A Mess of Our Own Making at Liverpool

Where do you even start when it feels like Liverpool have spent months making life harder for themselves? Some of it is out of anyone’s hands, and some of it has been completely avoidable. And that’s the part that sticks in the throat.

The hardest bit to write, and the one that sits outside football, is the tragic loss of Diogo Jota. You can talk tactics until you’re blue in the face, but grief doesn’t care about systems. If the dressing room is carrying that weight, you’re not measuring it on a tactics board. You’re seeing it in sharpness, in decision-making, in that extra yard that usually turns a half-chance into a proper moment.

When the “winning formula” gets ripped up

A big frustration is watching a side that was built to get the best out of Mohamed Salah, then suddenly acting surprised when the balance looks wrong. You can argue about his legs, fine, but Liverpool’s shape was designed to cover for him: forwards around him who ran themselves into the ground, did the ugly work, and let him stay dangerous.

If the forward line isn’t built with that in mind, the knock-on is obvious. The press loses its bite, the midfield gets stretched, and you end up pushing your biggest threat too wide just to make the rest fit together. That’s not “evolution”, it’s taking away what you’re good at.

The dressing room matters as much as the XI

There’s also a point that gets laughed off far too quickly: the British and Scouse core. Not because passports win you matches, but because local lads and genuine Liverpool supporters in the squad help set standards. They’re a bridge between the pitch and the stands. Even when they’re not starting, they keep the temperature right.

Lose too many of those characters at once and you can end up with a group that feels a bit more “club” than “Liverpool”, if that makes sense. It’s not romanticism. It’s culture. And culture is what carries you when the football isn’t flowing.

Predictable build-up, questionable trust

Heitinga leaving has been framed as more than just a backroom shuffle, and if he really was the link between Arne and the players, then that’s massive. Because what we’re watching now looks like football by template: the same safe passes, the same horseshoe shape, the same slow circulation that lets every opponent set themselves.

Once you can call the next pass before the first touch, you’re not controlling games, you’re just moving the ball around. And the crowd can feel it too. So can the opposition.

Then there’s fitness and selection. Players cramping deep into the season is a worry, full stop. And the constant shuffling of lads out of position to avoid using the wider squad just weakens two areas at once. Dom being used away from midfield, Endo not getting a look at holding midfield, younger players seemingly frozen out… it all feeds the same problem: a manager relying on an “inner circle” while the team balance suffers.

Truth is, plenty of this could be corrected without drama. Put players back where they’re best. Pick a structure that actually suits the squad. Make the build-up less predictable. The window might help at the edges, but the biggest fixes feel like they’re already in the manager’s hands.

Written by MK Scouser: 22 January 2026