BEVERLY HILLS, January 22, (THEWILL) – These are not the best of times for English Premier League defending champions, Liverpool. After enduring a couple of matches where their attack line drew blanks, their consolation remained an unbeaten home streak of a record-extending 68 matches. But, that was until Thursday night.
In a league fixture against Sean Dyche’s 17th-placed Burnley, not only were their hopes of defending their Premier League title dealt a serious blow, their over 1,300 days of an unbeaten run in the league at Anfield, dating back to April 2017, came to a halting end as they fell to a 1-nil loss.
With startling consistency recently, Liverpool have found themselves struggling to overcome relegation sides this season. Burnley are just the latest, and most daring, to have taken points off the champions, in fixtures where the Liverpool of the past season could have crushed by a high-scoring margin.
This time around, Newcastle United, Brighton & Hove Albion, West Bromwich Albion and Fulham surprised pundits be securing good draws, on their part, against the Reds. Only the Clarets have mustered the guts to go one better on Merseyside and succeeded with some good fortune.
The players at Burnley will return home accomplished because it was far from an easy ride. Liverpool very nearly broke the deadlock before the interval, but Divock Origi’s one-on-one opportunity hit the cross-bar to his chagrin.
But that was as far Jurgen Klopp’s charges came to scoring the entire tie. It is now their fourth Premier League match without a goal for a side that could not stop scoring in their race to the title in the 2019/2020 victorious season.
Burnley striker Ashley Barnes won the game for the visitors when he stepped up to convert from the penalty spot with seven minutes of regulation time remaining on the clock. The spot-kick itself was another uncharacteristic aspect of a shocking upset as it came as a penalty for an unusual Alisson Becker infringement.
The game and the points went to Burnley after five minutes of extra time elapsed with nothing on the scoresheet from the hosts. Jurgen Klopp was left to accept the end of a run with his first Premier League defeat at Anfield in almost four years and it came from the unlikeliest of teams.
And the German manager renowned for spiky post-match interviews whenever results failed to turn out as desired for Liverpool, was shockingly too calm, on the one hand, and decidedly blamed himself for the historic Anfield defeat, on the other.
It was so un-Klopplike to witness him go as far as praise his players despite branding the defeat as ‘impossible’. He accepted the responsibility of such a crushing blow with calm candour. As gallant as it appeared doing so was, it in no way masks the truth that there are grave problems that require more than candour to tackle at Merseyside.
The handwriting on the wall could not be clearer. It is most imperative that Liverpool, should they still desire to rise in defense of their Premiership title, find a way to get their front three clinical again as they proved to be last season because just one goal since Christmas is not just a shocking record but an unacceptable circumstance for the Champions.
Without those goals from the boots of Sadio Mane, Roberto Firmino and Mohammed Salah, there was no way they could have had the successfully brilliant season they had in the previous campaign. Without those goals now, they can very much kiss their hopes of back-to-back domestic trophies in the EPL goodbye.
About the Author
Jude Obafemi is a versatile senior Correspondent at THEWILL Newspapers, excelling in sourcing, researching, and delivering sports news stories for both print and digital publications.
