match, the team with the fewest goals in the Premier League this season.
The three goals that Wolves ran past us equaled a quarter of all their previous Premier League goals this season. Despite the exploits of his players on Saturday, Julen Lopetegui’s team is still the most productive team in the top division, and this makes them as likely candidates for relegation as any of the teams around them.
We were in a terrible situation and Liverpool basically became a confidence booster and a springboard for other teams to find their own better landscapes. A negative result in the Merseyside derby next Monday will completely repeat this pattern. Something has to give.
Liverpool could use a confidence booster and their own springboard.
We are all looking for answers to the questions that Jurgen Klopp and his players are being asked now, but they already know the answers. It’s still the manager and the set of players who pretty much were there, saw it, won and took the shirt.
Having won everything that can be won, there is no mountain that they would not climb. They know the theory of how to return to form, but they also know that the practical bridging of the abyss to this return to form is a great intangible, because it is an achievement that cannot be forced, created or manufactured.
Work together, prosper together. There is no shortage of talent in this team of players, despite the fact that we all know that the area needs strengthening. Liverpool’s problems are not in the legs, everything is in the head. It’s hard to blame individuals when the problems are so widespread.
Repeating the basics
In the Klopp era, we were very proud of our ability to be “mental monsters”, but when we get into these periodic ruts, we ridicule this concept.
We can be unstoppable when we are on the crest of a wave, but we are completely doomed to failure when the world is against us. We are capable of everything at one end of the spectrum, but we are not even capable of the basics at the other end.
It’s hard to ignore the bigger picture, but the way Liverpool are getting out of their current predicament is to relearn the basics first, even if it means getting everything back to the most basic basics before even thinking about regaining confidence. We are currently doing so many things badly, and we need to get used to the feeling that we are doing everything right again.
These can be simple tasks such as making sure that you are resolutely clearing your lines and making sure that when you have possession of the ball, you are directing it towards a player who is wearing a T-shirt of the same color as you. Preferably a teammate who you won’t put too much pressure on by giving the ball away.
Being aware of what is happening around you is as good as traffic and accessibility. Football in its most basic element remains a simple game. However, confidence is built from scratch. It doesn’t come at the flick of a switch, and there’s so much dictated by the vagaries of the mind.
However, it’s not just about the players. The manager and his coaching staff should be pragmatic. In which parts of the field are we most vulnerable? Identify these areas and add additional shelter to them.
At some point, Liverpool will have to confront and let go of the pain of the last six days of the 2021/22 season. I fully believe that this is what lies at the heart of our 2022/23 problems. In this regard, we are repeat offenders.
As a team, we are not coping well with football grief. The big problem is that in situations like this in the Premier League era, our reaction to it was to think for a while before tearing it all up and starting over.
For example, see Roy Evans 1996/97, who left in 1998; Gerard Houllier 2001/02, passed away in 2004; Rafael Benitez 2008/09, left in 2010; and Brendan Rodgers 2013/14, who left in 2015.
Jurgen Klopp will avoid such a path only if he, his players, owners and we, the fans, are a little wiser and more mature than they were in the past.
However, there is a difference for Klopp in that he has been through similar things before and he can pull us out again.
