Joe Gomez believes Liverpool's early-season struggles cannot be fixed overnight but has played down claims that he and his team-mates are suffering from the exertion of last season's quadruple chase.
It's been a season to forget for Jurgen Klopp 's squad who are weathering the club's worst start to a season since the final months of Brendan Rodgers' tenure in 2015. Saturday's 1-0 defeat at Nottingham Forest means that the Reds have lost more games in the opening two months of the new season than they did during the whole of the 2021/22 campaign.
The Reds currently sit eighth in the Premier League table, five points behind Newcastle United in fourth and twelve behind table-topping Arsenal. And Gomez has admitted such a wretched start to the campaign has left senior members of the Anfield dressing room organising meetings in an attempt to get to the bottom of the current rot.
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"It’s been a tough year, a lot less consistency than I think we have set the standard of in the last few years," said the defender. "It’s obviously not what we want it to be but I think everyone in the building has the desire to try and treat the next game like it’s the most important and try and make it right.
"The first thing, obviously as players, we’re going to question ourselves individually. There have obviously been occasions where we have done that as a group this season. The skipper, or the other senior members of the team, pulling a meeting together and trying to dissect what we could do better and what went wrong.
"Since the gaffer [Klopp] has come in there have been signings and top-class players added, but we’ve been together for a while. I mean the skipper has been the skipper since the gaffer came and senior players have been here for a long time. So it’s honest, frank conversations that can be had on the bus, after games or in the dressing room that just say it how it is and support each other when things aren’t going the best. Fundamentally, it’s been a rough season compared to previous ones and we accept that as a team and we just want to get it right.
"That is a positive of having an experienced dressing room and a team that has been together for a while now. The answers aren’t clear and simple, it’s not just going to be like a switch. We might string performances together suddenly but we know it’s going to be a process and there has definitely been that accountability. We’re the ones that go out there, even with the gaffer's guidance and we have to execute what he asks of us.
Last season saw Liverpool go within a whisker of achieving an unprecedented quadruple as their 63-game campaign saw them triumph in the League Cup and FA Cup before missing out on the Premier League and Champions League by the finest of margins.
Such a gruelling schedule, fused with the slim summer break, has caused many to speculate as to whether Klopp's men are suffering due from an extended, yet understandable, hangover this time around.
However, Gomez has played down such claims and insisted the minutes he and his team-mates racked up last season were not different from any other elite-level club.
"I don’t think that’s a major concern," said the 25-year-old, speaking to talkSPORT. "At the end of the day, every top club is in the same boat because there are top internationals in every team that go away and play in the summer.
"I guess if we knew the answer specifically we would have come to a conclusion by now. I think we all know we just have to stick together and keep applying the principle of working hard. Our principle that has been with us since the gaffer came in has been intensity and playing with desire. I think things will come together, I think we have to have that belief that we can get more consistent against and string performances together. We obviously still have a top team with players that are proven and I’m sure things will come together."
After suffering a season-ending patellar tendon injury while on international duty at St Georges' Park in November 2020, Gomez effectively lost out on 18 months of football as his return to fitness in the summer of 2021 coincided with the signing of Ibrahima Konate and the resurgence of Joel Matip. A concoction of such factors saw the defender spend most of last season on the substitutes' bench as he was used sparingly by Klopp.
Yet, despite struggling for consistency this campaign, Gomez was a standout performer as Liverpool inflicted defeat on Manchester City at Anfield earlier in the month. With himself and Virgil van Dijk limiting the impact of the free-scoring Erling Haaland.
Such form has linked the defended with a late call-up to Gareth Southgate's World Cup squad, with the England manager said to be a huge fan of Gomez's on and off-field qualities. Something the former Charlton Athletic defender claims would be a dream.
"I would be lying if I said it wasn't on my mind," added Gomez. "It's obviously a massive goal of mine for different reasons; I got injured on camp a long time ago and it's been a goal of mine to come full circle and be back involved, and to go to a World Cup - it's every boy's dream. Fundamentally, I know you have to keep the main thing and focus on one game at a time and performing here is the most important thing and as a byproduct hopefully being able to be part of Gareth's squad.
"I know I have to take it as one game at a time, the last thing I - or any individual in the team - can do is think about towards World Cup when we have to make things right at club level first."
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