Liverpool are underperforming, that’s a fact. Last season’s title winners headed into the 2020/21 season with great optimism and a strong chance of defending their status as Premier League Champions. However, it hasn’t quite gone to plan.
The general consensus is that this is a direct result of ‘the worst injury crisis this season’. A ‘crisis’ is defined as being an intense period of difficulty and I for one am not sure Liverpool have it as bad as they make out. Whilst this idea brings great comfort to all Reds supporters, unfortunately it just isn’t realistic. Liverpool’s shambolic attempt at a title defence lies down to many factors, and whilst injuries to key players such as Virgil Van Dijk have played a role in their demise, they simply cannot be compared to other teams in the league.
First of all, every club competing globally has struggled with injuries this term, inevitable considering the sheer number of games that have been crammed into a shortened season. No other team however have complained of such issues as much as the Merseyside giants. The hard truth is that Liverpool are just not on the same level as Manchester City, no one is. Recent games have shown that Klopp’s men may have to accept their battle is now for the top 6 and forget about the title race. 19 points behind City, Liverpool’s form currently reads 4 Premier League losses on the bounce, leaving them in 6th place. Incredibly, Everton have scored twice as many goals at Anfield in 2021, after brushing the Champions aside after the best part of 22 years with no win away to their rivals. The fortress that their home ground had become has been breached, losing to the lower level sides of Burnley and Brighton.
What has been the consistent excuse formulated by Klopp and the media? Injuries. In particular, that suffered by Van Dijk against the Toffees when Jordan Pickford’s quite frankly shocker of a tackle caused knee ligament damage ruling the dutchman out for the rest of this season. Contrary to popular belief, they are not alone in this struggle, with Manchester City losing Kevin De Bruyne for some time, as well as playing the majority of this term without a recognised No.9 in the squad. In fact, as of the 11th February, Liverpool have 5 players out injured. Admittedly, 3 of these are central defenders, but as seen in the January window, clubs of Liverpool’s size can simply cherry pick high potential players from around Europe with little hassle. It is important to note Liverpool’s 7-2 thrashing at the hands of Aston Villa had both Van Dijk and Gomez in the starting XI.
Investigating the other teams in the league, 10 of the remaining 19 Premier League sides have as many if not more players currently in the recovery room. Crystal Palace currently have 9 first squad players ruled out for 30 days or more with injury, the worst affected side in the league. Leeds also have 8 players out injured, with Sheffield United seeing 5 first team players unavailable for selection. The main draw from this, there are many clubs worse off than Liverpool currently are.
Furthermore, these clubs are not able to simply go and sign 2-3 players in a January window as they do not have the funds. Battling in the middle – lower half of the table, they have far more reason to be complaining about the number of injuries suffered, yet their managers and fans are accepting it as a given, not making excuses and getting on with the task at hand. This chart formulated by The Athletic uses stats from Premier Injuries to represent the damage at each club.
It is understandable that the losses of Van Dijk and Gomez have hindered performances, but this doesn’t change the fact that Liverpool still have one of if not the strongest squad in the league. World class forwards, vast selections of elite midfielders, two of the best full backs in world football and arguably the best goalkeeper around. For whatever reason, Klopp hasn’t been able to get them ticking again this season, suggesting the German mastermind should maybe look closer to home when finding excuses for his lack of success as of late.
I believe that it’s time for the media to stop spreading the story of how hard done by Liverpool are and playing into this narrative that protects them from criticism, because in short, they could have it a whole lot worse.
