Wouldn't be surprised if there are 1st teamers thinking about their next move and don't want to get themselves injured.
Definitely not the case at all. There's been no lack of effort or pulling out of anything. If anything they have wanted it too much with it being Klopp's last year. You could see the desperation in the 2nd half of the Palace game.
Think what has happened is that we have been ropey all season (bar maybe 5 games where we were comfortable) playing with a disjointed midfield without a quality 6, and the team has shipped easy goals via a lack of midfield protection. When you go behind as often as we have (22 times I think it is now) it will catch up to you eventually. The Palace game the players were given a half to rescue it, and when that didn't happen you could see the belief of winning the league drain from them at full time. Think that game broke us. I'm sure the great man would love to have gone back and started with a different midfield, playing a shattered Endo less than 72 hours after he was targeted by Atalanta, with Palace again targeting him as they did in the previous fixture, we were easy pickings, gave away an entire half, and unfortunately with the pressure ramped up in the business end the players couldn't pull off another comeback.
The two games against a dreadful United where we shipped six rocked us, but the Atalanta and Palace games finished us off. Had those games been blips (as unlikely it is to have four blips) the players could have shook it off and went again, but they knew these were no blips and that we have been open all season, basic chances would be leaked, and every game would likely be an uphill battle. Mentally that's too much, especially at this stage. There was never any security of being defensively tight, and easing to a comfortable win.
The players have done remarkable this season with the comebacks, but there is only so many times they can keep going to the well. It's very difficult to try and wing it throughout an entire season, yet we somehow managed to do so up to a month before the end. Chances are there will be yet another comeback in a game before the season's end.
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