It was Mark Twain who, when contacted by a journalist in 1897 and perversely asked for a comment on whether he was dead, was supposed to have replied that reports of his demise were “grossly exaggerated”.
More than a century on and in the age of fake news, Jurgen Klopp is the latest manager to take issue with the coverage of Liverpool’s sharp demise. Their season is alive and well, he insists, and his side are ready to kickstart a revival when they travel to Tottenham on Thursday.
Spurs, ironically, were the last team to lose a Premier League match at Anfield. It was 16 December and the result represented another changing of the guard, the north Londoners having been top of the table before kick-off but handing that mantle to the victors on the night.
Since then, Liverpool have won just one league game, albeit in emphatic fashion, with a 7-0 victory over Crystal Palace.
In the six weeks or so that have followed, neither Tottenham nor the current champions have really looked like serious title contenders. Fittingly, should the hosts win at the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium on Thursday, they will overtake Liverpool in fourth place, and that could be a sobering realisation for the Reds that their horizons have changed very quickly.
Klopp was the first to concede that reality, admitting his team must first aim to secure Champions League football in what will be a highly competitive top-four race. They can take a major step forward by inflicting another defeat on Mourinho, whose counter-attacking set-up has the potential to prey on Liverpool’s apparent stagnation.
In that sense, perhaps Spurs are the worst possible team to play against following the 3-2 defeat to Manchester United, who broke forward with such energy in their FA Cup victory at Old Trafford. Yet Klopp is determined that it is Liverpool who once again become the worst team to play against at any given moment, even if their fear factor has faded since Christmas.
Liverpool’s post-Palace run
- Liverpool 1-1 West Brom (Premier League)
- Newcastle 0-0 Liverpool (Premier League)
- Southampton 1-0 Liverpool (Premier League)
- Aston Villa 1-4 Liverpool (FA Cup)
- Liverpool 0-0 Manchester United (Premier League)
- Liverpool 0-1 Burnley (Premier League)
- Manchester United 3-2 Liverpool (FA Cup)
“We want to be the one team nobody wants to play against,” Klopp said. “That’s a little problem, in the moment they defend deep against us and at one point you will get a counter [attack].
“But we want to be the team nobody wants to play against and we have the chance to be that team tomorrow night and then on Sunday and then on Wednesday and then again and again. That’s what we always want to be but then all of a sudden people told us we were the best in the world, which we never were but that’s not a problem.
“We could beat the best and we can still beat the best team in the world but we have to prove that on the pitch again – and we will. We are on fire to strike back and the more negative things said about us, the more we want it. I don’t read it or hear it but I know it.”
Mourinho defends Liverpool’s ‘difficult period’
Mourinho, who was full of bravado following Roberto Firmino’s late winner in December, was less keen to speculate on who is the “better team” ahead of kick-off this time around.
Spurs are in a stronger position to target Liverpool’s weak points now that they are more obvious to the naked eye. Heung-min Son will be ready to terrorise an off-form Trent Alexander-Arnold, while Mourinho could also opt for three central midfielders once again – a big test of Thiago Alcantara, who is also under scrutiny.
It would be foolish to write off Klopp’s men, even amidst a run of five winless league games and a defensive injury crisis which has plunged the likes of Rhys Williams into the first-team set-up.
Mourinho knows this and he is even more insistent than Klopp that nobody should be reading too much into the symbolic defeat to Burnley which ended Liverpool’s three-and-a-half years’ unbeaten run on Merseyside.
“When you win once you know you have the team to win it twice. When you never win it you have always the question mark what do we need to win it and we are not good enough to win it, what do we need to improve to win it,” Mourinho said.
“When you win it you know you are the best team and Liverpool was not just about winning, it was about winning so comfortably. So they know the team they are and they know the players they have. And they know they can do it again.
“Every club, especially the traditional top six has this situation. Not one team started with winning and is still winning after 19 matches and a few months of competition. Everyone has a difficult period. Some early, some later, some in the middle.
“Great evolution in the considered historically below level team and ambitions, great performances from many of them. Very good teams, very good squads. I feel completely natural that some results happen.”
It should also be natural that Liverpool’s powerhouse, so domineering for two years, should eventually run out of steam – but that doesn’t mean their title challenge is dead yet.
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from Football – inews.co.uk https://ift.tt/39lBqV5
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