Liverpool’s season still ‘sunshine and rainbows’ after cup defeats make Premier League only possible trophy

The reality of determining standards for the height that Liverpool has reached this season so far is that not much has to go wrong for a feeling of disappointment. So it is that back-to-back defeats ask questions about Arne Slot for the first time in the management career of whether everything is for Liverpool this season.

Club captain Virgil van Dijk articulated the same amount in the aftermath of the defeat at Wembley and said to reporters: “It’s how football works. In five days you lose twice and sinks the world. Two weeks before everything was sunshine and rainbows everywhere.

“The Champions League We couldn’t get it done, we lost this and the FA Cup that we were eliminated.”

What does not help is the feeling that with the defeat against Newcastle in the EFL Cup final on Sunday, is called on the heels of them Champions League Exit to Paris Saint-GermainThere are no more meaningful matches to play between now and their Premier League dress. Everyone associated with Liverpool would argue against talking about the title as inevitability. When recognizing last week’s dark cloud, Slot was intended to see the silver lining from pushing their Premier League lead to 12 points, as if there might have been a real danger if the broken Arsenaal was only a 10 discount.

In the meantime, Van Dijk was more agricultural in his description of what should come. “We have to finish for ourselves.”

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He had previously urged that there was a lot of work on it for Liverpool. “We have nine games to go and I don’t think a motivation is needed to try to get the job done.

“You play for the biggest prize that you work so hard for from the start of the season. Nobody expected that we would be a challenge for the Premier League. It is the most difficult prize to get. There is a lot at stake. There are so many positive and good things to look forward to.”

When that festive moment comes, such as, let’s be honest, it will inevitably do that, the vibes will be just as flawless as they have experienced most of the season. And yet this week the qualifying factor or otherwise float in the back of many spirits, the qualifying factor on what would otherwise have been an indisputable campaign.

For some it will even serve as a means to dispute Liverpool’s domestic crown. After all, it is indisputably true that the side of Slot Fit left if their rivals have not done that. Would the red on top of the table if Van Dijk and Mohamed Salah had sustained the same injuries as Ruben Dias, Rodri, Bukayo Saka or Martin Odegaard? Clearly not. Defeat at Wembley was a sign of how deep Liverpool struggles in a game of balls over the top when they do not have Alexander-Arnold they play.

This season, Fitness has turned out to be an important defining factor of the Premier League title candidates, just like it did two years ago when William Saliba’s back took place or as it could have done when Van Dijk’s ACL was taken under the challenge of Jordan Pickford in Liverpool’s defending defense.

The argument that fitness and freshness led him to be determined in Wembley, regardless of how much Van Dijk and Slot may have insisted that the two hours they had just played against Paris Saint-Germain were not a factor in the defeat against a Newcastle side that had endured their assignment 24 hours earlier. “We all gave it all,” said Van Dijk, who revealed that Liverpool had two days off after their loss of Champions League. “That is why it is easier to keep your head up. Focusing on the final is the best thing to do, so I don’t think that was all.”

Regardless of the fresh legs or not, what Liverpool prevents is clear. They will be champions for too long, impressive thereby. In the five seasons since they last removed the Premier League trophy, only two games have on average more points per game then Slot’s: the Manchester City class of 2021-22 and the Liverpool side that pushed them to the very last kick of the ball.

This is also not a number of results, nor is the table particularly distorted by their nine penalties. Scrub them out and you still have a team with a non-Penalty expected target difference per game that she replaces, behind only those two super teams for 2021-22.

Undoubtedly the Architect for this season has been Salah. It is also an inevitability as Liverpool who wins the title that their Egyptian king May will reach with the greatest output by a person in the Premier League history. If he goes in the summer, this will look like it will be a dark future last week. On Sunday, the first game in his career in Liverpool, where Salah did neither took a shot nor created a chance, suggested that no one is ready to step up to 1A status when the star man who plays, leaves, leaves or purchases.

Those are worried about the future. In the present, not much should have changed in our assessment of Liverpool, even if their potential trophy count has been reduced. Slot was right to note that the “the best team in Europe” needed to hit his side from the Champions League at the moment. Newcastle’s performance on Sunday would give a bloody nose to many of the best of the continent on full fitness.

It is before Liverpool for too long will be champions of England. Keep going in their current pace and they will be one of the best the country has seen in recent years. If that is not reason for “sunshine and rainbows”, what is then?