Liverpool lost in transition but Jürgen Klopp could be their golden thread

With 11 minutes left in this FA Cup fourth-round tie and the score 1-1, Jürgen Klopp could be seen running out to the sideline, yanking the snood from his face and executing a series of inflamed scything gestures with his right arm, as though trying to break free from some imperceptible set of the shackle

Klopp shrieked. He threw his head back. Just as quickly he stopped, crouched, and mooched back toward his seat. Nothing was really happening. Klopp was reacting to the shapes in his head, seeing the danger, slackness, and loose stitching in Cody Gakpo’s off-the-ball positioning during a lull in play with the ball 40 yards away, out there verbbeging his false-10 midway attacker to stand 10 yards deeper, trying to plaster some kind of attacking plan beyond this strangely angsty Liverpool team in real-time.

It is a measure of where Liverpool is that this was probably the most animated Klopp became all afternoon. Brighton would go on to win the sport, deservedly, with a brilliant goal a minute and a half into stoppage time.

It was gracefully taken by Karou Mitoma, a footballer who is commonly made of feathers, dandelion spurs, and some kind of super-light high-tensile alien alloy. In the tiniest of spaces, with the ball bouncing up like a balloon, Mitoma shifted his feet, leaned inside, flicked the ball up off his right foot, delicately back-spun, hanging in the air like some deific orb, then moved it with thrilling exactness off the same foot into the far corner.

What skill, what command of attraction and space, what basic powers of the congregation to be able to do this in the 92nd minute, a fitting winner in an exceptional cup tie. At the final wheeze, Klopp squeezed Roberto De Zerbi and hand-

spanked the Brighton seat. There was applause for the traveling fans and a fond, rueful wave as Klopp turned to leave the pitch with the Brighton victory playlist kicking in.

Freed from desire. Well, that’s one way of putting it. Because this did feel like a full stop, a mid-season deadheading. What is there left to win now? The Champions League? Ten points off fourth place are hardly insurmountable. Additionally, this does not look like a team poised to mount a desirable surge.

Instead, this is apparently a moment for Liverpool’s campaigner who knows this better than anyone, to take a breath and think about vast endings. The main emotion around this Liverpool team in the present weeks has been dislocation. The inclination is always there to look for simple causes. There has been talking of tired players, of the shadows of last season’s ghost quadruple, of recruitment mistakes made, of Klopp losing his magic dust.

Brighton’s first-half equalizer was the upshot of a lack of pressure after a corner was lucid. Tariq Lamptey had time to 

constantly himself and punt in a shot that was diverted into the goal off Lewis Dunk. Klopp will feel it was poor preserving, poor cover, and drowsiness in the center.

And that was lovely much that for Liverpool, who never actually looked like winning this game in the second half. What the season brings from here is anyone’s guess, but Klopp remains the club’s most valuable asset, the strongest thread between Liverpool just passed and the one that needs to be built.