How Liverpool shrugged off ‘mediocrity’ and honed the art of closing out wins

When this season is over, the turning point for Liverpool may well be traced back to the final stages of a match early on away against Wolverhampton Wanderers. Those eight minutes included a move breaking down because Cody Gakpo was offside, Virgil van Dijk failing to clear a header, Ibrahima Konate passing the ball out of play, Joe Gomez giving away possession, Mohamed Salah losing the ball close to his own penalty area — as shown in the screenshot below — and then, when Liverpool mounted a counter-attack, Gakpo wasting a cross with Trent Alexander-Arnold clearly offside. Gakpo still had time to stray offside again, Konate and Ryan Gravenberch lost possession just a few seconds apart and both Alexis Mac Allister and Alexander-Arnold sent aimless clearances straight towards opposing players. Andy Robertson also threw his body at a late shot after Chelsea mounted one final assault, following a bizarre decision to award the visitors a foul after Liverpool striker Darwin Nunez went shoulder-to-shoulder with Veiga. In forward areas, Diaz, Nunez and Dominik Szoboszlai made the right decisions to help the team over the line while late substitute Joe Gomez jumped into challenges to win back possession on a couple of occasions, as highlighted here: With so much at stake, and up against better opponents — particularly Chelsea’s pacy young forward line — it would have been easy to lose focus in the moment, but that seems to be one of Liverpool’s greatest strengths right now.