Liverpool

Fancied by many to challenge Manchester City's domestic dominance once again, in addition to competing on all other fronts, Liverpool instead suffered their lowest finish in any of Jurgen Klopp's seven full seasons at the helm and were forced to settle for the Community Shield as their only trophy.

Here, Sports Mole takes an in-depth look back at a 2022-23 campaign which the red half of Merseyside will hope to consign to history as quickly as possible.

SEASON OVERVIEW

Final league position: 5th

FA Cup: Fourth round

EFL Cup: Fourth round

Champions League: Last 16

Community Shield: Winners

Top scorer: Mohamed Salah (30)

Most assists: Mohamed Salah (16)

The dust had barely settled on a traumatic end to an otherwise successful 2021-22 season when Liverpool fans were rocked by the news that club legend Sadio Mane wanted to leave for a new challenge in the summer, eventually joining Bayern Munich.

In response, the Reds splashed the cash on Benfica forward Darwin Nunez in an £86m deal which raised eyebrows, particularly with question marks being raised regarding whether such money would be better used on an ageing midfield unit, many of whom were entering the final year of their contracts.

Nonetheless, after a mixed pre-season things started brightly when Liverpool beat Manchester City 3-1 in the Community Shield at Leicester City's King Power Stadium, which hosted the game due to the Women's Euro 2022 taking place at Wembley.

That trophy completed the set for Jurgen Klopp at Liverpool, but it proved to be something of a false dawn as Liverpool showed early signs of a hangover from their push for a quadruple the previous campaign.

Come-from-behind draws against newly-promoted Fulham and Crystal Palace in their opening two games, the latter of which included an ill-disciplined red card for new boy Nunez early in his Reds career, made for a very underwhelming start which only got worse when they were beaten 2-1 at Old Trafford by a Manchester United side that had themselves suffered a horrendous start to the campaign.

Klopp's men bounced back from that disappointment in emphatic fashion, equalling the biggest-ever Premier League win with a 9-0 obliteration of Bournemouth for their first league triumph of the campaign, and following that up with a 98th-minute Fabio Carvalho winner against Newcastle United - a result which looked more impressive as the weeks went by and the Magpies established themselves as top-four contenders.

Consistency was something Liverpool would struggle with throughout the campaign, though, and it would be a month-and-a-half before they next won in the league.

That wait was in part prolonged by postponements caused by the death of Queen Elizabeth II, meaning a goalless derby draw with Everton at Goodison Park was Liverpool's only league game of September, but their defensive frailties were exposed in a 3-3 home draw with Brighton & Hove Albion - Leandro Trossard helping himself to an Anfield hat-trick - and a 3-2 defeat to emerging title hopefuls Arsenal in October, which also saw Luis Diaz pick up a serious knee injury.

The Reds did at least taste victories in the Champions League during that time, overcoming an opening 4-1 defeat to Scudetto-bound Napoli to beat Ajax and Rangers twice, with their trip to Ibrox seeing them hammer seven past the Scottish outfit in Glasgow.

That 7-1 win was followed by a 1-0 triumph over defending champions Man City as Liverpool once again showed their capacity to beat the best, although they lost Diogo Jota to a long-term injury in that match, while Klopp overstepped the mark while berating an official, earning him a red card, an eventual touchline ban and sparking a debate over the behaviour of managers on touchlines.

Klopp's players were doing little to calm him down, and after a midweek win over West Ham United they then displayed the infuriating nature of their 2022-23 form by losing at Nottingham Forest just six days after toppling Man City.

Victories over Ajax and Napoli ensured their progress to the Champions League knockout rounds, but an 89th-minute loss to Leeds United at Anfield condemned them to back-to-back league defeats for the first time since March 2021.

Things did finally look to be on the up again heading into the mid-season World Cup break as victory over Napoli sparked a run of four successive triumphs in three different competitions, beating Tottenham Hotspur and Southampton in the league while also progressing in the EFL Cup.

The mid-season break saw Diaz suffer a setback in his recovery from his knee injury and Liverpool were knocked out of the EFL Cup by Manchester City in their first game back, but they picked up where they left off in terms of league form with victories over Aston Villa and Leicester City after Christmas.

The turn of the year brought with it a turn in fortunes, though, and Liverpool suffered a dismal start to 2023 which saw them win just one of six games, being knocked out of the FA Cup and suffering chastening league defeats to Brentford, Brighton and Wolverhampton Wanderers in succession too, the latter leaving them 10th in the table.

