Liverpool rested a load of players on Monday night but so did Wolves.
Matt Doherty was given a break, so was Costa, Cavaleiro and Rui Patricio. They still had Raul Jimenez, Neves and Moutinho but this wasn’t exactly Nuno Esprito Santo’s full deck.
On top of that, Liverpool are the Premier League leaders, they were Champions League finalists last season and it’s fair to say that they’re never usually short on confidence.
So in that case, no excuse should really wash or should really be expected for them losing to Wolves in the third round of the FA Cup on Monday night apart from the fact that they didn’t show up and were punished by a better team.
But after a listless 2-1 defeat – Liverpool, supporters, former players and managers were scratching the surface for more.
The general consensus on social media was that they didn’t care about the FA Cup and that the League is their only priority this season. Former player and respected analyst Jamie Carragher was singing off the same hymn sheet, claiming that the less games Liverpool have to distract them from the holy grail in May the better.
https://twitter.com/Carra23/status/1082401278884499458
That’s all well and good but what about momentum? The team have lost two games on the bounce now and when you consider that they haven’t won a trophy in the Klopp era and are going on seven years without a cup in general, the FA Cup should hardly be swatted away like a fly on a table.
"They've come off that field, barely in a sweat the two of them"https://t.co/pHN8NZH52c
— SportsJOE (@SportsJOEdotie) January 8, 2019
And then, manager Jurgen Klopp went one better. In his post-match press conference, the German claimed that a few of his players were ill after the City game, fair enough, said that Wolves were basically at full strength here and hadn’t changed much from their first choice XI, debatable, and then he went out and cursed the wind at Molineux.
“The wind didn’t help, players struggled to control the ball,” Klopp said after the game.
It’s like something you’d hear an under-16 manager in the west of Ireland come out with after his team had lost the toss. Sure they were on the back foot from the word go then. And then the wind died down in the second half, a disaster.
Maybe Liverpool’s players aren’t used to the breezy conditions but surely €65 million Naby Keita, Fabinho and co. should be able to adapt.
