To start this blog post, I want to ask you, my loyal reader, a question. Would you believe it if I told you that a club would beat two teams 9-0 and 7-0 respectively only to lose to them in the reverse tie? Would you believe it if I told you that a team would ship 9 in 3 separate games within 40 days of the new year to 3 teams who combined have spent barely a decade in the division? Would you believe it if I told you that a club would concede 4 in 47 minutes (with a missed penalty) to a club who they would beat without a fuss in the return fixture? And finally, would you believe it when I told you that a club that was 3 goals away from winning the 4 most prestigious trophies they could possibly win last season is now languishing 3 points from 9th, out of all four competitions in March, and is struggling to get into the top 4?
Everything above is true for Liverpool this season. While last season, Liverpool were a well oiled winning machine battling for the quadruple until the final moments, this season, they’re a disorganized mess who have been so entertaining to watch as a neutral because you have no idea what they’ll do. Will they annihilate their opponents and have the game wrapped up with 30 minutes to go, will it be a struggle where they’ll battle for the whole game to either win, lose, or draw narrowly, or will it be an embarrassing and large loss? This inconsistency is better than consistently being bad, don’t get me wrong, but it is certainly surprising and disappointing for a team that was so good last season.
The summer transfer window wasn’t terrible. Then again, it shouldn’t when you make a loss of 55 million euros. They did some club tuneups for the most part, getting rid of Neco Williams, Takumi Minamino, Marko Grujic (who was somehow still at the club), Ben Davies, Divock Origi, Sheyi Ojo, and Ben Woodburn. They got 48 million for them all combined, which is a steal for 7 players who would never play anyway. They also signed Fabio Carvalho, Calvin Ramsay, and Arthur Melo (on loan) for a combined 15 million. The big moves for Liverpool were to get rid of longtime LW Sadio Mané for 32 million to Bayern due to a salary dispute; they had to choose between him and Mohamed Salah, who both wanted big pay rises and whose contracts were set to run out in 2023.
The replacement for Mane got the red side of Merseyside in a frenzy. 23-year-old Darwin Núñez, who scored 35 goals in 41 games for Benfica in 2021-22, including two against Liverpool in the Champions League Quarterfinals, signed for the reds for a whopping 80 million euros. This made him tied for the 27th most expensive transfer ever, only 1 million euros less than what Liverpool received for countryman Luis Suárez when he moved to Barcelona in 2014.
While Liverpool did lose 4-0 to Manchester United and 3-0 to Strasbourg in pre-season, but those results are always to be taken with a grain of salt. Besides, Their shiny new striker Darwin Núñez had already outperformed perceived rival Erling Haaland big time in the Community Shield before the season started, in that Nunez scored and drew a penalty in half an hour off the bench while Haaland was invisible and missed an open net with the last kick of the game in the full 90 while Liverpool beat them 3-1.
Everything looked up for Liverpool going into their league opener at Craven Cottage. Then Fulham scored. It was a dose of reality for Liverpool as they went on to draw 2-all. Their next match was their home opener against Crystal Palace. With an Anfield crowd to spur them on, they were still confident on bouncing back and trouncing Palace. Then Palace scored. Their starboy Darwin Núñez got sent off after headbutting Palace defender Joachim Andersen. Liverpool ended up drawing that one too. The next game was the Old Trafford match against Man United, and Liverpool were cautiously optimistic as Man Utd had lost their first two fixtures, 2-1 to Brighton and 4-0 to Brentford and were rock bottom. Furthermore, they were focused on shiny new signing Casemiro from Real Madrid, who came from absolutely nowhere to sign for the Reds. I mean, Casemiro’s last match for Los Blancos, which was 2 weeks before his transfer, no one had any clue he was going to leave. Anyway, Liverpool thought that this was their chance to get their first league win. Then Man Utd scored. This time, Liverpool would lose 2-1.
