Premier League 2017-18 season grades: Liverpool
Liverpool finished fourth in the Premier League in 2017-18, and reached the Champions League final. What grade do they get for their performance?
Liverpool ended the season empty handed, but their fans have enjoyed a spectacular adventure throughout 2017-18. They had 135 goals to cheer, which is the second most in any season in the club’s history. It wasn’t just the volume of goals which was impressive, but the quality of soccer as well. Jurgen Klopp has plenty to be proud about this season.
The Champions League final may have ended in disappointment, but the club did remarkably well to reach it. They scored 41 goals and kept six clean sheets in the competition, which were the top performances by any team this season. That couldn’t power them to the title, but it shows it was no fluke they did so well.
While the league campaign was not spectacular, the Reds are displaying a level of consistency which they rarely have in recent times.
Liverpool secured back-to-back top four finishes for the first time since 2008 and 2009, and their total of 151 points across the last two seasons is their second best such tally in the Premier League era. While they’ve had better domestic seasons than either of the last two, the best ones have been followed by the team nosediving.
Not this time. The Reds scored more league goals while conceding fewer, and they kept their most clean sheets since 2009-10 too. With 75 points, they equaled the average tally by English Champions League finalists, which illustrates how hard it is to do so well in Europe while also amassing an elite points tally in the league.
The domestic cups provided little to cheer about this season, though knocking Everton out is always fun for Kopites. Few fans will complain too much though when Klopp gave them a genuine shot at the biggest prize of all.
The manager
Which is more important? To reach big finals or to win them? You can’t do the latter without the former, but naysayers will point to Klopp’s record of losing his last six finals in a row as evidence he is not an elite manager.
Wherever you sit on that debate, there are few Liverpool fans who would swap their manager for anyone else now. The team are playing fabulous attacking soccer, and Klopp has taken them to three finals from his eight attempts so far.
He has also learned from his mistakes in terms of squad rotation. The Reds fell away in the league in 2016-17 as their tired squad imploded, but that didn’t happen this season. Rotation didn’t happen without some cost though, as league points were dropped along the way.
Resting players for a Merseyside derby doesn’t sit well with many fans when you don’t take the three points, even if Liverpool deserved to win comfortably. In the long term though, Klopp’s stance has proven justified.
His transfer stance has paid off too. When the Virgil van Dijk deal fell apart last summer, many Kopites screamed for the club to sign someone else instead. Klopp held firm, got his man in January and has been rewarded with an improved defensive record. Where once Liverpool’s transfer process was eyed with suspicion by the fans, few could argue with it now.
Did selling Philippe Coutinho in January prevent the season from being even better? There’s no way to know for sure, but Klopp is a firm believer in the power of the collective; you only have to hear the manager and players say “we win together, we lose together” in the aftermath of Loris Karius’ Champions League final horror show to know that. With Coutinho wanting out, it was probably right to let him go.
Klopp can be rightly proud of his efforts in 2017-18, but expectations will be higher next season. It won’t be easy to maintain the high standards Liverpool have reached this term, but it’s a good problem to have.
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The players
You have to start with Mohamad Salah, and even then, where do you begin? He set a new record for Premier League goals in a 38-game season. He scored against 17 different league opponents. He scored in the joint-most games in English football history. He became the first player to ever outscore three top flight teams in one season. And on and on it goes. It’s not bad for south of £40 million, is it?
Not that he was solely responsible for Liverpool’s success this season. What was once ‘the Fab Four’ slimmed down when Coutinho left, but there was no let up from Roberto Firmino. He made pundits’ claims regarding the club needing a 20-goal-a-season striker look laughable. The Brazilian weighed in with 27 plus 16 assists, and his off-ball work was second to none.
Sadio Mane didn’t have a great first half of the campaign, but he finished the season superbly. Mane scored in five of Liverpool’s seven knockout matches in the Champions League, including a goal in the final. His strike in Kiev was his 20th of the season, and he should match that in 2018-19.
While the front three were superb, there was a lack of goals from elsewhere in the team once Coutinho left. Beyond those four, Emre Can was top scorer with six, while Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain bagged five. However, the former Arsenal man was playing well until injury struck, and should be capable of reaching double figures next year.
At the back, van Dijk looks worth every penny of his £75 million transfer fee. Dejan Lovren has been at his Liverpool best since playing alongside him, and the goalkeeper has looked better too.
Or at least he did until the Champions League final. Loris Karius has had a good season based on the stats, but he undermined that spectacularly in Kiev. It will be fascinating to see if he can recover from his mistakes, and it will take a very long time for him to regain the trust of the fans.