Jurgen Klopp’s Liverpool don’t sit around feeling sorry for themselves for long, but the question is what will be left of the season by the time the Reds recover?
It was then a sobering night in Naples.
The laws of average and all that, Jurgen Klopp’s poor record of results in Napoli was theoretically there to be overturned, but currently, this is not a Liverpool capable of dealing with the nuts and bolts of such a mission.
The fate of this game was cast in the first five minutes, as Victor Osimhen hit the outside of the post within 60 seconds of kick-off and Piotr Zielinski sent Alisson the wrong way from the penalty spot a few minutes later, after James Milner deftly deflected a Matteo Politano effort wide of the post.
It was a torrid premiere in a venue that cannot be encouraged like that, neither on the field nor in the stands. Virgil van Dijk soon received more potential gifts with an ill-timed tackle on Osimhen inside the penalty area. After the referee was asked to check the VAR, he easily awarded Napoli a second penalty and showed Van Dijk a yellow card.
This was where Napoli made their only mistake of the night, with Osimhen demanding the ball, rather than Zielinski taking the honors again. You just don’t switch to your penalty taker when your regular has just converted; it is a project of vanity and ego, a gamble that momentarily embarrassed Napoli’s number nine.
Saved by Alisson, Liverpool had the opportunity to use him as a strategically beneficial turning point, but by half-time they had conceded two more goals to Zambo Anguissa and Giovanni Simeone, the latter being the man to enter the fray before the interval when we played had been lucky enough to see the back of Osimhen who started early.
Completely irregular, Liverpool were porous at the back and pedestrian when in possession. A goal-line clearance by Van Dijk saved more blushes in an evening that will keep Joe Gomez and Trent Alexander-Arnold awake for several nights to come.
Once again, we worked some interesting positions but failed to take advantage of them. Alexander-Arnold had a free kick touched over the crossbar by alert Alex Meret, while Mohamed Salah found himself well positioned with the goal at his mercy, only to surprisingly deflect the ball. He would later see a low shot that the Napoli goalkeeper easily deflected.
Van Dijk with a header and Harvey Elliott on the back post could also have prospered another day, but it was all about ifs and buts, rather than absolutes. Give us the hint of an opportunity right now and we’re more likely to pass it up than take it. Conversely, offer our opponents a chance and they’ll rip our hand off in their rush to grab it.
Liverpool applied a bit of pressure when the score was 1-0, but the move proved to be our undoing, both because of our blatant lack of him and because of Napoli’s acceptance of theirs. Khvicha Kvaratskhelia and Stanislav Lobotka were always on the lookout for the ball and for 45 minutes we faced a pretty compelling tribute to the kind of quick, compelling exchanges that have been our calling card with Klopp. It was horrible to play against, in what was our worst half of football in a long time.
Too many key components who chose or forced to remain anonymous, this is a blast at how we used to embrace European ties in the late 1990s. Blink and it could have been PSG, Strasbourg or Celta Vigo circa 1997-99.
The early second-half exchanges offered no consolation, even though Joel Matip replaced Gomez, and the criminally exposed Allison was hung up by her defense once again as Zielinski made it 4-0. He was one of the few players who really deserved better.
On the plus side, Luis Diaz scored the goal of the night, a nice shot that tempered the rest of Napoli’s attacking intent, as the rest of the game played out with an unspoken agreement that if we weren’t foolish enough to try a ridiculous comeback, then the home team wouldn’t torture us anymore.
There are now three games between us and the first international break of the season and it is not unreasonable to suggest that they will set the bar for our aspirations and goals for the rest of the campaign.
A required reaction against Wolves, an early fork in the Champions League road against Ajax and a journey to face a dysfunctional Chelsea who should be under new management by the time we get to Stamford Bridge. The steps to follow are simple, but perhaps easier said than done.
The destruction of Bournemouth and the final flourish against Newcastle seemed like a good base to move on from, but we haven’t used it. Instead, one more step to the side and another step back has left us spinning in unsettling circles.
We have been in similar positions before under Klopp. I’ve written before about the extremes Liverpool oscillate between under him, but each relatively short retrograde move is inevitably followed by a prolonged upward trajectory, and he’ll find the right formula once again. The only question is, what will his team realistically have to play this season by the time the turmoil subsides?
Currently, it’s hard to see anything that isn’t more of the same inconsistent, at least until some big personalities start making the kind of consistent contributions we know they’re capable of.
Liverpool is not suddenly a bad team, this is not an overnight condition, a series of negative events have led us astray to this point, and a series of positive events will guide us away from the resulting fug, whether it be alterations in formations and tactical approaches. , or certain gaming staff being taken out of the line of fire for a while.
There isn’t going to be a eureka light-turning moment where everything magically goes back to being amazing once again, it’s going to take work for it and there’s going to be more bad days ahead as a side effect of that.
As fans it is up to us to show a little patience and as part of this it has to be accepted that other teams can also play very good football. Our performance levels have been exceptionally high in recent years, and it’s quite a task to keep them there when we’re carrying the sort of mental baggage that the final week of last season brought us.
In addition to this, we have produced a plan for other clubs to replicate. There are an increasing number of teams adhering to the contemporary ‘Liverpool Way’ and Napoli have essentially outdone us.
A week of soul-searching looms.
