At this point a year ago, hope was fading and the mood was souring around Liverpool. A side expected to at least mount something resembling a defence of their title from the season before was struggling both to deliver strong performances and good results.
Worse than that, perhaps, they were sinking into an increasingly passive shell.
For a time, the home crowds tried to do their part. Yet as it became clear the team were getting stuck ever deeper in their reactive rut, either unable due to circumstances or unwilling due to tactics to play a more passionate and proactive game, even that slipped away.
If the team wasn’t going to play a passionate brand of football—for whatever reason—then Anfield was always going to struggle to find their own passion across the length and breadth of the season. Two months into Andoni Iraola’s tenure as manager, it’s clear the passion is back. On both sides.
“Everybody in the stands knows when we have a little bit of momentum or a good moment then they get behind us with everything they’ve got,” forward Cody Gakpo said following Wednesday’s penalty shootout victory over Chelsea in the League Cup.
“I have to say, it always gives us energy nobody thought they had. It’s very helpful and obviously we are very appreciative of that and we always try to give back. So here we obviously had a little advantage with the crowd and being at home, so that was nice. I think in the end it’s a good win.”
Last season, the players and the fans almost seemed to get stuck in a negative feedback loop.
The players were more passive and played a more reactive game and the energy in the stands dropped and individual errors on the pitch were punished and nobody on either side was able to find the wherewithal to react and the energy both on and off the pitch dropped further.
It’s not what anyone would have wanted. There were good reasons to explain why it might have started. But once stuck in it, it became self-reinforcing and nobody involved seemed to know how to do anything but dig the hole deeper.
On the evidence of the early season and last night against Chelsea, that ability for the fans to push the players at times as well as for the players to ask for help—and receive it—with a well-timed moment of passion and effort is back. And with it, the Reds are into the quarter-finals of the League Cup.
“The further you go in the tournament the closer it gets to silverware and it’s a competition wthathich goes fast with the final in February or March,” Gakpo added. “So it can be quick silverware for the team and it can also give you a boost for the end of the season as well.”
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