Liverpool at Christmas: One year on, what’s changed?

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Looking at snapshots of where Liverpool are this Christmas and where they were 12 months ago, it doesn’t look as though much was different.

Liverpool went into Christmas 2020 two points clear at the top of the table and having beaten Crystal Palace 7-0 away.

However, during a tumultuous campaign with problems on and off the pitch taking place amid the covid crisis, Liverpool did well to finish where they did.

A difficult, unusual and exhausting 2020-21 season

The 2020-21 campaign turned out to be somewhat of an aberration.

A spate of injuries to key Liverpool players – the Reds lost their three senior centre-backs and even their replacements – as well as others suffering from fatigue made for an exhausting season.

Jurgen Klopp’s charges suffered a downturn in form after Christmas, winning just three league games between 27 December and 7 March.

Credit to Liverpool’s strength of character that they rallied round and won eight of their last 10 league games to finish third.

Not much has changed as far as the bulk of the Reds team goes.

Alisson Becker, Andrew Robertson, Trent Alexander-Arnold, Joel Matip, Naby Keita and Sadio Mane started both against Palace last year and against Spurs last time out.

Obviously this is only a snapshot of two games.

Having Virgil van Dijk back has helped Liverpool massively this season, but he missed the Spurs game due to a positive covid test.

Ibrahima Konate joined in the summer, while Georginio Wijnaldum and Xherdan Shaqiri were Liverpool’s most high-profile departures.

And Kostas Tsimikas, who was barely getting a look-in last term, is now playing more regularly.

A lot has happened in the past 12 months but Liverpool are now impressing once again.

They are just behind Manchester City in the table and comfortably in the Champions League knockouts.

It’s been a tough year but hopefully the next few months will bring more joy to the red half of Merseyside.