It’s an interesting point, I’m glad you raised it as I’m sure you won’t get pounced on for using the word arrogant, but I’d agree some players have approached some games with a bit of a cockiness which has then lead to complacency and sloppiness. My view is the biggest area for improvement is to start games better and try to reduce complacency from our game, to that end I think Thiago helps because he is so god dam calm.
Something I’ve thought and would be very hard to quantify is how many times have we conceeded and then another due to a decision going against us. It seems there is a little streak in the team that we don’t recover quickly from a set back and allow complacency to creep into our game, which then over time leads to a bit of a panic mode and the end result is the endless long balls and crosses. Thankfully it’s a very small sample size!
Mane is a good example of this, he had a habit first half of the season to go into his shell when he was on the incorrect end of bad decisions, yet the confidence since he won the AFCON is infectious, nothing dents him, he just gets up and goes again.
But then you reflect and think of the points total gained, and it is really micro level nit picking, but I guess that’s what Klopp and the coaches need to do, the only way you can compete and hopefully beat a team with a money cheat mode is those marginal gains.
Will be an interesting pre-season and what the focus is, really good news Klopp gets a full one this year. Diaz is going to be a beast beyond his this season beast.
Woah. There are people here actually arguing a PL title is more important than a CL title? Seriously?? The only thing that makes such a comparison relevant is the childish United-Liverpool title count. Otherwise a CL win is miles ahead in terms of being a Barometer for how well a club is going. It obviously also helps if you are a club that has 90+ points and wins the CL as well.
But to point out how strongly I feel about this. If the situation was that you could only have Virgil to Alisson play in one match - The CL final or the final league game of the season when holding a 1 point league advantage, without a second thought I would prioritise the CL. And I have a pretty good feeling that those two players would agree.
I’d like another title just because the fans didn’t get to celebrate the last one properly.
At least we we’re so far ahead that we got some celebration out of it.
Would have hated to win it last season as that whole season was shit, same goes for the last two CL, this one however like the league is one I would love to win.
thing is - these 6 things you list would never stop an Arsenal or United winning the league back in the day.
But with City about they do now.
It gets to the stage where if we dont pick up 3 points every week it feels like it seriously ends our season league wise. Its not sustainable to be perfect every year. United won leagues losing 8 games. Arsenal drew about 14 in the “invincible” season.
I didnt mean arrogance in that sense though. I don’t believe we just show up and think the win will take care of itself. But I do think we glaze over issues that are occurring in a match, as if we are too good to be bothered or have to adapt to things other teams are doing. If you see a player get beaten once you notice. You see the same thing happen twice and you make an adjustment, either to give him help or collectively shut down that avenue. We very often see something happen time after time in the same match and do nothing at all to respond to it. That isnt because we’re dumb or cannot be bothered, and so I can only put it down to arrogance that we just need to play our game regardless of what is happening.
Is that arrogance or conviction? You can see it either way. Klopp rarely makes big tactical or personnel changes. Everyone knows how we play and he’s not likely to surprise anyone.
For example, against Real Madrid, we know they will try and get Vinicius in behind Trent, but there’s no way that Jürgen will chop and change anything to counter that. He’ll say, ok, they may get a couple of chances that way, but we’ll have Trent’s attacking threat. Klopp’s record of success speaks for itself though, so what do we know?