With their top-four hopes seemingly in tatters, Liverpool embarked on a five-game unbeaten and clean sheet run in the league, beginning with 2-0 victories over Merseyside rivals Everton and 10-man Newcastle, and culminating in a 7-0 humiliation of their greatest rivals Manchester United.

That win at Anfield - which saw the two sides still level just a few minutes before half time - was the type of result that Liverpool fans will talk about for years to come and provided the undoubted highlight of their season, especially with Roberto Firmino capping off the scoring just a couple of days after confirming that he would leave the club at the end of the campaign.

However, in true Liverpool 2022-23 fashion, the pride generated from that result was swiftly followed by a fall, losing 1-0 away against Bournemouth - the team they had beaten 9-0 earlier in the season - in their very next match.

Champions League elimination followed, with Real Madrid having ruthlessly run out 5-2 winners in the first leg at Anfield - despite Liverpool making a dream start - and then triumphing 1-0 in the return leg to once again get the better of the Reds in a repeat of last season's final.

That result condemned Liverpool to a season without a major trophy, and a convincing 4-1 defeat at Man City on April 1 made it three losses on the bounce in all competitions while also shining the spotlight on the gap which had opened up between the two sides who had gone toe to toe for English supremacy in recent years.

However, the additional time on the training pitch afforded by their Champions League exit saw Klopp trial a new formation which included a hybrid position for Trent Alexander-Arnold, whose defensive capabilities had come under serious scrutiny throughout the season.

The benefits were almost immediate; Liverpool ended the season with an 11-match unbeaten run which included a seven-game winning streak - comfortably their best of the campaign.

During that unbeaten run, the Reds came from two goals down to draw with Arsenal, hit Leeds for six and edged a topsy-turvy thriller with Nottingham Forest, while also seemingly solving the away woes which had dogged them for so much of the season.

The standout result from that run was an incredible 4-3 victory over Tottenham on April 30 which saw Liverpool race into a 3-0 lead inside 15 minutes, only to throw that away when Richarlison seemingly earned a point for Spurs with a 93rd-minute equaliser.

However, a defensive error allowed Jota to steal in and score again just a minute later, sending Anfield into raptures and leaving Spurs to once again lick their wounds.

A draw with Aston Villa in Liverpool's penultimate game of the campaign ended their winning streak and effectively ended any lingering top-four hopes too, although it did give the Anfield crowd the opportunity to bid farewell to departing quartet James Milner, Naby Keita, Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain and Firmino, the latter marking the occasion with the equalising goal.

A season which flitted between historic highs and lamentable lows was then neatly encapsulated in the final game of the season against already-relegated Southampton, which saw Liverpool go 2-0 up inside 14 minutes - including one final goal for Firmino - back level at 2-2 before the half-hour mark, 4-2 down by the 64th minute and then level again at 4-4 by minute 73.

It was a fittingly chaotic end to what had been a chaotic campaign which, despite containing some moments that will live long in the memory, will overall be looked back on as a hugely disappointing one for a team so used to challenging at the top end of the table under Klopp.

PREMIER LEAGUE STATS

Wins: 19 (=4th)

Draws: 10 (9th)

Losses: 9 (=17th)

Goals scored: 75 (3rd)

Goals conceded: 47 (=13th)

Yellow cards: 57 (16th)

Red cards: 1 (=10th)

Passes: 22,401 (2nd)

Shots: 605 (2nd)

Big chances missed: 78 (1st)

Saves: 114 (11th)

Tackles: 590 (17th)

Own goals: 2 (=9th)

Hit woodwork: 16 (=6th)

Clearances: 540 (18th)

HOW DID IT COMPARE TO LAST SEASON?

In short - not very well at all.

Liverpool enjoyed one of the greatest seasons in their history last term, winning the FA Cup and EFL Cup, reaching the final of the Champions League and finishing just a point behind Manchester City in the Premier League title race.

Coming so close to an unprecedented quadruple, and playing in every available match, may have had some toll on this season, but Liverpool's inconsistency in 2022-23 lasted well into the new year, and so a hangover from their previous exertions certainly cannot be held up as a sole excuse for their subsequent underperformance.

Remarkably, Liverpool only spent one gameweek outside of the top four in the Premier League last season, with their lowest position at the end of a gameweek coming when they dropped to fifth after their third game of the campaign.