Doubters to believers: How the pain in Ukraine transformed fortunes
By Riaz Ravat
This is part three in our series looking at how Liverpool evolved between 2015-2020.
Part three of a five part series on the Reds’ progress under Jürgen Klopp. Read part one here, part two here.
In January 2018, Philippe Coutinho decided he wanted out and left for the third highest transfer fee ever. Another star left Liverpool for pastures new and supposedly greener.
Could Liverpool survive the vicissitudes of football life and in particular their star players, the allure of surfeit clubs?
The income from Coutinho helped the outlay on one seminal signing in January 2018 – Virgil van Dijk, at the time the world’s costliest defender. Van Dijk made an immediate impact.
In the 2017/18 effort, Manchester City ran away with the league finishing 19 points ahead of their noisy neighbours and 25 ahead of Liverpool.
The highlight of this effort was reaching the Champions League final in Kiev. However, strong arm tactics by Sergio Ramos and two Loris Karius calamities resulted in another trophy passing by – the third final was lost.
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As each cup escaped, questions were asked whether Klopp’s Liverpool was destined to be football’s equivalent of the Buffalo Bills from the NFL (four consecutive lost Super Bowls) or Snooker’s Jimmy White (six World Championship finals lost).
The defeat in Kiev led to another pivotal transfer – AS Roma again, but this time it was Alisson Becker, a world record fee at the time for the position of goalkeeper. Fabinho also followed suit from Monaco with the need to have more steel in midfield. With hindsight, it was the pain in Ukraine which became another motivation for later successes.
Klopp’s surgery of the squad he inherited saw much prowess and fluidity up front with the signings of Sadio Mané, Mohamed Salah and reconfiguration of Bobby Firmino who was struggling under Brendan Rodgers.
However, it was at the back that questions remained with weaknesses in goal and across the back four – with the exception of Nathaniel Clyne until he too was superseded by Trent Alexander-Arnold, the most innovative right back in world football.
dark. Next. Major update for Marko Grujic and Harry Wilson futures
After three lost finals, more adversity and mental barriers had to be overcome in season 2018-19.
Riaz Ravat is a member of Liverpool FC’s Equality & Diversity Fan Forum. He writes in his own capacity.