Liverpool reach World Cup break grateful for Alisson’s role in damage limitation
“Who would have thought two strikers would be out long term?” Klopp mused after Southampton were overcome. Diaz and Jota have been missed, especially as neither Divock Origi nor Takumi Minamino, scorers of a combined 16 goals last season, has been replaced; perhaps the thinking was that attacking midfielders, in Fabio Carvalho, Oxlade-Chamberlain, Jones and Elliott, could in effect be the extra forward, but two have often been absent and the teenager required in deeper roles.
A result is that Liverpool have only had one league goal and one assist from a substitute since the start of September. A team who have conceded first so often they have invariably found themselves chasing games have had to do so without potent reinforcements. It may offer an explanation for their inability to score in the second half against Everton, West Ham, Nottingham Forest and Leeds, all currently bottom-seven sides.
Alisson, freshly shaven against Southampton, has been Liverpool’s player of the season so far
That the overworked Alisson has made the fifth most saves is a sign of a lack of control, of a difficulty in closing down games. It highlights a lack of strength in depth, a midfield that has been less dependable and more open, the mistake of not signing another defensively-minded midfielder last summer and the way Van Dijk’s premier partner, Konate, has been limited to a solitary, but outstanding, league start.
That both Klopp and Van Dijk pronounced themselves pleased to reach 22 points was instructive. Ambitions have been reduced. The last few weeks have become a damage-limitation exercise. “There is going to be a such a big break coming up and the World Cup and players getting injured, players not fully fit, it was strange,” Van Dijk reflected.
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A seven-point gap to the top four does not feel unbridgeable. A seven-man contingent at the World Cup seems small, with injury denying Jota a trip to Qatar, the inability of Egypt, Scotland and Colombia to qualify offering a prospect of rest for Mohamed Salah, Robertson and Diaz and the decisions of the Brazil and Spain managers bringing players disappointment but maybe providing Klopp with a further fillip. Thiago is injury prone and Roberto Firmino can burn himself out with incessant running, but neither is headed to Qatar. Liverpool could be the beneficiaries.
They can hold out hope they will have a stronger squad for the second half of the season: that Konate and Matip can bring ballast at one end of the pitch, Jota and Diaz incision at the other. Klopp may even have the luxury of rotating fully-fit premier players, of holding game-changers in reserve, perhaps of giving Elliott a game off or even of seeing Keita don a Liverpool shirt again. If time will tell whether Bajcetic becomes a footnote in the club’s history or player with a sizeable future, Liverpool’s fortunes in the last five months of the season may depend on whether the perennial substitute can be spared bench duty.
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