For a fleeting moment during the Reds’ heavy defeat to Real Madrid, Jürgen Klopp was given an exciting glimpse of what Liverpool’s future could look like.
It’s a bitter pill to swallow, but as quickly as Liverpool rose to the very apex of world football, it has fallen back down equally and been knocked off its perch with equal haste. The entire season has been a confirmation of that descent, but the drubbing handed out by Real Madrid at Anfield has undoubtedly been the biggest proof of the decline.
But for those watching Liverpool in the last few months, the result may not have come as a surprise. Jürgen Klopp’s side is a team in transition, and struggle is inevitable in a time of change. As the adage goes: Rome wasn’t built in a day. And you can’t expect to build a mansion if you haven’t even laid down the foundations.
While Liverpool’s struggle has been a cause for concern, it is worth putting it into perspective. Seven points away from the top four with a game in hand isn’t necessarily the end of the world for Klopp’s side, with so many games still left to play.
And Champions League football is still a possibility. Not bad during a season of change and rebuild in which you’re going to come up against some difficult results like the one exacted by Real Madrid, but also some scintillating displays, like the 9-0 victory over Bournemouth or the recent 2-0 victory away to Newcastle United.
Against Real Madrid, it wasn’t therefore the result that was perhaps most surprising but instead the first 20 minutes of the game. For those first 20 minutes, Liverpool played like a Klopp team in its prime, something it shouldn’t have been capable of just yet. And despite that, for 20 minutes, the Liverpool fans were greeted to a sublime performance. A glimpse into the future of just what this Liverpool team might be capable of for an entire game in the long term.
During the opening 20 minutes, Liverpool smothered Real Madrid and dominated the play, not even giving a sniff to one of the best teams in the world at the moment. Liverpool’s future offensive duo, Cody Gakpo and Darwin Núñez, both ran relentlessly to create chance after chance in an exhilarating opening, the likes of which Liverpool fans haven’t really seen all season.
Of course, all it took was some individual brilliance, some poor defending and a lapse in judgement from Alisson, and everything was dismantled. When you concede the goals Liverpool conceded, nearly all stemming from freak individual errors at the back, it’s tough to bounce back, especially after such great momentum has vanished so quickly.
It speaks volumes that Liverpool actually outperformed Real Madrid when it comes to expected goals (xG), with the Reds possessing a 2.09 xG to Real Madrid’s 1.66. That’s not to say Real Madrid didn’t deserve to win the game. It was in the end the better side, and certainly the far more experienced one.
However, it goes to show, there was not much Klopp could have done himself about the result. Individual errors are difficult to account for as a manager. To compound that misery, most of the individual errors were made by players who either rarely make a mistake, like Alisson, or who may not have a long-term future at the club, like Joe Gomez.
It may be all doom and gloom at the moment, but there are definitely plenty of positives to take from the game, if only from the opening 20 minutes. Liverpool may have a lot of work to do at the back and in midfield, but at least offensively, a new-look side is already capable of producing world-class performances, as those opening moments against Real Madrid proved. Klopp just got a glimpse into the future.
