Winning Papers Over the Cracks

There’s a weird habit that creeps in when Liverpool win a match in a scruffy way: the score becomes the whole conversation. Three points, job done, stop moaning. But honestly, that mindset is how you sleepwalk into bigger problems, because it asks you to ignore what your eyes are telling you.

For me, the comparisons people keep throwing around don’t help either. Arsenal being top, or us “not being that far off”, or even the lazy “we were worse at this stage last year” stuff. It’s apples and oranges. Arsenal can be top and still have fans unhappy with the level they’re playing at. That’s allowed. And we can win a game and still look miles away from being a proper Liverpool side again.

Stop benchmarking us against everyone else

Arsenal are 10 points ahead in the league in the example being used, so trying to paint it as the same situation feels pointless. It’s not about them anyway. It’s about us. And when you look at us, the issue isn’t just results, it’s the way we keep ending up in the same mess: brittle when momentum swings, panicky when the game goes chaotic, and far too easy to play through at times.

That’s why the “last season” comparison winds me up as well. Last season’s Liverpool, for all the moaning we did, had a clarity to it. The patterns were there. The pace was there. The confidence in big moments was there. This version? Not so much. If you dropped last season’s side into the same match situations, they’d handle it comfortably. That’s the truth.

Scorelines can flatter you

Take a game like Spurs away as the example being thrown about: yes, we scored two away from home and won. But it’s not the two goals that are the point, it’s the feeling that the opposition could still get back into it. Even with a man down. Even with the game seemingly under control. That shouldn’t be happening to a team with our ambitions.

And we’ve already seen how quickly it can unravel. Look at the Leeds match referenced: scoring twice, still conceding ground, then scoring a third and still not being able to see it out. That’s not “one off bad luck”. That’s a warning sign.

“As long as we win” is not a plan

I can’t get on board with the idea that performances don’t matter as long as the points go on the board. Of course results matter, nobody’s saying bin them off. But if the performance is screaming that the structure isn’t right, that the control isn’t there, and that the team’s confidence is hanging by a thread, you’re basically choosing to ignore the train coming.

Wins are nice. They lift the mood. They buy you time. But they don’t automatically fix the shambles underneath. And pretending they do is just another way of kicking the real conversation down the road.

Written by OliRed: 23 December 2025