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| Champions of England |
Need we say more? This season is done after 31 games. Most Games to go at 7, least amount of games to win the PL. Football has been so good all season, with heavy wins from Everton, Man City and Leicester. Here are some of the factors that really played in Liverpool's way.
1. CONSISTENCY
There is no doubt beyond anybody's mind that consistency played a part there. Gotten 97 points last season and it is possible that we can actually eclipse this amount including the 100 set by Man City. We've only dropped 7 points so far. 2 draws and 1 defeat and all it has to do with keeping stuff plain and simple.
2. FORTRESS ANFIELD
With or without fans, Anfield serves as the Home Base of our operations, and a formidable one at that. We've yet to lose at home in the PL for almost 2 seasons straight.
3. NEVER SAY DIE MENTALITY
Sure we may have picked a few knocks along the way with heavy injuries to Matip, Alisson, earlier. And in the initial phase of the season we've been behind in games, and time and time again we turn them into late game wins or snatch a point like Lallana's equaliser vs United.
4. DISCIPLINED DEFENSE
Only 21 goals conceeded, which is like 0.67 goals shipped in per game is not bad. Sure we may have went behind a few times but we compacted ourselves whenever we go between thirds of the field. Also we were still leaking in goals alot with Adrian in Goal, but we managed to secure a lot of clean sheets later part of the season. If that wasn't enough, Alisson may have missed of third of games to injury, but he's still in the leading pack for the Golden Glove, quite an achievement to be honest with ya.
My Man of the season: It's actually difficult to pinpoint who has been the stand out performer because all of them have been consistent. But there are few I can give a shout out. Sadio Mane, Virgil Van Dijk and Jordan Henderson. 4 Cups in a single calendar year is pretty crazy if you ask me.
WHAT WENT WRONG FOR DEFENDING CHAMPIONS CITY?
A lot of things worked in our favor and there's no doubt there's a lot of things going wrong for the defending Champions, and going wrong BADLY. And at the time of this writing, they've lost 8 of their 31 games and drew 3. And off these 9 games, there were 2 pairs of double legged (meaning both Home and Away) losses (Wolves of all teams and Manchester United) and another pair of double legged games where City Lost Points (Tottenham 1D 1L). Here's a quick breakdown on what happened.
1. Injury to Laporte and Shambolic Defenses.
Laporte is no doubt a world class center back. And his presence and absence are both felt on and off the pitch. Without a fit replacement, Fernandinho has to abandon his duties as a defensive midfielder to fit in as a center back which is not in his natural position. With only Otemendi and John stones as the only CBs left and John having muscle injuries since September, it ain't ideal. As a result, their defenses are absolutely in shambles. It's like Liverpool's glassy backline of Karius and Lovren, Moreno and Klavan again.
2. Lack of Leadership
With Vincente Kompany gone, there's a lack of capable leaders that whose leadership can come anywhere close to the talismanic figure of Kompany. These are big boots to fill, but the vice captains that take over from his position, can't really command the backline as effectively.
3. Failure to reinforce and a rapidly aging squad
As if the lack of fit center backs ain't enough, face it their squad is aging quite heavily, with their squad age average at 27.1, their energy levels will wane eventually. Some of them have been in here for ages, like Aguero, Kyle Walker, Fernandinho, David Silva still playing well in their 30s. Without the services of Laporte, that has come to bite the squad in the ass. It's not the fault of Pep, he's still a world class manager. It's just with the squad aging fast, the balance is totally off.
WHAT NEXT FOR OUR NEW CHAMPIONS FOR THE REMAINDER OF THE SEASON?
Well, choices are pretty open. Some are crazy enough to want Reds to just eclipse the 100 points set by Man City. Actually I don't need that. Just let fringe and young members to get some starts off their belt. Definite chances I would give to if I were Klopp would be people like Neco Williams, Curtis Jones, Minamino, Harvey Elliot.
But that doesn't mean we shouldn't reinforce. Just because of loss of income due to Covid-19, is no valid excuse at all as soon to be defending champions. The team to keep an eye on is Chelsea especially bringing in my priced target Timo Werner in which I'm still pissed about, and Pulisic too, who is on fire, scoring against Man City earlier. Really a world class defender and another Attack Midfielder for us like Koulibaly and Adam Traore would round the squad off nicely. It's either that, or we need to get our youth to be world class in 2 months.
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