Georginio Wijnaldum: “We Expected To Create Better Chances Than We Did”

In a humbling and familiar experience, Liverpool traveled to Burnley to face the newly promoted club at Turf Moor yesterday, only to lose 2-0 after goals from Sam Vokes and Andre Gray put the hosts ahead in the first half. Despite the Reds performing with 80% possession and at least 25 shots, they failed to respond and take the lead - a match we’ve all seen before. A dull and disappointing affair after the excitement of last week, to be sure. Georginio Wijnaldum had his second start of the new season against the Clarets, and spoke to the club following the match in an effort to make sense of the loss.

“They play differently to Arsenal, with lots of long balls and trying to win the second ball. We made two mistakes and they scored two goals and we didn’t create any big chances. That was the story in the first half,” said Wijnaldum. “We expected to create better chances than we did. Sometimes you have the kind of games that it doesn’t work, and you have to keep your confidence and look forward.”

Admittedly, it is the first loss of the official season and there is every opportunity to remain optimistic. With 36 matches left in the Premier League, there’s still a lot of time to fix mistakes and learn from the lessons of each loss, and the Dutch midfielder stressed that.

“Every game I try to learn because every game is different. I’d be happier if I could learn from games we win, but from games you lose you learn more. We must move on to the next game and not make the same mistakes we made today, and look forward with confidence.”

Learning from lessons and mistakes seems to be a running theme for the club and one can only hope they finally take it to heart and show the fruits of their labors. We have time.