LONDON — For their 3-1 win at Fulham, Liverpool boss Jurgen Klopp made six changes from the team which lost at home to Crystal Palace and that is the most changes he’s ever made to his starting lineup in back-to-back Premier League games.
It worked a treat. Gakpo, Jota, Gravenberch, Quansah and Elliott all started and delivered as Liverpool’s high intensity was back.
For so long this season Liverpool have struggled with injuries to key players and they’ve had to rotate through necessity. In the past few weeks they have had most of their stars back so they’ve stopped rotating as heavily. It hasn’t been working.
Rotation was a choice on Sunday. It was brave from Klopp and it worked. He should keep doing it. It will be key if Liverpool are going to win the Premier League title and send Klopp out on the ultimate high.
Van Dijk calls for focus after big reaction
Speaking to Liverpool captain Virgil van Dijk after the game, Pro Soccer Talk asked him if rotation was key to Liverpool’s sprightly start against Fulham.
“I think we were quite sharp already in the last game [1-0 win at Atalanta on Thursday],” Van Dijk explained. “If you watched the game I think we were maybe too sharp in the start. Six games to go, today was a big one to show a reaction to a disappointing week.”
Liverpool rotated well after looking sluggish in their recent draw at Manchester United, defeat and win against Atalanta and defeat against Crystal Palace. What is the mood like now at Liverpool ahead of the final stretch?
“Focus on the next, that is the only mood we are in,” Van Dijk said. “We shouldn’t look to anyone else. We focus on ourselves. It has been a tough couple of weeks. Funny enough things could be changing very quickly. For us there is only one task: we have five games left and we have to try and win every one of them, that will already be a very difficult task, and then we will see if it is enough.”
Liverpool to call on everyone, and experience, for title race climax
Van Dijk also discussed how the mental aspect of the game is so important for Liverpool with five games to go in their season.
“We are in the last part of the season, the decisive part of the season. You need more than just playing football,” Van Dijk said. “You need to be mentally very strong dealing with certain situations each game, out of the game. Disappointment in the game. Outside the game. Training sessions and stuff. You have to be ready for it. At the end of the day it is about winning games. Obviously if you don’t do that it can work against you in your mind but I think we showed a very good reaction. Today we showed a very good game, under the circumstances, away, always tough against them. Today I think we were very good in all aspects. Time to move on.”
Liverpool now move on to a Merseyside derby at Everton on Wednesday evening before heading to West Ham for the early game on Saturday.
Rotation will be key with two games in four days, and now Liverpool have proved they can get the rotation right and keep the energy high in order to carry out Klopp’s gameplan to perfection. Klopp has to keep rotating.
As for the title race, Liverpool have been here before.
Marauding left back Andy Robertson spoke to reporters about the title race and says Liverpool are the clear underdogs.
“We are in a title race. It is now out of our hands. We are third favorites to the outside people. A lot of Liverpool fans would have taken this position at the start of the season and we have to remind ourselves of that and keep trying to win games and see where it takes us,” Robertson said. “We’ve got five games left and in the kind of sprinting part of the season. A full season is a marathon but you do kind of get to the part where it is a full sprint finish and that is the point we are at. Liverpool fans would have bite your hand off at the start of the season to be involved in that and now it’s up to us to try and keep pushing and see where it ends up in the middle of May.”
They’ve won one title and come up just short on two occasions to Manchester City during the Klopp era. What have they learned over the years which can put them in the best possible position to lift the Premier League trophy at Anfield on May 19?
“We have been speaking about this since the very first day,” Van Dijk explained. “That is focusing on one game at a time. That is the only way you will get results. Don’t look too far ahead. In this case we don’t have it in our hands anyway, but we have to win the games in front of us. That is the only thing we have to do. And play football like we have been doing all season. Outstandingly, lot of resilience, finding ways to win games and obviously we need the experience as well in order to do that. We will go for it. We will give everything that we have and we all have to do it together. Everyone has to chip in every shape and form. Including the fans.”
Robertson was asked by Pro Soccer Talk if Liverpool unexpectedly being in this title race gives them an edge over Arsenal and Manchester City and the pressure might not be as much on the Reds.
“I never said we didn’t expect, I said the Liverpool fans maybe didn’t!” laughed Robertson. “We believed in our squad at the start of the season. We knew it was a kind of restart, the gaffer was calling it 2.0 and things like that, but we did believe in the ability that was coming into the squad and the ability that was already there. We believe in ourselves. But we are in a position where we are obviously happy to be in the title race this late on. At the end of the day there’s going to be two teams disappointed. We have to do everything we can to win football matches and try to put us in a position where we are not the one. It is out of our hands and we are up against two extremely good teams as well. We can only focus on ourselves and our next game and if we keep picking up points then let’s see what happens.”
