Paul Gorst says that although Jurgen Klopp is determined to prevent a second embarrassing Brighton loss, the unfairness of Tottenham must really fire Liverpool’s season.
The humiliation at Brighton in January may have been the lowest point of Liverpool’s previous Premier League campaign.
The manner of the Reds’ 3-0 thrashing at the hands of the Seagulls truly stands out for how much they were outclassed on the day, even though they were either caught off guard after a shaky start or found wanting in the face of more physical clashes in defeats to teams like Wolves and Brentford.
Everyone will have their own ideas on when Liverpool’s 2018–2022 period officially came to an end, but the deplorable way they collapsed at the Amex Stadium at the beginning of the year is a fine place to start. Or, at the very least, it might have been the instant Klopp realized it.
After ten months, Liverpool will visit the south coast with much more optimism after earning 16 points in their first eight games. The team and the club have a newness and vitality about them that wasn’t present last season, and more than anyone, Klopp seemed reenergized by it all.
And if anyone was looking for any indications of just how serious this new-look Liverpool really is, their shocking and contentious loss to Tottenham last week only strengthened the notion that they are once again, to use a Klopp-ism, “a proper team.”
A 96th-minute own goal and the most egregious of VAR mistakes ended Liverpool’s 19-game and six-month long unbeaten streak in north London last weekend, but the resolute way in which the 10 and then the nine men faced up to the challenge of an up-and-coming Spurs side in their own backyard highlighted that this is a real team once more.
