It’s this feeling that happens every summer and is one well known to fans, as we wait anxiously for the season to get under way. Yet, the first game of the season always plays unusually to me. I see old faces I haven’t seen for a while and find myself getting back into routines, but something always feels off about them.Maybe it’s the remnants of the good weather or the presence of younger players I know are mainly there to make up the numbers in the bizarre interregnum between the end of pre-season and the first international break. It just never has the feeling of the season ???proper’, those mad head-rush games in mid-November where I find myself optimistically checking the table and other results although I know I shouldn’t until late January. And yet, it’s a feeling I know incredibly well; that mix of anxiety, anticipation, hope. Like the first colours of autumn and an old raincoat I know it well and it never lets me down. Like Bill Murray in Groundhog Day, I’ve been here before and, bar the odd surprise, I know roughly I’ll be here again.
But this was different. This was all the blazing heat of a summer’s day and then some. Watching the Reds first twenty minutes or so against West Ham left me breathless, the lads seemingly content to put the foot on the throat and not let up.The pace is relentless, everything one-touch and vertical. In the middle of the pitch, Naby Keita plays like a man twice his size and seemingly determined to cover every blade of grass. At one point I consider if he’s trying to reach 88mph to travel back in time, this (seemingly) being the only explanation for his ability to pop-up on the left, the right and everywhere in between, and be at the scene of any potential incident before it occurs. His partners in this back him at every possible turn, Gini Wijnaldum, reinvigorated by a new position and content to mop up any stray passes. James Milner, the seasoned veteran, striding through the game determined to shake any assertion of a bit-part role for the second straight season.
The attacks come in waves, one crashing after the other, and its only then I notice it looks like our midfield is a flat four. Or at least, it appears to be, so consistently advanced are Trent-Arnold and Robertson, both taking turns to dovetail into midfield and then hug their flank. This continues at a mesmerizing and hypnotic pace for the first twenty minutes, before Mo Salah arrives on the scene, performs some sleight-of-hand and scores the tappiest of tap-ins after an incredibly simple, but elegant piece of play. Twenty minutes is all it takes, the Reds are back, and take note, they mean business.
It’s a cliché to say this ???could be our year’ and something to that effect that is bandied around at this time every season (normally by other supporters out for a cheap rise, let’s be honest). But this did feel different – I come back to the seasons metaphor again it was anything but a sleepy early autumn kick about.This was the white-hot fury the team brought to the Champions League last season transposed to the Premier League and writ large, ???Liverpool are here, and they mean business’. Our dealings in the transfer market indicated as much, but no one quite expected us to hit the ground running this quickly or with such command of a game. If we could lay one criticism at the splendour that was last season, it was that the team often didn’t know when to kill games when they were ahead. There was no chance of that here, the team swarming any loose balls and turning the screw for the full ninety minutes. Challenge one down, bring on the next thirty-seven.There are caveats, of course there is, not least that West Ham had chances; it’s also the first game of a long season and City show no signs of letting up. But the feeling remains that the Reds were comfortably in third gear here and managed to dispose of the task at hand very capably with options to spare. That refinement has taken time three years and is the result of a sustained amount of work from the manager, but also the repeated success of a transfer committee that has identified the right targets and pursued them relentlessly. The additions here looked seamless, not least because everyone around them knew where they fit in, but also how that change affected their own roles.At the centre of this was the scorer of the final goal, Daniel Sturridge, arriving to crown a return to Red hearts and affections after an extended period in the wilderness. First touch, goal, second touch wriggly arms. His story is one that goes beyond redemption at this point, so frequently has there been a false dawn on his return to the team. But the omens seem to be good, a revised role and a string of promising pre-season returns suggest this might be a more permanent change than we had first hoped or even thought possible. Credit to has to go to the manager for persisting when a much simpler solution would’ve been to cut ties with the player long ago.
And that seems to be the story of this team, and club, ever since this manager took over. Everywhere mistakes being unlearned, challenges met and new, more positive behaviours being implemented. Last season started well but was a gradual build before ending like a house on fire, team and fans as one – the current evidence suggests we have no intentions of accepting anything but more of the same this season. Gone are the endless cycles of Liverpool standing still, one step forwards, two back, replaced with a steeliness and an insatiable drive to show other teams they’re better than them. And not just better, but more fun, more entertaining, better at scoring ludicrous goals and making the spellbinding seem completely ordinary and expected.
There’s a ton of reasons to be optimistic then, and so we should be. Every season at some point feels like a commitment, an investment in the team for the coming months of madness, come what may. Usually this falls later in the season, but Klopp and his team seem committed to hit every target set for them and to pick up exactly where they left off in May. Frankly, I can’t wait to join them. Sign me up boys, I’m back in.Up the Reds.Jonathon Reid – @mrjblade 
