In Liverpool’s preparations for Paris Saint-Germain, the staff have already come across quite a difference to their last meetings, in the 2018-19 group stage. The French champions are now a team that come at you with everything. They are stripped down and lean, brimming with youthful energy like that of French winger Bradley Barcola. Even Ousmane Dembele, once as unfortunate a symbol of football’s excess as Neymar, isn’t wasting anything.
That marks quite a difference to when Thomas Tuchel stood in the Anfield dressing room in September 2018, and has since told people he couldn’t believe what he heard. As detailed in this writer’s book ‘States of Play’, the German tried to exhort his €600m team to just run more, only to receive the response “why?”
