I actually still think they'll come good later on in the season — as we did last season. I'd be surprised if they don't get top four. They've got talent out on that pitch, even if Salah and Van Dijk are basically a spent force, I believe.
But there's a reason why no team has ever — in the history of English football — done four in a row. (Maybe Corinthian Casuals or someone did it back in the nineteenth century, I haven't checked). Back-to-back is already hard. Three times is superhuman (yeah, I know, the rags did it). Four times, and what you get is the head-shattering hangover of last season with us. And remember that it wasn't “just” four in a row. It was six out of seven. That is mental. Bernardo's tired gesture in the penalty shoot-out against Real, in the season we did our fourth, said it all. It was burn-out. (The signs were already clearly there — I still don't understand how the team, who were wandering around the pitch like the living dead right through the second half, got through the Cup semi-final against Chelsea).
So Liverpool are experiencing their hangover after doing one. We experienced it after doing four. It's basically impossible to do four. Pep is a benevolent dictator who asks for the impossible. Like doing the domestic treble in 2019 — oh, by the way, without our best footballer for nearly all the season. That too has never, ever been done. Sometimes, the dictator gets the impossible from his players.
We should appreciate that what we've seen in the last eight years is almost certainly unique in the history of this club.