by Liverpool is only a few weeks from the Premier League-Ruhm, which keeps a breakdown, but there is a noticeable feeling of anti-climate systems and uncertainty about the future after a chastic week for Arne Slots men.
On Sunday, the Anemic Reds lost the Ligapokal final to a hungry Newcastle team, only five days after Paris Saint-Germain ended their Champions League campaign.
Liverpool was of the Magpies, who had celebrated their first domestic trophy in front of their passionate fans for 70 years.
Slot was sanguine after the defeat and admitted that Eddie Howe’s men deserved her triumph.
“This is part of the football game, especially if you are faced with the best team in Europe at the moment and the other in Newcastle is a very strong team in England,” he said.
The Dutch tried to move the focus back to the Premier League and emphasized Liverpools yawning 12-point lead with only nine games.
Sixteen other points would guarantee Liverpool, even if the runner-up arsenal won in every game-and the Gunners’ visit in Anfield in May will probably be academic.
It is almost unimaginable that Liverpool does not correspond to Manchester United’s record with 20 top English top top titles, and captain Virgil van Dijk said that she does not need any additional incentives.
“We have nine games ahead of them and I don’t think motivation is necessary,” said the defender. “We have to see that there is hard work and still a job.
“If you win five games – of course this is a very difficult job – you will be master of England.”
At the beginning of the season, Liverpool fans would have been pleased to only win the Premier League in the first campaign after the end of the Talisman Manager Jürgen Klopp.
But their phenomenal form in the champions of the Champions League hoped that their season could really be historical, and through the goals of the overwhelming Mohamed Salah.
Instead, the ruthlessness that you used to show in the campaign has disappeared at least temporarily.
In her last 10 games in all competitions, Liverpool won five, pulled two and lost three, although one of them was convicted against Paris Saint-Germain.
Even Salah’s goals have dried out – he did not find it in four of his last five games – and was largely anonymous in Wembley.
The Egyptian is one of three star players who have no contract at the end of the season with van Dijk and Trent Alexander-Arnold at the end of the season.
– Contract uncertainty –
Slot was followed all season through questions about the future of the players, who mainly laughed about attempts by reporters to find new opportunities to ask questions about their future.
However, their status is unresolved only two months before the end of the domestic season.
Van Dijk admitted last week that he had “no idea” if he stayed in Anfield after this season.
Salah was associated with a lucrative move to Saudi Arabia, while there is speculation that the English international Alexander-Arnold is lured to Real Madrid.
Even if Liverpool manages to keep one or more of the trio, the feeling is that the team approaches the end of a cycle rather than at the beginning.
Van Dijk is 33 years old, while Salah and goalkeeper Alisson Becker are 32. Stalwart defender Andy Robertson is only one year younger.
These players helped form the backbone of the Klopp team, which Pep Guardiola’s all the conqueror Manchester City cursed relentlessly and won the Premier League and the Champions League under German.
The former Feyenoord trainer -slot had to fill enormous shoes when he arrived last year to replace Klopp, but only suffered from his second defeat in January.
Apart from a historical collapse, Liverpool will only win her second English top top title in the coming weeks since 1990.
Slot will enjoy the moment, but also know that the really hard work is ahead of us.
JW/JC
