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Liverpool have a chance to climb to 3rd today with a win over Leicester City. That’s the good news. And from here on in, our success this season will be marked not by shiny things—as it has been in recent seasons—but rather by the more pedestrian task of maintaining our status as a Champions League team.
It’s certainly not how anyone wanted the season to go. But COVID and horrific injuries have conspired to lower our expectations about what is and is not possible for this season.
Regardless, if we want to enjoy brighter seasons ahead—hopefully ones in front of crowds—we’ll need to focus at the task at hand. Jurgen Klopp spoke directly to these concerns in an interview with the official club website.
“For us, it’s just the season we are in,” Klopp said. “I knew before we started it would be a really tough one, I’m pretty sure everybody knew it.
“The numbers of injuries are really high and all these kinds of things, that was always clear. To be really successful in a year you have to be lucky as well. If you are not lucky then you have a problem and when you have a problem you have to sort it.
“But it will not be the perfect season anymore probably then. But it’s not about that.
“For us, we see it like this – we have 15 games to go still, so a lot of points and we will go for it. It’s not about where are the others or where will they end up and they end up, it’s just about us. We try our absolute best to make the best season from now on of it. That’s our job.”
As we’ve seen this season, form is only as good as your next game. That is often said as a warning: you might be hot shit now, but any team can trip you up if you’re not careful. But it can also be taken as a positive: for a talented team and coaching staff, an end to poor form can be right around the corner.
Despite lowered expectations, if Liverpool return to their best—such as the 4-0 drubbing of Leicester City last year—and can manage those results on a somewhat consistent basis, good times ahead are possible.
It doesn’t take too many great results to make a real go of things in the Champions League. And going at a pace of 2 points per game—which will almost certainly be good enough to secure Champions League football next season—is also completely within reach.
If Liverpool can end the season on a high note, they can bounce into next season with a foundation of success and a heap of rediscovered confidence. Plus, you know, a fully operational Virgil van Dijk. And hopefully a full and ravenous Anfield crowd.