What a difference a year has made for Liverpool

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On Thursday night, Liverpool suffered a 1-0 home defeat against Chelsea in the Premier League. Incredibly, the loss was their fifth straight league defeat at Anfield, a never seen before run of home form for the Merseyside giants.

This time last year Liverpool were runaway Premier League leaders and nobody could live with them.

Now Jurgen Klopp’s team are seventh place in the English top-flight table and have a fight on their hands to even seal a European place for next season.

Of course many will point to their injury problems as the main cause of Liverpool’s failing this season. Granted the Reds have suffered some terrible luck with injuries, but they are not the only team in the world to have had injuries.

The injuries are not the only reason for Liverpool’s form falling off a cliff. Throughout the team, the intensity seems to have dropped off. The forward players in particular have endured big dips in form.

Sadio Mane and Roberto Firmino have failed to reach the heights of previous campaigns.

Egyptian forward Mohamed Salah has scored 17 Premier League goals this season and is the league's top scorer. However, the former Roma star has been nowhere near his best this season, despite his scoring output remaining at a good level.

It seems that fatigue has finally set into the Liverpool players. Jurgen Klopp’s brand of high-intensity football may have now taken its toll on the players who have performed so well over the last few seasons.

Liverpool’s main aim this season is now just to secure Champions League football for next season.

Then reassess in the summer, as even in this strangest of top-flight campaigns, nobody at the start of the season could have predicted the champions floundering so badly at this stage of the campaign.