Reds Legend Sees La Manga Camp as Key to Liverpool’s Top Four Hopes

Two weeks off can feel like an eternity in football, and it’s worse when every other club is off playing while yours is sat around twiddling their thumbs. Fortunately for the team and players, though, there’s always the option to head off for a mid-season training camp when such a situation arrives.

Liverpool fans may be bored out of their minds, checking the calendar every hour to find the next match is still nearly two weeks off, but the players are in La Manga on Spain’s Mediterranean coast with multiple daily training sessions to distract them. And you can count former Red John Aldridge as a fan.

“They’ll have a few days off, regroup,” Aldridge told the club’s official website this week. “It’s great for morale, team spirit as well. [Jürgen Klopp] can work on some finer things that maybe we’ve fallen short of, especially in the last month or two, some fresh ideas. I think it’s a really good idea.”

Given the alternative would be going through their regular routine at Melwood, focusing on all their league rivals playing in either the FA Cup over the weekend or in European games mid-week—or both, in many cases—it’s difficult to disagree with Aldridge on that front. It seems a really very good idea.

And certainly Liverpool need to do something to get themselves back on track following a disastrous January that saw them drop from the only side positioned to challenge Chelsea for the league title to fifth with Manchester United snapping close at their heels. A little course correction, then, is in order.

If La Manga’s sunshine and green pitches can help to get Liverpool back to their autumnal winning ways, then a top four finish is still well within reach for the Reds, and if they can do that come the end of the season there won’t be any fans moaning about having to suffer through an extended February break.

“It’s going to be tough,” added Aldridge. “You’ve got United in the equation. Everton will fall short but we’ve got to play them as well. Really, Chelsea apart, you don’t know who’s going to finish in those next three places. We want to make sure, at all costs, that we’re one of them.”