‘It was the worst game we played’: Liverpool plot a way back after their lowest low

Even when a deserted Villa Park featured a surreal scoreline, when Liverpool conceded seven goals in a game for the first time since 1963, Jurgen Klopp had moments where he saw glimpses of his team. He did in 2020’s 7-2 thrashing by Aston Villa, just as he had in 387 other matches as Liverpool manager.

Until they went to Naples last week. “In this particular game, nothing,” Klopp said. Everything – their defending, their pressing game, their cohesion and organisation – broke down completely. Liverpool lost 4-1 and, as Klopp said: “We could have conceded more, which is crazy.”

An impromptu break, caused by non-footballing factors, has given Liverpool more time to stage an inquest into their ineptitude. Klopp has played back the tape of the evisceration in Italy, time and again. It is his video nasty. “A real horror show,” he said. It has stood out for all the wrong reasons. “It was the worst game we played since I came here.”

There was no equivocation, no doubt about it. There have been a few spectacular setbacks in Klopp’s time, but each has been accompanied by mitigating factors or moments when Liverpool resembled themselves. Not this one. There were symbolic moments, beyond the goals and the goal-line clearance, the two penalties they conceded, the time Napoli opened them up with barely 40 seconds gone. “When James Milner arrives late for challenges, you know something is wrong,” Klopp said. The paragon of reliability proved unreliable. The mentality monsters caved in.

A spell of soul-searching has followed. “Four or five days of absolute truths,” Klopp said. “We didn’t hide anything; we didn’t hold back anything. But not to knock the players down, just to make sure where we are now is the starting point and to make sure we sort the problems together on the pitch.” There is a recognition that issues predated Napoli, but an intention to make sure it is rock bottom. “We were not over the moon about our season,” he said. “It is step by step, you don’t sort big problems like this [straight away].” Liverpool may have to build from the back. “It is all based on real defending and that is what we have to show. Everything my teams do in football is based on a really solid if not perfect defending.”

But for him, defending is a collective enterprise. Liverpool made it simple for Napoli to play against them. Their midfield was stretched and ragged. There was no gegenpressing – the coaching philosophy synonymous with German coaches of a team immediately attempting to win back possession rather than regrouping into formation. He was bemused to be asked if the postponement of Liverpool’s Saturday match against Wolves came at a cost to their rhythm. “We had no rhythm,” he replied. “Did you watch our game against Napoli?” His own verdict was that eight of the starting 11 were poor, three merely average. That trio probably included Alisson and Luis Diaz, perhaps joined by Andy Robertson or Harvey Elliott, whose status as the youngest may mean he is blamed the least.

Inside the dressing room, they found fault with themselves. Klopp famously described his style of play as “heavy-metal football.” Joel Matip’s version of that was to say there were “a lot of heavy faces” last week. “Everyone was really critical of himself,” added the centre back, who was parachuted in at half-time when they were already 3-0 down.

Liverpool, his manager said, were not playing the blame game. “There was no pointing at each other.” But there have been meetings, collectively and individually. Klopp has been proactive. “I have to do something I can’t sit there and wait for how we react,” he said.

He specialises in trying to turn a negative into a positive. A nadir may have tested that capacity. “Is this the situation I wanted? No,” he said. “But now you are in it you find it interesting and challenging. A lot of good things happen in the past and this team showed an incredible kind of consistency over a long period and I know how this business works. I didn’t read a word – maybe 10 words altogether – what was said about us but most of the things were fair, probably. I watched the game back plenty of times and I would have asked a lot of questions about the people and the manager and the specific players. It is absolutely okay.”

Now the aim is to ensure Napoli remains the low, that whatever comes against Ajax on Tuesday and in the future is an improvement. Liverpool have no complaints about the criticism, whether from outsiders or insiders. “Sometimes it hurts and this is normal but in a good team, which I think we are, you can speak about these truths,” Matip said. “You don’t like to hear them in the first moment sometimes but everybody knows something has to happen.” And that something cannot be a sequel to Klopp’s horror film.