Ageing Liverpool fighting Father Time as well as faltering form

Sign up to Miguel Delaney’s Reading the Game newsletter sent straight to your inbox for free Sign up to Miguel’s Delaney’s free weekly newsletter Sign up to Miguel’s Delaney’s free weekly newsletter SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. If Wednesday’s tie at Ibrox is part of Gerrard’s legacy, considering Rangers’ improvement in his tenure, Souness may assume a greater pertinence, given Liverpool’s plight. It was Souness, rather than Sir Alex Ferguson, who Jamie Carragher argued knocked Liverpool off their perch; it was Jurgen Klopp who returned them there, making them champions in 2020, three decades after Kenny Dalglish’s final triumph, a year before Souness came in and started clearing out Peter Beardsley, Steve Staunton, Steve McMahon and Ray Houghton. Even with Joel Matip now also out, there is scope for seven thirty-somethings to start and if neither Alisson’s age nor his form is a concern, the birth certificates of Virgil van Dijk, Jordan Henderson, Thiago Alcantara, Roberto Firmino and Mohamed Salah represent a ticking timebomb. Most of Klopp’s group have been together for at least four years, and most were born within a four-year period, from Henderson in July 1990 to Andy Robertson in March 1994, taking in the aforementioned Thiago, Van Dijk, Matip, Firmino, Salah and Alisson plus Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain and Fabinho and the now departed Gini Wijnaldum and Sadio Mane.