Liverpool's year ends with more questions than answers but suffering squad deserve empathy
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Liverpool Echo IconSportFootballLiverpool FCThe final Blood Red column of 2025 looks ahead to Saturday's visit from Wolves and a group of players clearly still dealing with effects of Diogo Jota's tragic passingTwelve months ago, a 3-1 Boxing Day win over Leicester City took Liverpool eight points clear at the top of the Premier League table and curiosity started to pique over what might be possible for Arne Slot's team.Idle dreams of title glory started to gain some clarity as supporters started to believe that the Dutchman might just be able to lead the side to a 20th championship.A year on and the inverse of Liverpool's capabilities might now be true. Since then, the upturn has been progressive if not stark.Slot has often professed that the second best time to judge a Premier League table is at the halfway mark and three points on Saturday will take the champions into the top four ahead of Chelsea's visit from Aston Villa, two sides who are expected to challenge the Reds for a Champions League spot.So what are we to make of a Liverpool team who should find themselves in fourth at the half-way mark?
It's a far cry from what had been hoped for back in August but it would also be no great catastrophe given the troubles of recent months.Victory over rock-bottom Wolves - a side with the potential to be a historically poor one in the Premier League era - won't ease concerns that Liverpool are over the worst but it will add to the growing dossier of evidence as a seventh game unbeaten.Of course, the visit from those in Old Gold will remind all of the sudden and shock death of the much-loved Diogo Jota and his brother, Andre Silva, in a car accident back in early July.Inevitably, the external focus on Jota has grown sharper in recent days, with Slot and club captain Virgil van Dijk dedicating portions of their programme notes to the popular Portuguese.In truth, though, while both Van Dijk and Slot have reflected publicly on their former colleague ahead of the game against the side the Reds bought Jota from five years ago, the reality is that their friend and his memory have never really drifted from the occupied minds in the inner sanctum of the AXA Training Centre.Those with knowledge of the training ground mood have spoken of the unease which still hangs at times and the fact there is no handbook for preparing for such tragic circumstances means everyone at the club is simply trying to do what it is believed to be best, day to day.It's why, whatever happens now before the end of the season, a note of caution should be sounded every time the brutal critiquing begins.Slot was honest enough to concede this week that Liverpool's first half of their title defence hasn't been good enough but it's fair to reflect that the entire club has been trying to navigate its way through grief, which is not a linear process.The presence of Rute Cardoso, Jota's wife - and their children, Dinis and Duarte, as mascots - will be a timely prompt to the No.20's memory and the impossibly tragic circumstances surrounding his death. For the players themselves, though, they need no reminding of any of it.Victory against a team who have lost 15 of 17 games this term at home should be relatively straightforward for a Liverpool side who have prepared properly but any future faltering should be assessed in the context of what these players are continuing to battle through.Paul GorstPaul Gorst is the Liverpool ECHO's Liverpool FC correspondent and brings readers the inside track on all matters Anfield day in, day out.
He brings you all the latest Liverpool news first each day, plus exclusive interviews and insightful, independent analysis. A journalist with over a decade's worth of experience, he has worked at the ECHO since 2016.