Jürgen Klopp shows signs of strain at prospect of extreme late swing

As the final minutes ticked away in the glare of Stamford Bridge, Jürgen Klopp appeared to be stuck in a pose of oddly touching distraction, wrenching his neck around, arms outstretched, watching his team batter fruitlessly at a well-drilled, tactically on-point Chelsea defence.

At the end Klopp wandered on to the pitch and performed a slightly angsty zigzagging walk before finally getting hold of Jordan Henderson and marching off the pitch in a furiously animated one-way conversation that carried on into the tunnel and might still be going on now.

He had good reason as a slight shadow now hangs over the end of this blistering Liverpool season. Don’t dream it’s over. Victory for Chelsea in heat-struck west London has added a note of intrigue to the dog days of the Premier League season. Watching Klopp talk to his captain, listening to him in his press conference where every phrase was upbeat, controlled, measured, with words like happy and content and character repeated, it was clear Klopp can feel it, can feel the train straining a little to complete the final ascent.

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“It’s my life, always to the last match day,” Klopp chuckled, flicking on that full-wattage charm. Liverpool play in such a high register with so little quarter on their own limbs and muscles, it is unsurprising it should come down to a little brinkmanship. It is clear, too, that Klopp will need all of that galvanising charisma over the next six days and from there into an interminable-looking 13-day break before Real Madrid in Kiev. There are still plenty of imponderables in the crush for a top-four place. Across town Tottenham have begun to splutter, approaching the final run-in like a man trying to run the wrong way along an airport travelator. But quietly, sneakily, the race within a non-race is back on again in earnest for the final week of the season. Liverpool are now conceivably – and indeed a little bizarrely – just a draw and a defeat away from playing in the Europa League next season.

This is very much a worst-case scenario, based around Chelsea and Tottenham capitalising in their own final fixtures. But it bears repeating for the extreme potential swing in these last two games, starting with Brighton’s visit to Anfield.

Stamford Bridge was in a state of giddy early-summer demob as the teams emerged on a baking afternoon. The pre-match sight of Michael Buffer, the let’s-get-ready-to-rumble guy, being drenched by a sprinkler during the team announcements only added to the gaiety. Bravely Buffer soldiered on through the rain. They make ’em tough, those let’s-get-ready-to-rumble guys.

For a while Liverpool looked to be imposing their own concussive rhythms. Eden Hazard skipped inside with a lovely little dancer’s switch of feet, barely denting the Stamford Bridge turf but was upended by a violent lunge from James Milner, a full body slide with all the precision elegance of an industrial sack of cement being tipped down a flight of stairs.

For a while Sadio Mané was electric, springing inside and outside, shooting off both feet. At which point Chelsea began to drag the game their way. The only goal came from the right. Victor Moses produced a flighted cross that was headed in beautifully by Olivier Giroud, waiting just a beat for the ball to pass him before lifting it on its way with a precision mid-air wrench off the neck muscles.

For long periods Chelsea sat deep and let Liverpool pass the ball from side to side. Deprived of space for that rat-pack front three, free of anyone to press, Liverpool did look a team crunching around trying to find another forward gear. It is surely how some teams will challenge their tactics in future.

Certainly Mohamed Salah again looked tired and had one of his poorer days, making just 13 passes over 90 minutes and failing to complete a dribble or have a shot on goal. Some will perhaps draw a misleading comparison with Hazard, who sparkled behind Giroud in the late-season sunshine. But Hazard is fresh for a reason whereas Salah has had the throttle cranked all season. He is understandably flying on fumes right now.

As an aside at times like these watching mere mortal brilliant players, the pretenders, is a reminder of just how good Lionel Messi really is, the through-the-roof genius whose bad days are everyone else’s good days, whose worst spells still involve goals and passes and dribbles that shape a game. It is only human to fall short of this now and then.

For Klopp the challenge is to fight any hint of weariness or frailty, to turn the full beam of his own light on a weary, slightly shallow squad and a season’s end that has stumbled just a little with the line in sight.