How would you rate Liverpool’s season out of 10 based on your expectations in pre-season?
4
What do you think were the main drivers for success in 2022/23?
The main success of the season was the last 10 games where we saw a new style emerge that brought us back closer to the consistency and performance levels that we’ve come to expect. It wasn’t perfect by any means but it can certainly act as a platform for the coming season. Trent’s new position was a game changer, mostly for the better of our team.
What were the main reasons for our failure to reach certain goals (e.g. injuries, coaching, recruitment, player mentality, and/or form schedule)?
All of the above, were reasons for our failures to varying degrees.
We got pre-season wrong, leading to an injury crisis from virtually the first game. I understand why we had an intense pre-season due to the odd schedule for the season with the World Cup break, but I think our mental and physical exhaustion off the back of last year should have in hindsight been taken into account, and a long period of rejuvenation would have helped the squad. Klopp and the coaching staff for that wrong. The injuries that came in this early period, killed our hopes of a title challenge from the off.
That realisation came gradually over the first few games, and a mixture of the idea of chasing a near-perfect points gathering machine in Man City and then the disappointment of being out of the race so quickly hit the squad hard mentally, an issue that took too long to recover from. We actually did pick up somewhat prior to the World Cup, but the fragility remained after it and January was a particularly low point where we lost our confidence in our ability.
The injury crisis killed our ability to rotate and our legs soon dropped off, culminating in those abject showings after the new year. That could have killed us, but as players came back, the signs that the quality remained began to show even if our tendency to get complacent remained.
How much of this could have been helped by recruitment is hard to say. Without the injuries, we almost certainly make top 4, and quite possibly come around Arsenal, as it’s hard to quantify just how much of a knock on effect those incidents had. The back end of last season was dominated by talk of replacing the front 3, given their contract situations, and we largely did that across 3 windows, but that did not come with reinforcements in other areas. Given the injuries that occurred early on, further signings, particularly in midfield, last season would have helped. In truth with less injuries we’d have been in a much better position, and given those injuries, more signings would have put us in a better position, we got neither and so we suffered. The balancing act the Klopp takes into account is the disharmony caused by new signings if the injuries don’t happen and the squad is then bloated. With hindsight the call is clearly wrong, but we don’t get to see what happens in the alternative scenarios so how wrong of a call it was, we’ll never know.
It’s not all on injuries and recruitment though, as mentioned. Those who played still should have been able to perform at a higher level. I’ve talked about various reasons why that happened, but two others are elements too. Firstly, the squad is getting older, so their quality has started to deteriorate, though it’s hard to believe the drop off across the board would be as severe as it looked at times. Secondly, for much of the first part of the season, we trialled a midfield that plainly wasn’t working and took too long to find a solution to that, which is in Klopp and the coaching staff.
All of these things can be learned from though, and therefore we will be better equipped in the future when similar problems arise.
Out of 10 how would you rate Jurgen Klopp’s and his staff’s performance in 2022/23?
4 - potentially 5 with the up term at the end.
How would you rate the following player’s 2022/23 performance out of 10:
Alisson Becker 8/10 - could be 9, but for the Madrid error
Caoimhin Kelleher 5/10 - below what we saw last year
Trent Alexander-Arnold 6 /10 - 5 before April, 8 after
Joe Gomez 5 /10
Virgil van Dijk 5/10
Joel Matip 4 /10
Ibrahima Konate 5/10
Kostas Tsimikas 5 /10
Andy Robertson 5/10
Naby Keita 5 /10 - injury hit
James Milner 6/10
Curtis Jones 7/10 - injury hit but when he played he impressed. There were question marks over his future coming into and during the season, but he’s firmly apart of the future now.
Jordan Henderson 5/10 - poor at times but not as poor as some have made out. Got lumped in with Fabinho sometimes.
Fabinho 4/10 - could have been 3, though the end of season was much better
Alex Oxlade Chamberlin 5 /10 - injury hit
Thiago Alcantara 5/10 - injury hit
Stefan Bajcetic 7.5/10 - obviously not team of the season stuff, but will have been above anyone’s expectations for him to be such an asset going into the future this early into his career
Harvey Elliott 5/10 - can’t fault his effort but hasn’t met expectations, that’s not all down to him though as often the tactics and his physical attributes left him exposed
Fabio Carvalho 5/10 - didn’t get time to impress
Luis Diaz 5/10 - injury hit
Roberto Firmino 7/10 - played well when he was fit. Got a healthy goal return too. Fear we will miss him at times next season.
Mohamed Salah 7.5/10 - certainly could be in the team of the season given his goal return, but wasn’t at his standards.
Cody Gakpo 7/10 - showed a lot of potential. Seems key to our future given his position a focal point.
Diogo Jota 5/10
Darwin Nunez 6/10 - a lot of promise, but still raw and frustrating at times. I think he’ll be a star for us still and we’ll start to see it next year, but that’s all to be seen.
