The biggest frustration with this Liverpool team right now is: if we play well, we can beat anyone on the planet. We proved that by beating Man City in October, which was our best performance of the season, but we haven’t raised our game enough in certain matches.
There are players who are putting in 6/10 displays each week, which can come down to a lack of confidence or loss of form. That can happen in football and you can sometimes carry one player and still win games, but you will always struggle when two or three are below par. Man City faced the same problem in recent home games with Brentford and Everton, where De Bruyne and Haaland were not at their best and the team suffered the consequences of that.
We can’t take teams for granted anymore. We’re going to Brighton at the weekend, who are a really strong side. They proved it against us last year and this year in the 3-3 draw. If we get past Wolves in the FA Cup, we will play Brighton again and that’s another tough draw on the horizon for us. None of the draws have been kind to us this season: we’ve got Madrid in the Champions League, we had City in the League Cup and a Premier League side in the FA Cup third round and, potentially, fourth round. You look at United, by contrast, and things have fallen nicely for them. Charlton at home in the League Cup and Reading at home in the FA Cup.
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Brighton will play to win against Liverpool on Saturday, make no mistake about it. If we give away the number of chances we have in recent weeks, we will get punished yet again. You can’t win games when you are leaking goals left, right and centre. We are asking ourselves to score three or more to win matches right now, that’s where we’re at. We would have needed four to have won at Brentford and it was three against Wolves. We are far too open and have got to get back to basics.
Roberto De Zerbi has made a real impact since replacing Graham Potter as manager, and their powerful midfield has played a major role in their success. The partnership of Alexis Mac Allister and Moises Caicedo, two players Liverpool have been linked with in the market, is a real worry. We have to be at our best and match them in this area or risk being played through all afternoon.
Time to back Jurgen
You have got to trust the manager. He has been the best we’ve had since Bill Shankly and knows what he is doing. There is an undoubted clamour for new signings but, in today's market, you need £100million to go and replace players. We just haven’t got that at this moment in time, maybe we will further down the line.
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