A clean sheet, a point gained. That was the assessment of Jurgen Klopp after his Liverpool team claimed a 0-0 draw away to Chelsea on Tuesday night, a result the boss saw as a small step forward.
The Merseyside team have been full of small steps forward this term, and the odd bigger one, but they have come largely in and around hurried paces backwards or outright slip-ups, culminating in them being a full 23 points behind the pace they set last season by this stage, and six places further down the Premier League table.
A litany of defensive errors have hounded Liverpool’s campaign, with more on show at the weekend in the heavy defeat at Manchester City. It led Klopp to ring the changes at Stamford Bridge and while the hosts failed to score, how much of that was down to alterations rather than Chelsea profligacy is open to debate. Still, he was pleased by the players’ reactions as Liverpool seek to climb the table.
“This was the fight we had to show, the way we have to start again our development. I decided to make six changes, that can be a bit of a problem and a real challenge [in defence]; we could see in the first few minutes we had real problems there. But the recovery after that, the desire to sort the situation, I liked,” Klopp said after the game.
He may have taken the positives from not adding to the goals conceded tally, but if the objective remains to climb the table, Liverpool have an altogether different problem to fix: the goals column, at the other end of the pitch.
Since the 7-0 shellacking of rivals Man United, the Reds have played four matches. In that time, 360 minutes, they’ve managed a solitary goal - which came in defeat at City.
And it isn’t just that the goals are not flowing, as might be the concern in Chelsea’s dressing room after a host of chances early in both halves were spectacularly spurned; there is an outright dearth of opportunities being created by Klopp’s team right now.
Trailing to Bournemouth at half time, Liverpool would be expected to mount some sort of onslaught against their relegation-threatened opponents. Instead, they managed one shot on target in the second half.
Against Real Madrid, faced with a Champions League exit without an epic attacking response, the same: One shot on target after the break. At Man City, having gifted two goals immediately after the restart, not even one. And at Stamford Bridge, with points on offer and the likes of Mohamed Salah introduced off the bench, another solitary second-half attempt to trouble - or not - Kepa Arrizabalaga.
Goals win games, and given the lack of defensive cohesion and resilience at present, the Reds frequently look as though they’ll need at least one to even earn a single point, let alone take three at once.
Yet their biggest chances - that word used extremely liberally - in west London came via Jordan Henderson’s 40-yard shot which didn’t reach the six-yard box, a back-header from Wesley Fofana which almost went to a red shirt but didn’t, and Joe Gomez - who has never scored a goal for the club - fizzing in a strike on the angle for Kepa to save.
Other than a Fabinho effort deflected wide, that was about it, the sum total of Liverpool’s attacking output. Their expected goals tally for the game was 0.24. Their xG sum for the past three matches combined is less than one goal: 0.93. Salah, their greatest goal threat, averages over three shots per 90 minutes in the top flight this term but over the last four games he has had only four shots total, just two on target and none against Chelsea at all. It’s tremendously difficult to anticipate a team’s revival in league position terms when they are incapable of getting and maintaining their noses in front across 90 minutes, let alone keeping the other team out consistently.
Even so, the manager remained focused on the need to first solidify matters at the back, expecting the on-the-ball work will then incorporate the confidence earned from being tougher to break down in the first place.
“It’s a little step in the right direction. I know we have to put the hard work first - it’s not a situation for backheels and one-twos,” Klopp said.
“Step by step, tonight we were much more compact, we put much more pressure on the decisive player than in the last game, things like this. First and foremost, each development, each success starts with being difficult to beat - and we have to be difficult to beat again. If we are that, we will build confidence and then you’re much closer to your best self. But that will not happen just like this without super hard work. We want to win each game and tonight I saw that.”
Perhaps so, but it overlooks the fact Liverpool would have been two down to a more clinical front line than Chelsea’s within the opening ten minutes.
And whether this much-changed lineup stays in place to host league leaders Arsenal at the weekend or not, the group dynamic doesn’t yet look ready to show the consistency Klopp demands and desires from Liverpool, in either half of the pitch.
