No hangovers allowed: Liverpool must use international break to reset again before the league season gets away from them…
IT’S ALL ABOUT Forest now. City means nothing other than, hopefully, lessons learned.
The international break was, once again, welcomed amongst the corridors of the training ground as the Champions look to reset yet again.
I wonder what Arne Slot makes of it. A lightning start to the season with late wins, then a few late losses, then an awful, awful performance at Brentford, some much-needed revitalising wins against Villa and Madrid and then … well … that.
The break couldn’t come quick enough.
So, is this a good side who have been a bit unlucky, or a shaky one who have glimpses of brilliance? I’m not sure the manager knows but deep down he must look around his dressing room and mumble ‘Champions’ to himself. This is a side which can be blistering in its single-mindedness or limp-lettuce weak and we never know which it is until they go out onto the pitch.
A few weeks ago, I thought it was a case of too many new faces, spoiling the mix that brought us Number 20 last season and felt justified after the two wins. Then the same side went to the Etihad, so God knows. Only time will tell.
What we do know is that Liverpool play ten times before the 3rd round of the FA Cup and, in theory at least, Arne Slot can look at the fixtures with a certain amount of optimism. True, Internazionale will be tricky and Spurs away is seldom a walkover, but we play Leeds United twice (which I’m against), an ailing Forest (I’m all for that) and Wolves before we see Wataru Endo skipper the Reds on some League Two pitch or other in the FA Cup.
Admittedly, there are no givens in this league and though Sunderland at home would ordinarily have looked like three points at the start of the season, the Black Cats currently sit in the Top Four. Liverpool do not. They’ve only lost two games in the league. We managed that in one dreary late October week.
But that can’t be changed now. The past is a foreign country and all that. What’s done can’t be undone. I seem to have swallowed a literary quotation book.
It’s all about the next six or seven weeks. That’s the thing.
Nothing has been decided yet, with the exception of the League Cup, so the next ten — eight in the league, two in Europe — should be embraced. On 8th January, the Champions travel to Arsenal. Madly, it’ll be our last league trip to the capital this season. If we can stay within reach of them by the morning of the 9th then …
But more than anything it’s senseless to look back now. All teams go through this sort of weird time. City’s lasted most of last season and Arsenal’s will come at some point. There’s so much football to come and we can’t spend it thinking about the October hangover.
Hangovers can destroy you in this league. One defeat cannot be allowed to leak into the next game, but it so often does, particularly when confidence is low.
But Liverpool shouldn’t be low on confidence. We still have the players, the resources and ability to go on a run and prove that the autumn was just a nonsense. Liverpool should be tired of doubting itself. We want to be roaring into the Emirates in January with a solid run behind us.
This is not a time for runners, but it seldom is.
Start with Forest. Enact revenge, lads. Enact a furious revenge for last season. A furious revenge.
The past has gone.
