Liverpool suffered from a poor start to last season and struggled to accumulate points. Just when it looked like they were going to have a good run against a strong opponent, they were easily beaten by a team in the relegation zone, and their performances were so erratic that it seemed impossible for them to qualify for the Europa League at some point.
Towards the end of the season, Trent Alexander-Arnold took over at false side-back and the tide turned. When in possession, he scattered passes with his vaunted developmental skills, but also contributed to the midfield press along with Fabinho, thanks to the efforts of Ibrahima Konate.
With back-to-back wins, they climbed to fifth place in the Premier League. Liverpool managed to qualify for the Europa League and began to rebuild their midfielders this summer. They acquired Alexis Mac Allister and Dominik Szoboszlai to upgrade their midfield.
The team regrouped for pre-season in order to perform well in the new season. The English defender, who is expected to be used as a false side-back again after last season, explains what it will take to compete with Manchester City for the title again.
“We do respect every competition we play in but if you’d asked us this time last year, would you want to finish fifth, we’d have all said no and same again now,”
“Would we want to finish fifth next season? No. We want to be winning the league, we want to be challenging and being in title races and in Champions League football so to not be in that next season is disappointing.”
“We know how to win the league, we know how to challenge City and go toe to toe with them and you need to be near-perfect throughout the season so for us that’s where our heads are at.”
“It’s consistency. Throughout the season we had good results against the big teams but we dropped points and sloppy points away from home especially, so these are the things that we’ve all naturally thought about that we need to correct.”
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If the new players can adapt to Klopp’s style of soccer and the youngsters can develop further, we have the squad to compete with the likes of City and Arsenal. With two of the front three departing, Milner and other key players gone, and a generational shift taking place, will the team be able to compete for the top spots in the 2023-24 season?