In a season of some spectacular lows, there’s one that stands out alarmingly more so than any other for Liverpool.
And now Jurgen Klopp and his squad have a chance to underline their subsequent improvement when they return to the scene of the crime on the resumption of the Premier League on Saturday.
If the 3-0 defeat at Brighton three weeks earlier had left Klopp struggling to remember a worse game during his managerial career, he didn’t have to wait long before having to react to even more desperate defeat.
The loss by a similar scoreline at struggling Wolverhampton Wanderers in early February underlined everything that was wrong about Liverpool last season, from a leaky defence, a lack of aggression, a poor opening – Wolves were 2-0 up inside 20 minutes – through to an underwhelming midfield and a misfiring attack.
“The start is horrible, and then it’s normal, then it’s great,” said Klopp afterwards. “If we played that way when it was 0-0, I’d love to see the end result. But at the moment it’s always ‘if, if, if’. I cannot hear it any more, but it’s the situation.”
With 18 games of the Premier League season remaining, Liverpool had already conceded more goals in the top flight than the whole of the previous campaign to highlight why they stood nearer the relegation zone than the Champions League qualification places. And having been downed 3-1 at Brentford the previous month, it was the first time Liverpool had lost three successive away league games in almost 11 years.
It was, though, to prove the nadir of the Reds’ fall from grace from quadruple-seekers to mid-table stragglers.
Sure, there were some sizeable bumps in the road in the form of a dreadful 1-0 loss at Bournemouth and a sorry 4-1 hammering at champions-elect Manchester City. Those two, though, are Liverpool’s only defeats in 22 Premier League games since. There have been six draws and 14 wins, with the points haul in that period of 48 surpassed only by City.
Plenty, of course, has changed since the trip to Molineux earlier in the year. It was the last time Naby Keita managed more than 45 minutes in a game as a Liverpool player before departing on a free transfer in the summer and, of the other two starting midfielders, Thiago Alcantara has subsequently made just four substitute appearances and last month suffered another injury setback and Stefan Bajcetic has only recently returned to the bench after more than four months out.
Liverpool are instead likely to start with a fresh engine room, with summer arrivals Dominik Szoboszlai, Alexis Mac Allister, Wataru Endo and Ryan Gravenberch vying with in-form Harvey Elliott and Curtis Jones for a start.
The Wolves defeat was also the last time Cody Gakpo started on the left flank, the Dutchman shifted into a false nine position in the following game where, with one or two notable exceptions, he has been a regular. By contrast, the recent win over Aston Villa was only Darwin Nunez’s second start as a centre forward having led the line at Molineux.
But perhaps the greatest intrigue will surround a duo that may not change. With Virgil van Dijk serving a one-match additional ban for his reaction to being sent off at Newcastle United, and doubts over the fitness of Ibrahima Konate having missed the last two games, Joel Matip and Joe Gomez are on standby to partner at centre-back. Both had a nightmare back in February, Matip opening the scoring with an own goal and Gomez responsible in part for all three Wolves strikes, but were impressive when paired together against Villa last time out.
The expected absence of Trent Alexander-Arnold means Gomez is on standby to feature anyway at right-back regardless of whether or not Konate is available.
But for every player who was involved in that embarrassment seven months ago, Saturday is the perfect occasion to demonstrate how far Liverpool – both individually and as a collective – have progressed since.
