I’m firmly in the psychology camp. Age is a factor but I’m not sure age is *the* big deal. Plenty of title winning sides have had ripe old veterans in key positions.
Pace, positioning, competitiveness, sharpness, strength, discipline. They all start with the head. If you are out of sorts mentally you aren’t pressing quite as well. You aren’t passing quite as well, you aren’t shooting quite as well. You aren’t working for each other on quite the same level as before. Across sports it’s very evident. Team GB invests massively in psychologists for this exact reason. Listen to a coach doing a track side interview at the Olympics. The first thing they talk about is whether their athlete is in the right head space before and during an event. Same in cycling. Listen to Cavendish or Geraint Thomas. Up top is where it’s at.
So what’s the reason for our mental malaise? The big push for the quadruple last year is one part. Another significant part is the player’s emotional buy in to the club: my opinion is the belief is wavering just a tad. Last season the players witnessed FSG show their hand on the super league idea and rightly two of our leaders, Milner and Hendo, stood up to reject it publicly. Since then FSG have, in my view, reduced their investment plans and looked elsewhere. Mbappe never arrived and perhaps now the players know Bellingham never will either. So they get a sense of a plateau being reached, which generates feelings in stark contrast to the steady seemingly boundless rise to the summit they’ve had under Klopp. Hendo will look around the dressing room, as will VVD, Robbo, Bobbie, Trent and others, and think, ”we’re good but we’ll never be as great as the team we had two years ago” and, “I’ve won it all here, what’s my next step?”. That must really rob you of some of your faith in our future, in what our coaches says, to the new players even. And right there the team fabric just ever so slowly starts to fray.
There are plenty of things on our side. Klopp for example. He’ll have to build a new core group of disciples with a new belief in the future of the club but I think this is within his capabilities. Diaz is a standout exception, a bright new thing who’ll install belief in others that the team can be special once more, Doak and Elliot are potentially exceptions too. Allison is a world class keeper and we don’t need to worry about a rebuild in that position just yet.
I could go on, but I’ve made my point and it’s bedtime.