After 3 matches, they were 16th in the standings, below all 3 of the newly promoted teams. Then along came Bournemouth. Liverpool finally scored first, and it turns out that’s all it took. 3 minutes in, 1-0. 6 minutes in, 2-0. 28 minutes in, 3-0. 31 minutes in, 4-0. 45 minutes in, 5-0. Everyone everywhere was shocked. This team that struggled to get any points was gone. In their place were machines. 46 minutes in, 6-0. 62 minutes in, 7-0. 80 minutes in, 8-0. And finally, 85 minutes in, 9-0. Anfield was buzzing. This was the result to turn around the Reds’ season.
Liverpool proceeded to beat Newcastle and draw to Everton, only losing 1 of their next 6 matches, to first placed Arsenal. These results were reflected in the Champions League, with a freak 4-1 loss away to Napoli, but they beat Ajax 2-0, and notably, Rangers 7-1. They had a few draws in the mix, but Liverpool, slowly but surely, were back on form. They even beat Man City at the Etihad 1-0. Then the most unexpected of stumbling blocks made their season go for another turn. 19th place Nottingham Forest, through a Taiwo Awoniyi goal, their former player, beat them 1-0. Liverpool went on to then lose to 18th place Leeds. However, they did win the rest of their games leading up to the World Cup break, but it was still considered a disappointing season thus far, with them placing 7th.
The first game after the conclusion of the World Cup saw Liverpool knocked out of the Carabao Cup, in a thrilling 3-2 loss to Man City, which was a welcome back for club football to the World. This is when Liverpool’s season really falls apart. Narrow wins vs Villa and Leicester lead up to the match against Brentford. An Ibrahima Konate own goal, followed up by Yoan Wissa and Bryan Mbeumo goals saw Liverpool lose 3-1 at the same ground Man Utd lost 4-0.
But oh no, they weren’t done. Oh, no. After an unconvincing 2-2 draw with Wolves in the FA Cup, a second half collapse against Brighton saw them lose 3-0 to a squad that didn’t even have the player who scored a hat-trick against Liverpool in the reverse tie. At Molineaux, they scraped a 1-0 win in the FA Cup 3rd round replay. A match against equally out of form Chelsea saw a dismal 0-0 draw that no one saw coming (everyone saw it coming). Then, they crashed out of the FA Cup to Brighton after a 92nd minute winner by Kaoru Mitoma. It was their second loss to Brighton that month. In context, previous to that month, they only had 2 losses to Brighton in 39 years. To rub salt in the wounds, they failed miserably in a Wolves grudge match, with Wolves getting revenge in the shape of a 3-0 win at Molineaux.
Despite this, a win in the Merseyside Derby as well as a win vs Newcastle, who had the longest unbeaten run in the Premier League prior to the match, saw them come into the Real Madrid match confident. Their confidence had seemed to pay off, as somehow they were up 2-0 inside 15 minutes! This looked like it may be a historic demolition of Real Madrid, who weren’t in peak form either. Well, no. Liverpool’s spirits were well and truly run into the ground with 5 unanswered goals by Madrid saw a 5-2 loss by Liverpool at Anfield.
Liverpool had their tails between their legs in the lead up to the Manchester United match. The first 40 minutes were hotly contested, with Liverpool finally getting the lead from Cody Gakpo 43 minutes in. They had no clue what the second half had in store for them. Everything was working, and they just kept scoring. They won SEVEN NIL. Manchester United suffered their largest defeat in the Premier League era. It rocked Liverpool football club, and got them dreaming. Their next match was against Bournemouth, a club they had beaten 9-0 at Anfield. What was the score? 4-0? 5-0? No. Liverpool lost. 1-0. What a difference the stadium makes. This killed the club’s momentum in the lead up to the Madrid second leg, and a second-best performance ended in a 1-0 defeat, 6-2 on aggregate.
That leads us to today. A beaten up Liverpool team, with two high moments and the rest being lows. It has been a sad season for the reds. What has led to such a dual-personalities-esque season? Honestly, I don’t know. I’ve never seen anything like this before. Sure, seeing as I only started watching the sport in 2016, I have much less experience than most, but I haven’t heard anything like this either. Monumental wins, like a Pep Guardiola team, but still massively underachieving.
It is a mind boggler. It remains to be seen how Liverpool will recover from this season. Until then, I’m Jim James, until next time!