Jamie Carragher has pinpointed one ‘big moment’ which he feels was a ‘massive turning point’ in Liverpool’s season.
The Reds go into March with a seemingly insurmountable 13-point lead at the top of the Premier League and a Carabao Cup final date against Newcastle, while they also topped the league phase of the Champions League and are many pundits’ favourites for that competition.
However, had it not been for one result in particular during the early weeks of Arne Slot’s reign, things might’ve transpired a bit differently for the Dutchman in his first campaign in carge.
Carragher: Milan win was ‘turning point’ in Liverpool’s season
Speaking on the Stick to Football podcast, Carragher pointed to Liverpool’s 3-1 win away to AC Milan at the outset of their Champions League campaign in September as a seminal moment, having come just three days after a shock home defeat to Nottingham Forest in what was only Slot’s fourth game in charge.
The former Reds defender said: “I was thinking, you just mentioned the Forest game, and the Forest game came really early in the season. It’s one of those results where you go ‘ooh’. Remember under Klopp, Liverpool went years without losing at home.
“A game that was really important, nothing to do with the league, they played AC Milan away a few days later. They were getting beat 1-0 – I think AC Milan scored within three or four minutes – and they end up winning; I think it was 3-1.
“I look back at that game, now that you mention Forest, and I’m thinking that was a big moment for the manager. It was the first game of the Champions League and you’re losing away. That was probably a massive turning point, that AC Milan game. They’re still not the AC Milan of old but it’s still the San Siro, a big game.”
Milan result kickstarted 24-match unbeaten run
We can see why Carragher believes the victory at the San Siro was crucial in setting the tone for the season that Liverpool have been enjoying.
The Anfield defeat to Forest – which was just Slot’s second home match as LFC head coach – came as a shock to the system, and when Christian Pulisic headed Milan into an early lead three days later, Reds fans may have been fearing that the post-international break period would be a painful reality check.
Instead, we recovered to win 3-1, a result which kickstarted a 24-match unbeaten run across all competitions, and was the first in a sequence of eight consecutive victories (Transfermarkt).
It’s easy to forget now how many doubters the Dutchman needed to win over after he succeeded Jurgen Klopp last summer, and had Liverpool lost at the San Siro off the back of the Forest result, the knives would’ve been out for the 46-year-old among the media.
There were better performances (Bayer Leverkusen, Real Madrid, both Manchester City games) and more dramatic and memorable wins (Brentford away, Brighton at home) than the one in Milan, but in terms of setting the Reds on their way to a potentially historic season, that result against the Rossoneri was arguably the msot important of all.
