Liverpool have lost their identity and intensity – what are they trying to be?

There was a familiar presence on the touchline in a Liverpool FC game. Pep Lijnders belongs in a tradition of successful Liverpool assistant managers, even if his destiny, unlike those of Bob Paisley and Joe Fagan, was not to get the top job at Anfield. Instead, Lijnders has, via an ill-fated spell in charge of RB Salzburg, traded a role as Jurgen Klopp’s sidekick for one as Pep Guardiola’s second-in-command.

With the Catalan banned, he was in charge in the technical area as Liverpool crashed out of the FA Cup , beaten 4-0 by Manchester City . Lijnders had been on the winning side in these clubs’ previous FA Cup clash, too: Klopp’s team had been outstanding in the 3-2 semi-final win in 2022. Lijnders coined one of the mottos of Klopp’s Liverpool: “Our identity is intensity”.

A reason, perhaps, why the Dutchman has not succeeded as a manager in his own right is that such phrases sound more convincing when said by Klopp. But, in his time at Anfield, he wrote a book called Intensity . Unsurprisingly, it is out of stock in the Liverpool club shop now.

Liverpool crashed out of the FA Cup (Mike Egerton/PA Wire) But Liverpool have lost their intensity in another respect. “Our second half, the intensity we didn’t match,” said a downcast Virgil van Dijk after his hopes of lifting the FA Cup this year ended. Klopp had called his team “mentality monsters”.