The message was short and to the point, sent to each and every member Liverpool’s first-team squad.
“Whatever we do together, we do as well as we can,” it read. “And tonight that means we party.”
It came as a surprise to most. It had been expected that Liverpool’s Christmas party would be cancelled, with the team having been battered 3-0 at Watford earlier in the day. Instead, Jurgen Klopp saw an opportunity, a way to turn a negative into a positive.
There must be no moping, no dwelling on what was, by anyone’s standards, a chastening defeat. His players and staff, he insisted, must stay and enjoy themselves.
“Nobody leaves before 1am,” Klopp announced upon arrival at the plush Formby Hall resort, a dozen miles north of Anfield. Once inside, he and his wife, Ulla, took charge of the dancefloor. It was, say those who were there, a night to remember.
This was December 2015; the early months of Klopp’s Anfield reign, when doubters were not yet believers, when expectations were high but consistency was low. It was when Troy Deeney and Odion Ighalo could strike fear into the men in red.
Adam Bogdan was in goal, Mamadou Sakho was in defence and Christian Benteke was up front. Back then, any mention of Liverpool and the Premier League title came with a punchline.
How the world has changed since.
Goal
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