The season review

I think it’s safe to say no LFC fans will look back on the 22/23 season with fondness, in fact I’d be surprised if any of us aren’t glad to see the back of it but where did it all go so badly wrong for a team that were two games away from an unprecedented quadruple last season?

In truth, there’s a raft of reasons. It all started with our ridiculous preseason. The lads had only had three weeks off before we jetted off around the world and put our boys through double sessions, in a hot and humid climate, as if their fitness levels would have dropped off a cliff in the short period of time they had off. This isn’t the 80’s, where the players would have spent their time off drinking heavily every day and eating kebabs. Most footballers these days don’t drink and are health conscious all year round. I said at the time I thought it was nuts, I’ve experienced being overtrained myself by an overzealous sergeant during my army days and the initial upturn in fitness is soon replaced by injuries and accumulative fatigue and I feel the way our boys were dropping like flies, both in preseason and the early weeks of the season, combined with our extremely sluggish start where we were outrun by… well everyone really in the first few weeks of the season, proves that point. Plus Klopp has already said preseason will be different this year, which is pretty much an acknowledgment that the club got it wrong last year.

That’s the coaching staff then. Now for the owners. We’ve always known that FSG aren’t the most liberal of owners when it comes to splashing the cash and I think most of us have been ok with that for the most part. There’s being sensible however and then there’s just being tight, to the detriment of the team and the club. From signing NOBODY on the back of a Champions League win, to focusing on youth (probably with the homegrown quota in mind) to the detriment of the first team, the reality is that there’s been a chronic lack of investment from the owners, considering the stature of the club, the goals we set ourselves and who we’re competing with. Again, nobody expects them to try and compete with City and Chelsea but surely we can compete with Wolves and West Ham and if they can’t, they’re in the wrong business. Fans and I suspect manager alike, will be expecting major investment this summer and it’s long overdue, as they’ve allowed our first team to become old and stale, expecting the same players to keep the same standards season after season.

Klopp and the players aren’t getting a free pass however. Klopp has made some baffling decisions this season, the signing of Nunez continues to make no sense at all in terms of where he fits in the team, the price we paid for him and how he’s been utilised. Starting Elliot and Carvalho in the derby, when Stevie Wonder could see they’d be bullied and overrun to name just a couple of examples. As for the players, Trent’s defending this season has been nothing short of diabolical and you can add Fabinho, Hendo, Matip and Gomez to first team players that haven’t just suffered from a slight drop off in form, their form fell off a cliff. Really only Alisson, Robbo and Salah come out the season with any credit and Salah only because of the numbers he’s put on the board, not from his performances.

Where does that leave us then? Well with a fairly major rebuild and rethink. Trent has shown how effective he can be as a midfielder but the system of playing without a RB has so many flaws, I could write a book on it and conceding four goals to bottom of the table and already relegated Southampton on Sunday, just emphasises the point and with Klopp admitting the club are looking at every position apart from GK this summer, he clearly sees it too.

As a bare minimum, we need two midfielders, a RB and another pacy CB in my opinion. There’s a lot of talk around Alexis Mac Allister and I’m a big fan of his but we badly need an injection of energy into our midfield and that’s not really his game so we need at least one more midfielder in my opinion and you could make a case for another. Whether FSG will stretch to that level of investment, I highly doubt but they need a reality check if they think Klopp can keep working miracles with the absolute bare minimum of owner investment.

Ultimately, we’ve bled this group of players dry, they’ve surpassed all expectations but their cycle is over and it’s time for the club to show they still have the ambition to remain as one of Europes leading clubs. This is as big a summer as the club have faced in the Klopp era and it’s imperative we get it right, after a season where pretty much everything has gone wrong. Walk on!