THE MOOD HAS CHANGED AT LIVERPOOL! WHY THE FEEL-GOOD FACTOR HAS RETURNED UNDER ANDONI IRAOLA

SPEAKER_1 (0:00)

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Dan (0:34)

We mentioned a couple of times sort of where Liverpool are at right now, we use the word momentum a couple of times. There's definitely a feel good factor. And I think we felt that last night, obviously, when that penalty gets blazed into the back of the cup, like it goes off, doesn't it? Like the scenes, and Andoni Iraola's come out and said that he started to feel more at home. And the whole thing, Paul, and ingredients-wise last night, there was a lot to like because you knocked Chelsea Cup on pens, and that's excellent. Xabi Alonso has done that and all that sort of stuff. But it does feel as a general sense of us moving in the right direction. Are you getting that sort of vibe as well?

Paul Gorst (1:08)

Absolutely. After the season game, I remember speaking to a few people, and I was just thinking, well, I'm not too sure what this Liverpool is at the moment. And the five games since, they've won them all, haven't they? And they're starting to get going in the right direction. You know, I think I might have said it, well, last week wouldn't have been before the Brighton game. I think since the Brighton game, that was a real sign of progress, because I think if you're flicking through the results at the end of the season and you see Liverpool two Brighton nil at Anfield, you're probably shrugged. But this was a Brighton team who had scored more than anyone in the Premier League, they were third, they'd only conceded five goals, which is a league high with Arsenal, or league low rather, and looking every inch like a real contender for the Champions League places. And Liverpool did the number on them to an extent, scored the goals, defended properly, and come away with the big three points, and are probably the biggest example yet, the progress is being made, and they've just continued that last night.

You look at, within the Rafa Benitez era was getting going, and you look at when Jürgen Klopp started to turn things around, both of those, very early on, included decent cup runs, didn't he, in the Carabao Cup, or whatever it was called back then, the League Cup, Worthington Cup. You know, Rafa gets to the final, isn't he, in his first year, so does Klopp, both beating finalists, but you just get a sense that, you know, if you can get a little bit of a cup run going, that you can foster a bit more unity, a bit more spirit in the dressing room, and use it to propel you to other things. And, you know, at the moment, it's the early days, of course, but Iralola could quite easily be doing something similar.

Dan (2:49)

It was interesting what he said last night, actually, because he said that they want to play Bournemouth in the next round, which was something, but about the importance of it. And he made reference, and I'm paraphrasing him, he made reference to the wealth of trophy-laden players that he has within the squad, but he himself doesn't have that many trophies in the cabinet, and that's not to be critical of him, it's just what he's done in his career and where he's at. So this is actually really important to him. And the fact that we are now a couple of games away from a potential final means a lot.

But I make you right, and I'm with you in terms of, it feels like we might be on to something, and there's history to suggest that similar sort of patterns have happened before when it comes to managers. But I come back to it, the manager himself coming out and saying, he's happy. He's starting to feel like he's at home. He's starting to sort of warm to the cop and vice versa. There's definitely a togetherness with the players. I think we saw that at full time, the eventual full time last night as well. So yeah, the whole thing again, Paul, just feels like, yeah, maybe by comparison to last year and sort of some of the dark days we felt like we were having there, this does feel like a different time right now in a way.