Well, where should I even start. I guess I can start with the fact that Liverpool just became the first defending champion to concede seven goals in a game. A revamped Aston Villa took advantage of a lackluster Liverpool.
The score at the end of the game was 7-2. Three of the goals were via a deflection, and another was from a mistake by back up goalkeeper Adrian. Other than that, Aston Villa deserve a whole lot of credit for playing a great game.
The first goal came from Adrian’s mistake and was only four minutes in. From there on it turned into one of those days for Liverpool. While they played poorly it wasn’t hard to see basically everything was going against them. A team that has played sublime football for a long time now couldn’t make the simplest of touches and passes. It just wasn’t meant to be.
Ollie Watkins then proceeded to score a hat trick before a deflected John McGinn goal made it 4-1. A Salah goal in between the second and third Villa goal was the only positive for Liverpool. Some of the goals were caused by really bad defending and it continued into the second half with more unlucky deflections and poor defending. Another Salah goal caused the game to end at 7-2.
I’m starting to think Ross Barkley is Liverpool’s kryptonite. His runs were not being picked up by Liverpool’s defense and he was causing all sorts of problems. Jack Grealish was making similar runs as well as dissecting Liverpool’s defense with his passing. Even though Liverpool played poorly, Villa had an exceptional performance. It can’t be said enough how impressive Villa looked. As Klopp said in his post-game press conference, Villa forced the errors and poor defending from Liverpool.
From a Liverpool standpoint this is an embarrassing result. They just didn’t show up. Their offense actually did ok, they didn’t do great by any means, but they weren’t dreadful. The midfield and defense on the other hand really struggled. The midfield was virtually nonexistent.
With everything bad that happened, the biggest problem in the game in my opinion was the way heads dropped in a way we haven’t seen in a while with this Liverpool team. They’ve rightly been dubbed “mentality monsters” throughout the years with Klopp, but today they were anything but that. Heads dropped and they looked defeated. To be fair they probably were defeated but the Liverpool of last season wouldn’t have given up until the final whistle. This is a worrying sign from a team that is challenging for a title where any drop in form could be the difference between being a title contender or not.
With that being said I’m definitely not hitting any sort of panic button yet with this Liverpool team. I’m not convinced this is anything but a fluke. It will probably be downplayed and certainly isn’t a big enough excuse to back a 7-2 loss, but Liverpool were without Alisson and Sadio Mane. I think Mane is Liverpool’s best attacker and the Adrian mistake says enough about the loss of Alisson.
I think the Adrian mistake being so early caused some sort of weird mental affect to the team. From that moment on Liverpool just didn’t perform at the level Liverpool fans have become accustomed to. In other words, that’s not the title winning Liverpool we all know. That was some weird not driven Liverpool that we haven’t seen in a while. If anyone can turn this around fast, it’s Jurgen Klopp. With a Merseyside derby coming up after the international break, that should be enough motivation for the team to make their performance against Villa only a fluke.
If and only if Liverpool have a couple performances like this one will I believe it’s anything but a fluke. With an international break they’ll have time to reflect on this performance and hope to fix whatever problems there might be. Klopp will also hope Thiago and Mané can come back from their absences due to Covid-19 as the absence of Alisson for 4-6 weeks isn’t something you should just overlook. The best thing Liverpool can do is just forget about this game completely and do their best to move on. Their nickname of “mentality monsters” could be key to that exact thing happening. And if anyone can move on from such an embarrassing loss, I wouldn’t be afraid to put my money on Klopp and this Liverpool team.