Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain On Liverpool’s Belief and Winning Mentality
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This is a Liverpool side that go into every game believing they will win—and they usually do.
Last year, Jürgen Klopp’s mentality monsters registered 97 points in the league and won the club’s sixth European Cup. This season so far, they’re undefeated in league play and have dropped just two of a possible 42 points.
And if anything, they seem more determined this time around than last year, grinding out close games, getting late goals, and seemingly never giving up no matter the situation, and it’s not just the fans and pundits who have noticed.
“There’s times in my career where I definitely haven’t gone into all games 100% confident that the team’s going to come away winning,” said midfielder Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain. “But with this team, I have that sort of belief in us.
“If we’re on our A-game that’s how I think we should come out of games. Obviously it might not happen every time but when you’re going into games with that sort of mindset and belief it simplifies everything else.
“You go in there to win, you know what you need to do to win. There’ll be some things you can’t control, that happen with the opposition or little mistakes here and there, but the overall mindset is we’re going to win.”
Whether they’re up early and dominating the opposition; whether they’re down thanks to a few sloppy moments or a piece of bad luck; whether everything seems to be going their way or whether everything is going against them.
No matter what, this is a Liverpool side that has learned from last season’s journeys in the league and in Europe, believes in their ability and in what the coaches have prepared them for ahead of time, and that doesn’t ever give up.
“I’ve been in teams that are fantastic teams when everything’s going great and when we have an off-day we have an off-day,” he added. “At the minute with this group when we’re having off-days we’re still coming away with results.
“When things aren’t going well we still have a clear picture of the ideas, the way that we’re going to win the game. Whether it’s worked for 80 minutes or 85 minutes doesn’t seem to really matter, we just keep going.”
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Source: Liverpool Offside