Liverpool and the Hardest Part: Staying on Top

Liverpool’s problem is not winning the league, it is sustaining the standards afterwards. The post reflects on mentality, post-title drop-offs, and how quickly dominance can slip away.

As we learned over a long period, and as Manchester United are still somewhere in the middle of learning right now, it can take many years, even decades to build a team that can win, or consistently compete for, league titles and European Cups, but it takes a lot less time for it to slip away.

When Liverpool won the league title in 1990, even though it was apparent that some of our key players were nearing the end, nobody would have thought at that point that we’d wait 30 years to see it again. Same at United, now looking at a stretch of at least 14 years. Arsenal look like they’re about to end a 22 year wait.

Grateful for the highs, frustrated with the drop-off

Given the way football went in the first decade of this century, I often wondered if I would ever see Liverpool win another league title. That’s why, at times when I’m feeling most frustrated with how we’re playing and the results we’re getting, I am still thankful for two league titles in the last six years, and forever thankful that Klopp found his way to Liverpool.

But the challenge and the mentality to stay at the top once you’ve got there is something completely different. Maintaining dominance is very different to the initial chase; it requires a different level of motivation to not just pat yourself on the back and feel pleased with yourself but to look on it only as the start and to say you want to do it again and again and again. Love him or hate him, I think Roy Keane used to ooze this mentality.

When standards slip, it can happen quickly

The year after we won the league in 2019/20, we followed up with a shocker of a season. Came good right at the final stages of the season to secure a Champions League place but we fell off badly from the title-winning season (albeit with some unbelievable injury problems at centre half).

And we’ve done it again this year. Again we’ll probably limp into the Champions League places but it’s been a huge fall from last year. Personally I’m a bit of a miserable old-school mentality on this.

Celebrations, focus, and what it says about mentality

I don’t like to see players celebrating and partying when there are still competitive league matches left to play, but I understand the alternative perspective. Either way, I wonder whether the mentality of going on holiday,…