sport news Liverpool's defeat to Brighton had the earmarks of the end of an era as Klopp's ... trends now
There was something Solly March said on Saturday evening that painted a rather neat picture of why his club and the one they just walloped are in such different places at this moment.
It was about a facet of Liverpool’s game that was once so mighty and here, against Brighton, was held up as evidence of decay in a side trending quickly in the wrong direction.
‘I think it’s the best we have produced in the Premier League,’ March said, and no arguments there. ‘To my memory I don’t think we have played better than that in a long time, playing Liverpool off the park like they didn’t know what to do.
Liverpool suffered a damaging 3-0 defeat to Brighton in the Premier League on Saturday
‘I think they were getting frustrated — they were pressing and we were just playing around them, one-touch football.’
He was talking in the context of Brighton’s many strengths, and there are many of those. March was at the forefront of it, scoring twice before Danny Welbeck stuck in a final dagger, but it was a win built on many backs: Kaoru Mitoma was exceptional in peeling off more layers of Trent Alexander-Arnold’s confidence, Alexis Mac Allister and Moises Caicedo ran laps of the old boys in Jurgen Klopp’s midfield, Lewis Dunk swallowed Mo Salah whole.
But quite aside from what it told us about Brighton, it told us more about Liverpool. About eras and the warnings you see and hear when they might be ending.
Premature talk, possibly. And yet to ignore the signs would be daft in the face of such glaring weaknesses, particularly when so much they won under Klopp was earned through the sweat of mobile men in the middle.
Brighton were brilliant and shredded Liverpool's system to pieces as they dominated with ease
Jurgen Klopp's side have lost any sense of intimidation in midfield that they once had
Which takes us back to pressing. Brighton
