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What's Behind Liverpool's Poor 2017?

In between weeks eight and nine of the 2015/16 Premier League season, Liverpool added to their list of great signings by bringing in former Borussia Dortmund manager Jürgen Klopp.

Going into the 2016/17 Premier League Season, Liverpool had extremely high expectations. During the first half of the season, Liverpool saw a mixture of great results against high-caliber teams who had their hopes set on the title race. However, in 2017 Liverpool has seen a handful of mixed results that have set back their title race dreams.

These results are atypical from a team hoping to achieve Premier League title success. Every team the Reds have lost to during the Premier League season in 2017 has been to a team facing the reality of the relegation zone. This is not the only theme that has reoccurred for in fixtures. Each team Liverpool has lost to has undergone new management in weeks, sometimes days before the match.

 

The first occurrence was when Liverpool played Swansea City at Anfield on January 21st. Twenty days before the match, Paul Clement was announced as the new manager of Swansea. Gylfi Sigurdsson scored in the 74th minute after a defending blunder from Liverpool’s back line taking his team to victory 3-2 over the Reds.

Two weeks after the match against Swansea, Liverpool traveled to KCOM stadium to face Hull City. A month prior to this match, Hull City revealed that Marco Silva had taken over the managerial position at Hull. Earlier during the first half of the Premier League season, Liverpool skated past Hull City scoring five goals while only conceding one. This match would tell a tremendously different story. Hull City capitalized on the few chances they produced defeating Liverpool 2-0.

After producing a feat that has never been accomplished, Leicester City shocked the soccer world once again. On February 23rd, the club sacked their manager Claudio Ranieri, who guided them to the EPL title a season earlier. Their next game was at home four days later against Liverpool. Craig Shakespeare was the assistant manager of Leicester City from 2011 and on February 23rd, he was asked to be the caretaker manager of the club.

 

Before individuals watched the game unfold, there was no way to predict the match winner. After a phenomenal performance by the Leicester, history repeated itself with Liverpool losing 3-1.

Sacking a manager can lead to revitalized energy throughout a football club and new beginnings. It would be hard to argue that if Liverpool faced a team with a new manager they would win after the trend in the past three fixtures. The Premier League is the most unpredictable league in the world so it is no surprise to see upsets occur regularly. If there is a new manager hired at a club within the Premier League, as a Liverpool fan I hope they are not on the remainder of our league schedule.

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