Jurgen Klopp's complaints fail to mask Liverpool's need to rediscover attacking spark to revive title challenge
Manuel Pellegrini pointed out the Reds' failure to create clear chances at the London Stadium with the lead at the top over Manchester City now three points
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Manuel Pellegrini was revelling in the situation and enjoyed bringing up an ancient grievance against Jurgen Klopp, over Borussia Dortmund’s Champions League defeat of Malaga from the 2013 Champions League quarter-final. But Pellegini, saying that Klopp “cannot complain about anything” after that, also revealed a worrying truth about this Liverpool side’s form right now.
Because Pellegrini was also right when he said that Liverpool only created two clear chances all game tonight: Sadio Mane’s goal and Divock Origi’s late miss. And he was also right when he said that both of those chances were thanks to a clear offside, just like the offside winner Felipe Santana scored for Dortmund six years ago. That is to say that Liverpool did not create a single clear legitimate chance in 90 minutes of attacking. This was a night when Liverpool’s Plan A, which looked in the first half of the season like the most effective, exciting approach in the game, started to run out of steam.
How hard should it be to score past this West Ham side? They conceded four goals at Anfield on the first game of the season. It was the fourth time in a row they had conceded four to Jurgen Klopp’s reds. When Manchester City came here to the London Stadium in November they won 4-0 too, and Pep Guardiola said afterwards they did not even play very well. And even for this game West Ham came in with injuries to key attacking players, with no Samir Nasri or Marko Arnautovic, and having lost three in a row. Not to the best teams in the country, but to Bournemouth, Wimbledon and Wolves.
And on top of all of those layers of context, there were the early events of the match, that Liverpool took the lead half-way through the first half when Sadio Mane tucked the ball past Lukasz Fabianski. And even with that to build around, Liverpool did not get anywhere, throwing away the lead six minutes after they got it.
In defence, Liverpool coughed up enough big chances to West Ham that they could have lost this game by a distance. With nearly every set piece West Ham found a way through, so incisive that even the apparently unbeatable Virgil van Dijk could not always hold them off. Pellegrini said his team made “four clear chances”, and he was right.
But even that porousness will not be Klopp’s main concern as his team head back to Liverpool. More worrying is the fact that when they have the ball, this team looks unrecognisable from the side that was racking up goals in the first half of the season, that scored threes and fours every week and famously put five past Arsenal on 29 December.
On that night the Liverpool front line looked like the greatest combination in the game, a system which took three brilliant players and lifted them through cooperation and synergy into something even better than that. A team within a team that would pull an opposition apart like dough and rip through the gaps. Even more hungry and ruthless than Manchester City at their best.
That was only five weeks ago, but in those five weeks something of that hunger has been lost. If the Arsenal game was the absolute peak of Liverpool’s Plan A, the last few weeks have shown it starting to run out of steam.
Because this evening was not a one-off and it was not a complete shock. In three of Liverpool’s four league games since they lost to Manchester City, they have struggled to break through. It is easy enough to compare this game to the 1-1 draw with Leicester City five days ago, when they did not create very much and looked unusually dull and ponderous against an organised side.
That was the first time this season that Liverpool had dropped points in a game they would be expected to win. The first time, arguably, that they let weakness in, failing to capitalise on City’s defeat at Newcastle, failing to get their lead back to seven points. Win that game and who knows how the table would look now.
But it is too easy to derive all conclusions from contingent results. “We have won away games when we have played worse than tonight,” as Klopp said afterwards. Three weeks ago Liverpool went to Brighton and again produced a slow first half in which they struggled to create. That day they were bailed out by Mohamed Salah cleverly winning and converting a penalty at the start of the second half. It was an individual action that turned the game, setting up the 1-0, restoring their balance. But, looking back, that could be seen as the start of this run. That day an event saved Liverpool. Against Leicester, and last night, it did not.
Of course we look through the prism of results, and a Divock Origi winner would have changed the narrative. But we can still safely look at Liverpool’s recent performances and wonder what has happened to them. Because some of that spark has dimmed and they need to get it back.
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