Wijnaldum Hopes To End Slump Against Spurs

To say the least, Liverpool did not have a very good January. However, one player who did—the deserved winner of the player of the month award—was Georginio Wijnaldum. He scored the equalizer against soon-to-be-crowned champs Chelsea, and had an all-around good month, even while his teammates were failing in new, and creative ways.

After winning the honor, Wijnaldum spoke to the official club website about the recent downturn in form, and what they’re trying to do to turn it around.

“People from outside ask us what the reason is that we’re not performing as good as before; they ask you is it [the number of] games that we’ve played, because we’ve played a lot of games in a row – but other teams have had the same and didn’t drop points, and we did,” Wijnaldum said.

“Sometimes you’re in a flow and sometimes not. We’re in a situation where we’re not in a flow, but we must have confidence and faith we can change it.

“We showed it against Chelsea, but we have to show that against other teams we’re playing against. We must get the focus to play again like before, playing with freedom.”

Like in big performances against Chelsea and Manchester City (both, interestingly, games in which Gini scored the team’s only goal), he thinks Tottenham can be a game where the Reds show their true quality. Or at least what we hope is their true quality.

“To be fair, in the big games it’s been the best kind of football we’ve played this season, so I think it’s easier for everyone to perform in those kind of games. I’m lucky that I scored important goals in those games. It’s easy to say the performance against big teams, but I think it is the whole team who performs against a big team.”

If Liverpool want to get their top 4 hopes back on track, they’ll need to be at their best against the Premier League’s stingiest defense. Hopefully Gini & Co. can show a little more patience and creativity in attempting to unlock the defense—and a lot more defensive discipline when they can’t.