“IT’S NOT ALLOWED to take history in the backpack”, said Jurgen Klopp the day he was unveiled as Liverpool manager.
Judging by the skittishness general all over Anfield on Wednesday night, his message has yet to take hold.
Anfield is famous for grasping an occasion but on Wednesday the occasion seized the ground.
The atmosphere faded from raucous to tetchy to almost silent as Liverpool toiled for a winner against Leicester while cameras lingered on fans with their heads buried in their hands, seemingly girding themselves for disaster.
Despite the fact Liverpool did actually extend their lead over Manchester City to five points in midweek, there were the first signs of creaking beneath the awesome weight of Liverpool’s recent history.
While Liverpool fans are goaded over their longing for their history, at this stage their history is the longing.
“It sounded like it” was Virgil van Dijk’s response when asked if he felt the crowd was anxious.
After the game, Klopp was keen to stress the strength of Liverpool’s position: “I don’t see it like we dropped points. We take what we get, and tonight it’s a point. It’s more than we had before the game, and that’s fine.”
Liverpool are in an exceptionally strong position, and will start February five points clear of a Manchester City team not looking quite as invincible as they once did.
Their challenge is significantly different now, however. Having kept pace, now they have to busy themselves with winning.
But having something to win also means having something to lose.
Prior to their December wobble, matching City’s furious pace meant reconfiguring draws as defeats; when Divock Origi scored his late, late winner against Everton, for example, he plucked the ball out of the net and started back to the halfway line until he was reminded he had actually won the game.
There was something liberating in all of this, and amid that run many Liverpool fans were reluctant to actually say they might win the league, as by doing so their hopes would be crystallising into something tangible that could then be destroyed in new, interesting and awful ways.
Then City started losing, Liverpool kept winning and now there is no escaping the reality that they can finally go and win the thing.
But before they can win this year’s title, they have to lose the last few all over again.
Although Jordan Henderson, Daniel Sturridge and Simon Mignolet are the only remaining players from the perished title bid of 2014, its memories are still cauterised on match-going minds.
That tilt at the title was built on weeks of seething, roiling emotion from which Liverpool’s cavalier style of play was distilled. Liverpool won 11 straight games as Anfield seemed to will their dreams into reality.
Then Jose Mourinho turned up and it all went….pop.
If Liverpool cooled to pragmatism before that game, they might well have been champions. They needed seven points from their last three games, so could have agreed to the point Jose Mourinho wanted and then beaten Crystal Palace and Newcastle to seal the deal.
Instead they were as febrile as ever, and Mourinho exposed them as flimsy.
The emotion around them became overbearing, and they lost their heads: Luis Suarez sarcastically applauded time-wasting as Steven Gerrard and Brendan Rodgers lost their nerve. Gerrard tried to atone for his slip by charging around in a fruitless toil for redemption, and took eight shots from an average of 27 yards. Rodgers should have taken him off.
The emotion and exuberance that made the title challenge possible was its ultimate downfall and Gerrard has since bitterly lamented that Liverpool should have been more pragmatic against Chelsea.
So it is understandable if the Anfield crowd are now not entirely sure how best to approach this latest shot at glory; it will stir memories of what might be that crowd’s first crisis of confidence, having seen all they came to know and understand filleted in that game against Chelsea five years ago.
Given the generous evidence of recent and relative success, European nights at Anfield are not afflicted with anxiety but the Premier League is different.
There were practicalities that held Liverpool back against Leicester: if Jordan Henderson is to win the Ballon D’Or it won’t be from right-back, while van Dijk and Gini Wijnaldum – two of Liverpool’s best players thus far this season – struggled on their return from illness and injury respectively. They were also unfortunate with a string of refereeing calls, which added to the frustration in the stands.
Nonetheless, Klopp and his players might be quietly happy with the fact that Monday night’s game against West Ham is in London.
Liverpool may have a five-point advantage over City, but the champions have only one opponent to hurdle.
As the pressure intensifies over the coming months, you get the feeling that Liverpool might have two.
Premier League fixtures (Kick off 3pm unless stated)
Saturday
Spurs v Newcastle (12.30pm)
Everton v Wolves
Chelsea v Huddersfield
Brighton v Watford
Burnley v Southampton
Crystal Palace v Fulham
Cardiff v Bournemouth (5.30pm)
Sunday
Leicester v Manchester United (2.05pm)
Manchester City v Arsenal (4.30pm)
Monday
West Ham v Liverpool (8pm)
