Sourness sets in early for Liverpool

Mo Salah of Liverpool clashes with manager Jurgen Klopp during the Premier League draw with West Ham (Photo by Justin Setterfield/Getty Images)

Premier League: West Ham 2 Liverpool 2

Was it really only ten games ago that Liverpool were on course for a clean sweep of trophies as a parting gift for manager Jurgen Klopp? Was it only six games ago they were on a run of seven wins and a draw in eight Premier League games? You know, the good old days before touchline rows between manager Jurgen Klopp and star forward Mohamed Salah, and disappointing 2-2 draws away to West Ham?

It might be reading too much into a situation to claim that team morale at Anfield has collapsed in the wake of defeats against Manchester United, Crystal Palace, Atalanta and Everton that have effectively ended Liverpool’s chances of adding any trophies to the League Cup. But the body language was dreadful in the Liverpool technical area on Saturday as Darwin Nunez had to intervene in what looked like a frank exchange of views between Klopp and Salah.

Educated guesses suggest that Salah was unhappy at being given only 11 minutes off the bench, even though Liverpool were leading when he was summoned. The confrontation seemed to begin over nothing, a misunderstanding over a missed handshake on a crowded touchline, but it escalated quickly. Klopp claimed it had all been sorted out but Salah was the first to leave the field at the final whistle and later said: "If I speak there will be fire”.

That was not all. As Klopp admitted, missed chances were causing visible annoyance. “I told the boys that the worst thing we do, and I don’t understand it, is that after every chance we miss, you can see everybody like throwing their arms up and stuff like this (raising his eyes) but a chance is the closest thing you can get to a goal so you have to be there more positive, we have to accept these kind of things and then do it again, do it again until we score.” 

The first sign of trouble this season was the crazy 4-3 FA Cup defeat at Manchester United, compounded by another trip to Old Trafford in the league, when Liverpool again dominated but did not win. Those two games were early indications of everything that has been a problem since - wayward finishing resulting in a failure to punish opponents when they are on the ropes, coupled with a sudden inability to do the basics in defence.

West Ham United's Jarrod Bowen (centre left, partially blocked) scores his side's first goal. Pic: Jonathan Brady/PA Wire. 

Saturday’s match was another dire example of what is going wrong, and as to why, forward Cody Gakpo said after the final whistle that “if I knew why, we would solve the problem,” but perhaps he will have a clue if he watches replays of West Ham’s first goal. Liverpool defended the first decent ball into their box abysmally, and it was Gakpo who allowed Jarrod Bowen to get in front of him far too easily to head in.

A particular stat is regularly updated and trotted out at this point: Liverpool had now conceded the first goal 16 times in Premier League games alone, 23 times in all competitions. They had come back to win nine times, but despite having 28 shots at the London Stadium, including two efforts against the frame of the goal, this time they would not. They led, through Robertson and a comedy own goal following a mis-hit shot from Gakpo that could have been debited to any one of three West Ham players. But Michail Antonio escaped Jarell Quansah to head an equaliser.

“With all the chances we had and all the things we did it was a tough one to take at the end of ten days with four games,” Klopp said, before referring obliquely to his benching of Salah: “If you can find a manager who can play the same team in four games ... The boys did really well but we concede out of nothing, and we didn’t take the final situation, which is more or less the story of the last four weeks.” 

Even if those two fairly basic problems can be eradicated over their three remaining games - at home to Tottenham and Wolves and away to Aston Villa - it is almost certainly too late, and for someone else to fix. “I’m not in the mood to talk about that,” Klopp said. “We had to win here, we knew that, we didn’t.” 

There’s always next season, of course, but not for Klopp.

WEST HAM (4-2-3-1): Areola 6; Coufal 7, Zouma 6, Ogbonna 6, Emerson 6; Soucek 6 (Ward-Prowse 73), Alvarez 5; Bowen 8, Paqueta 6, Kudus 6; Antonio 7.

Subs not used: Fabianski, Johnson, Cresswell, Phillips, Cornet, Ings, Casey, Mubama.

LIVERPOOL (4-3-3): Alisson 7; Alexander-Arnold 7 (Gomez 79), Quansah 5 (Szoboszlai 90+1), Van Dijk 6, Robertson 7; Mac Allister 7, Endo 6 (Nunez 79), Gravenberch 6; Elliot 6, Gakpo 5, Diaz 6 (Salah 79).

Subs not used: Kelleher, Konate, Jones, Tsimikas, Bajcetic.

Referee: Anthony Taylor.