Why a win against Leicester could be crucial to Liverpool’s season

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Scott Groom explains why a win against Leicester today could be crucial to the season ahead.

It’s been the perfect start to the season so far for Liverpool, with wins against Brighton, West Ham and Crystal Palace propelling Jürgen Klopp’s Reds to the top of the early season Premier League table.

While not exactly setting the world on fire with their performances as of yet, Liverpool have still looked entirely comfortable and worthy winners in their three encounters, during which they’ve kept three clean sheets and netted seven goals.

For their next test, the Reds travel to the King Power Stadium to face Claude Puel’s Leicester City. This game comes right before the international break, which comes at a dreadful time in the season I hasten to add.

Many people will be looking at the game against The Foxes as a game that Liverpool should routinely be winning if they’re to live up to the hype of Manchester City’s main title rivals this year. But we all know the Premier League better than to assume that, and Leicester are no push-overs.

We’ve seen Liverpool succumb to defeats at the KP in recent seasons, and when Klopp’s men have come away with three points from their meetings, it’s rarely been an easy ride.

But a win is something that the Reds should really be striving for – especially considering the run-in of fixtures ahead of them between now and the forever hectic Christmas period.

Should the Reds get another win in Saturday’s early kick-off, they’d move onto 12 points and stay at the very least joint top of the table heading into the international break, with Manchester City at least two points further behind depending on their result this weekend.

It would be highly beneficial to try to keep them at arm’s length for as long as we can, particularly when you consider that we come up against them at Anfield on 7 October. But before this game even takes place, Liverpool will have two other stern tests.

The Reds will twice travel to London in September for games against Chelsea and Tottenham, with a home game against Southampton sandwiched in between. To say their run of fixtures up until the start of October is tasking would be an understatement, adding further importance to the trip to Leicester.

If Liverpool pick up all three points on their trip to Leicestershire, it almost affords them the luxury of being able to drop some points (and by that I mean a draw!) at Stamford Bridge or at wherever Spurs decide to play their home games this season, keeping City at bay even further.

Then comes the crunch match at Anfield, which again, Klopp will be looking at going into as favourites considering current form and recent history between the two teams, when Liverpool have more than had the measure of The Citizens.

Once that game has been and gone, Liverpool face home and away fixtures against Arsenal, as well as ties against Everton and Manchester United before 2019 begins.

Although this may seem like a distant dream, the New Year is closer than you think. Dropping points against the likes of Leicester when so many pivotal games are on the horizon would be a serious dent in any ambition the Reds hold.

All of this is made a bit more treacherous when you remember that mid-week Champions League football will return in the winter months, adding further strain to the squad.

Let’s get our heads back into the present day and the Leicester game – it’s a must win.

Managers, Klopp included, will forever say that they only focus on one game at a time, but I fail to believe that.

To some extent, yes you have to only prepare for the next fixture, but when you consider the implications that that fixture could have, you simply must look at the bigger picture.

This season was always going to be important for the Reds, and these next three months could be the most crucial of them all. So let’s start right by putting Leicester to the sword on Saturday and head into the internationals at the top of the pile.