Liverpool have had a few dodgy results in preseason.
But it hasn’t stopped the club experiencing it’s most successful period in well over a decade, picking up a UEFA Champions League, Premier League, UEFA Super Cup and FIFA Club World Cup in the last two years.
So why, despite this success, do fans get so worked up over pre-season results? Remember, these are glorified training matches used to regain fitness in preparation for the coming campaign.
I’m going to delve back into the previous seasons in the previous decade, to see which campaigns saw success and failure in pre-season, and I’ll look at whether the relevance of results actually exists.
2010/11 was the beginning of the Roy Hodgson era at Anfield. It was a desperately dark time in the club’s recent history.
Now if there was ever a pre-eason to worry about, it was this one. The Reds failed to score in all three of their matches against F.C. Kaiserslautern, Grasshoppers and Borussia Monchengladbach, being defeated 1-0 by both German sides.
Hodgson would be sacked the following January, replaced by Kenny Dalglish, and the Reds would pull back to finish sixth. Not a phrase you’d associate with modern Liverpool.
The next season brought more positivity yet inconsistency, which again would correlate with the season ahead.
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After defeating Guangdong and Malaysia in Asia, the Reds would tumble at the hands of Hull and Galatasaray – both by three goals to nil. They would then draw with Valarenga in Norway, and beat Valencia 2-0 at Anfield through goals by Andy Carroll and Dirk Kuyt. The Reds would pick up a League Cup trophy, but fall to a dismal eighth in the Premier League.
Under Brendan Rodgers the Reds had a pretty decent preseason record overall – but his only win in his first season, 12/13, came at Anfield against Bayer Leverkusen.
Carroll was again on the scoresheet before departing to West Ham, alongside a youthful Raheem Sterling and Lucas Leiva.
13/14 was Liverpool’s most successful pre-season results wise for a long time – with the Reds picking up eight wins out of nine. But it is important that these wins are put into context of opposition.
Liverpool beat Preston, Indonesia, Melbourne Victory, Thailand, Olympiacos (in Steven Gerrard’s testimonial), Valerenga and Shamrock Rovers. Arguably Olympiacos are the only tough opponents, and that came in a testimonial!
The only defeat came at the hands of Celtic, by a goal to nil. However, this correlated into an excellent season for Liverpool, as they finished second because of Steven Gerrard’s unfortunate slip.
2014/15 was the inaugural year of the International Champions Cup – a preseason trophy Liverpool did reach the final of. However, despite Gerrard’s early penalty, they fell 3-1 to Louis van Gaal’s Manchester United.
The Reds also defeated Dortmund 4-0 at Anfield, but were defeated by both Brondby and Roma and this reflected their inconsistent season, finishing sixth once again.
So thus far, the pre-seasons are actually quite accurate reflections of the seasons that followed. 2015/16. The last pre-cursor under Brendan Rodgers. This time, a successful one would not correlate to a successful season.
The Reds won five out of six, clearly aiming to repeat their 13/14 antics by facing up against weakened opposition (Thai PL XI, Brisbane Roar, Adelaide United, Malaysia, HJK Helsinki, and Swindon Town).
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Rodgers was then dismissed in the October leaving the Reds in 11th, and was replaced by Jurgen Klopp.
The German’s first preseason was potentially the most important in Liverpool’s recent history, as he imprinted his style on a mixed squad from previous managers and new arrivals, with the likes of Sadio Mane and Gini Wijnaldum arriving on Merseyside.
They again competed in the International Champions Cup, in which they lost to Chelsea but comfortably dismantled AC Milan and Barcelona. That famous 4-0 win would be quickly drowned out by another within three years.
24 hours after their thumping of Los Cules came an away trip to Mainz, in which the scores were reversed.
This cast doubt over the Reds’ consistency despite the time frame – but it would be a relatively successful campaign. Liverpool finished fourth on the final day with 75 points, securing Champions League football for the first time in three years. 75 points nowadays would see you comfortably third – so the achievement needs to put into context.
2017/18 is the season in which modern Liverpool emerged as a force in England and in Europe, despite picking up one less point.
And preseason did reflect this, with their only defeat coming on penalties to Atletico Madrid in the Audi Cup final. It was a win in that would have secured a preseason double, after Jordan Henderson lifted the Premier League Asia trophy in Hong Kong.
After an inconsistent start, the Reds powered through in the new year after the arrival of Virgil van Dijk to finish fourth and reach the infamous Kiev final. And we all know what happened.
One trend that we can see under Jurgen Klopp is the quality of opponents. They are considerably higher than in previous years, and arguably 2018/19’s provided the highest quality – with both Manchester clubs, Napoli, and Borussia Dortmund featuring in their preparation.
The Reds’ only defeat came at the hands of the latter, a 3-1 loss with goals from Christian Pulisic (2) and Jacob Bruun Larsen.
This was of course the season in which we won the Champions League, and finished second by just a point to Manchester City.
So that brings us on to this season – the Twitter ‘fans’ have been complaining that we haven’t signed anyone (as per at this point), and there are some panicking that we haven’t got a 100% record from two matches.
The positives far outweigh the negatives, with the likes of Takumi Minamino, Naby Keita and especially Rhian Brewster excelling in the games against Stuttgart and RB Salzburg.
So the correlation suggests that preseason does have an impact on a season going forward. But the recency bias in complaining about it is utterly ludicrous.
Under Jurgen Klopp, Liverpool as an entirety, from top to bottom, is a well oiled machine. Drawing 2-2 against Salzburg does not disprove this.