At Liverpool, Obligation Is Not Optional
Liverpool vs Qarabağ FK | Champions League Preview
This Liverpool side will win tonight because it has no alternative. Elite players, when cornered, tend to respond. Anfield, even in a muted mood, still demands obedience to standards. Qarabag is not really the test; authority is.
What continues to drain confidence is not results alone but language. At every press conference, Arne Slot sounds like a man explaining circumstances and bad luck, rather than imposing control. Fatigue, schedule, transition, patience. These are not rallying cries at Liverpool. They are the vocabulary of clubs negotiating their limits, not enforcing them.
Tonight should be professional, controlled, unspectacular, and decisive. That would be enough. But it would also underscore the broader truth that this squad still responds to expectations even though their head coach now appears uncomfortable with them.
Liverpool will win because they have to. What remains uncertain is whether the man on the touchline truly understands that at this club, obligation is the point.
Predicted Liverpool XI:
Alisson; Frimpong, Gravenberch, Van Dijk, Robertson; Mac Allister, Jones, Szoboszlai; Salah, Wirtz, Ekitike
Score prediction:
Liverpool 2-0 Qarabag