Whispers about the possibility of a fabled quadruple have grown louder and louder in recent weeks, and Liverpool are now closer to achieving that mythical feat than any other English club in history.
With the EFL Cup already under their belts, Liverpool have an FA Cup final against Chelsea coming up next Saturday and a Champions League final against Real Madrid looming on May 28 in what will be their 63rd game of the season.
The Reds are the first club to have ever reached the final of all of those competitions in a single season, but no sooner had they booked their place in the latter than minds would have started drifting towards Saturday’s visit of Spurs.
Such is the unforgiving nature of a quadruple push that every single game for Liverpool is now a must-win, and even that may not be enough with Premier League matters still in Manchester City’s hands.
Liverpool will be hoping that the devastating nature of Man City’s latest Champions League exit carries over into their meeting with Newcastle United on Sunday, but first the Reds must do their own job and keep the pressure on Pep Guardiola’s defending champions.
Certainly, Klopp and his players will know that they can ill-afford another 45 minutes like the first half against Villarreal on Tuesday night, when they produced their worst half of the season and saw their first-leg deficit wiped out.
Fortunately for the Merseysiders, they snapped out of it and put in a much more characteristic display in the second half to turn the game around, winning 3-2 on the night and 5-2 on aggregate to book their ticket to Paris.
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The nature of that victory should spur Liverpool on, just as Man City’s defeat could threaten to derail them, but the relentlessness of fixtures for the Reds – and the crucial nature of each of them – means that they cannot afford to take anything for granted.
Nonetheless, Klopp’s men enter Saturday’s match as Europe’s form team, with their only defeat in 29 outings this calendar year being an ultimately meaningless one against Inter Milan in the Champions League.
The last six of those games have been wins – against the likes of Manchester City, Manchester United, Villarreal, Everton and Newcastle United – and Liverpool now have just six left of a memorable campaign.
