Liverpool vs Fulham: Obsession with Reds’ ‘bottle’ can often overlook the simple facts of the matter

If they had drawn to Fulham, would it have been a bottle? Or would it just have been a frustrating result that came from a series of minor technical mistakes?

Why does it always have to be about mentality? It is easy to try to explain everything that happens in football through the lens of mental strength. Winners are mentally tough, losers are bottlers, and everything that happens on the pitch can be fitted into this simple framework. Especially when it comes to Liverpool, the team whose every misstep is ascribed to mental failing and an inability to handle the pressure of their situation.

Sure enough at Craven Cottage on Sunday afternoon that scenario was on the table with 10 minutes left. They had been in control of the game, they had let it slip, and before Sergio Rico pulled down Sadio Mane in the box, they were heading for a 1-1 draw. That would have left City on top – only on goal difference – with a game in hand, giving them the chance to go three points clear here at Fulham in two weeks’ time.

If they had drawn this, would it have been a bottle? Or would it just have been a frustrating result that came from a series of minor technical mistakes? James Milner, brought on to close the game down, sliced his first touch, a clearance, higher than he intended. Virgil van Dijk, the best defender in the world, did not get quite enough on his header back to Allison. And he, one of the best keepers away from his line in the game, did not come out quickly enough. Sometimes you can read too deep for root causes of this type of thing. Sometimes it is just tired players on a soaked pitch not getting their footing as precise as they wanted to.

Jurgen Klopp could not hide his relief afterwards but he was insistent in his post-match press conference that the problem was not one of mentality. The point is that his players were exhausted after their week - that hard-fought home win over Burnley and then their trip to Munich for one of Liverpool’s biggest European wins of their generation. That has taken a lot out of them and maybe it was inevitable that their standards would slip.

“We let them back into the game a bit,” Klopp admitted. “But it was the intensity of the competition. Nothing to do with nerves. The goal they scored, we asked for it. There were two or three moments when we had been a bit like that, and they had their best periods in the game.”

It would have been interesting to see the reaction had the result stayed at 1-1, and whether this defence that Ryan Babel’s equaliser was “nothing to do with nerves” could have held.

But of course Liverpool kept pushing, won the game, and debates about exactly why they let in that goal felt rather moot. But even that fightback, the one that led to Milner’s winning penalty, was itself viewable through that same mental prism. If Babel’s goal was Liverpool bottling it, then was Milner’s winner the opposite?

For Klopp, it was more to do with consistency. Liverpool attacked in the last 16 minutes much like they had done for the first hour, with the two full-backs pushed all the way up, with the ball moving from side to side, and with the front three buzzing around the box looking for an opening. The crucial move, Mohamed Salah cutting in and shooting, Sadio Mane darting across the goalkeeper, could have been seen in the first half. Sometimes football just comes down to execution.

Klopp was pleased with how his side reacted to the equalising goal (Getty)

“I didn't see us panic,” Klopp said. “I liked how we reacted [to the equaliser]. The penalty does not say we are sensational. The boys are human beings. I was sure that we would not panic, that we would not show the nerves that you were waiting for. We are long enough now in this situation that we know it's difficult for other teams to beat us. That gives us opportunities to win it. In most of the draws we've had, we've been closer to winning the games, so we know another chance will come.”