It has to be said - this Liverpool 2.0 team has a lot going for it, but it has not yet figured out how to play against top opponents and rise to big occasions. We can play breathtaking football against the Chelseas or Newcastles of this league - the mid-upper tier - but we become strangely anemic and don’t look anything like ourselves against teams who are as good and well-coached as us, which is why we haven’t won any of the “big” games this season - City, Arsenal in the league and United (you can add De Zerbi’s Brighton early in the season to that pattern when they looked like the tactical set-up everyone measured themselves against).
Another pattern, some of our best players and arguably Klopp himself make inexplicable decisions and mistakes in those big games. Alisson had only 2 games this season where his mistakes cost us - but those 2 bad games came against Man City and Arsenal away. Klopp’s subs made us weaker in both games against Arsenal and overall his tactics seemed muddled - how is it possible not to play Nunez and Trent together; subbing one off when the other comes on? Why were the lessons from the Cup game against Arsenal not learned and we once again didn’t have outlets on the wings to ping balls to and run at Arsenal’s inferior full-backs instead of Saliba-Gabriel?
But even more than any individual decisions, it’s the overall way the team plays in those big games - the freedom and energy is gone, we’re trying to play with brain not instinct, overthinking and second-guessing - and that’s where the mistakes come from. And that perhaps is also the clue as to why the big game blues are happening - this team is still too raw and young and can’t process the amount of tactical information you need to play against Guardiola or Arteta and in trying to follow directions they lose the freedom and creativity that got them to this position in the first place. We’re a different team against big teams - and at the moment not a particularly good one.
Another pattern, some of our best players and arguably Klopp himself make inexplicable decisions and mistakes in those big games. Alisson had only 2 games this season where his mistakes cost us - but those 2 bad games came against Man City and Arsenal away. Klopp’s subs made us weaker in both games against Arsenal and overall his tactics seemed muddled - how is it possible not to play Nunez and Trent together; subbing one off when the other comes on? Why were the lessons from the Cup game against Arsenal not learned and we once again didn’t have outlets on the wings to ping balls to and run at Arsenal’s inferior full-backs instead of Saliba-Gabriel?
But even more than any individual decisions, it’s the overall way the team plays in those big games - the freedom and energy is gone, we’re trying to play with brain not instinct, overthinking and second-guessing - and that’s where the mistakes come from. And that perhaps is also the clue as to why the big game blues are happening - this team is still too raw and young and can’t process the amount of tactical information you need to play against Guardiola or Arteta and in trying to follow directions they lose the freedom and creativity that got them to this position in the first place. We’re a different team against big teams - and at the moment not a particularly good one.
Last edited: