You might not have noticed, but Liverpool – a football team who have been really excellent for quite a long time now – are currently rubbish. Like, really properly rubbish. Two places behind Fulham rubbish.
While they are bad, and before we give them any chance to spoil everything by becoming good again (which is always a possibility) here they are among 10 Premier League teams who were great until they weren’t. Don’t shout at us.
10) Chelsea
Previously: Champions in 2017
And then: 5th in 2018
What happened: Obviously not a full-on disaster of a season – certainly nothing like as bad as their previous response to winning the league – and they still ended it by winning the FA Cup. But it was still an unpleasant and acrimonious campaign marked by wildly divergent opinions on transfer plans between manager Antonio Conte and the Chelsea suits.
Conte seemed to want a return to the giddy profligacy of the early Abramovich days and, in fairness, did have the title win from the previous year to indicate he was a man worth backing.
Conte wanted established, experienced names to kick his squad on yet further. The board, with Marina Granovskaia as de facto director of football, wanted younger or cheaper talent that they might be able to flip for a profit. It was an impasse. When the decision was finally announced that the club and manager would go their separate ways at the end of the season it all felt like an unnecessarily unsavoury end to what had been a really very successful if never entirely amicable partnership.
9) Liverpool
Previously: Runners-up in 2019, Champions in 2020, 3rd in 2021, Runners-up in 2022
And then: ? in 2023
What happened: Far too early to be writing off a champion team like Jurgen Klopp’s Liverpool isn’t it? Absolutely, but let’s do it anyway because they have looked really pretty shit this season. Mo Salah has gone from the league’s best striker to a mediocre creator, Sadio Mane is being missed terribly, and Liverpool’s defence has been every bit as bad as it was in 2020/21 without the obvious mitigation from that time of all the defenders being injured.
Liverpool have gone past 90 points in three of the last four seasons, and the downside to that excellence is that you set yourself a ludicrously high bar. Especially when it means you’re being measured against Pep Guardiola’s Manchester City, who continue to also churn out 90-point seasons and, crucially, show no indication that they won’t do so again this…
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