It’s been coming.
For several weeks now, Liverpool have been scraping results, conceding sloppy goals, coming from behind, scoring in the last minute, drawing when they should be winning.
But it was still a surprise that their title aspirations came crashing down tonight against a depleted and tired Leicester City side, who Liverpool defeated in deflating circumstances for the Foxes in the Carabao Cup last week (Leicester losing a 2-0 and then a 3-1 lead before succumbing on penalties) and were then hammered by Manchester City 6-3 two days ago, while Liverpool got what Jurgen Klopp has been demanding ever since he came to English football – a break over Christmas, after Liverpool’s game against Leeds United was postponed because the Yorkshire side were unable to field a team due to Covid.
Indeed, it’s always been a myth that rested teams play better than teams which have had a hectic schedule. Rest, the loss of momentum, boredom, can often hurt a side more than help them.
How many times has a professional footballer said he prefers playing to training and, it’s hard to recall a single instance during Klopp’s time at Liverpool where his side have come back from a long layoff and hit the ground running.
If anything, Liverpool have lost form and crucial matches when they have been away from a competitive match for too long.
Liverpool dominated play in the first half and should have gone one up after 17 minutes when Mo Salah was tripped in the area and a penalty was awarded.
Having defeated Leicester last week in a penalty shootout, it seemed inevitable that karma would intervene and put a curse on the Egyptian, whose weak penalty was saved by Kasper Schmeichel, the follow up header from the stretching Salah hitting the bar.
These misses from Salah were as close as he came to scoring all evening, but his lacklustre display was no worse than Diogo Jota’s or Sadio Mané’s who had one of his worst displays in a Red shirt, poor passing, awful touch, while, in the second half, when he found himself through on goal, blasting the ball over the bar when any kind of decent and composed finish would’ve resulted in Liverpool taking the lead.
Without having created a single chance in the game, Brendan Rodgers on 55 minutes brought on Ademola Lookman to trouble Trent Alexander Arnold and within five minutes, the former Everton winger had seen off the hapless Liverpool right back, advanced to the box where Joel Matip put in a weak challenge, Virgil van Dijk backed off, before lashing the ball and beating Alisson Becker at his near post.
Liverpool still had more than half an hour to get back into the game and save their tilt at the title but never looked like doing so.
Despite an exhausted Leicester side, Liverpool failed to create any clear chances and the substitutions – Naby Keita on for Alex Oxlade Chamberlain, James Milner on for Fabinho and Roberto Firmino replacing Jordan Henderson – had no impact on the game.
With half the season now over, Manchester City are six points clear of Liverpool and Chelsea, who the Reds play next.
If Liverpool lose at Stamford Bridge on Sunday and if Manchester City win at Brentford tomorrow and at Arsenal on Saturday the Reds will be 12 points behind the title holders, an impossible gap to make up.
