Liverpool's abject collapse in Sevilla could yet have a seismic effect on their season

You could maybe call it Pizjuan-bul for how it reversed a famous comeback, or a revival of Basel 2015 for how Sevilla again exposed Alberto Moreno to also get inside Liverpool heads and so often get the ball into their goal, but the most relevant echoes of the past in the south of Spain on Tuesday were from much more recent matches: the last few weeks.

This 3-3 collapse was a return to a more porous Liverpool, after they had finally shown a bit of resilience by only conceding one goal in four games over the previous month.

It will also see a return of so many questions.

That will be the great frustration of this chaotic match for Jurgen Klopp, even if it was against an admittedly super-spirited Sevilla responding to half-time news their manager Eduardo Berizzo has prostate cancer and puts all this in perspective, and even though the minor consolation from what would otherwise be a good result was that it won’t have too much effect on their aims for ultimately finishing top of the group. It still feels like this will have a bigger effect on the season, because of the sense Liverpool needed the confidence from the defence staying strong to secure a big win when under pressure; to keep that run going; to offer further reassurance to the players that recent training ground work is paying off.

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That will be the deeper longer-term frustration for Klopp once the great frustration of the actual result wears off. Ever since the 4-1 evisceration at the feet of Tottenham Hotspur, he has concentrated on really tightening the team’s structure, especially in away games.

They haven’t been any major changes or massive switch in formation, but instead a series of more minor tweaks, trying to ensure a certain level of concentration remains; that there aren’t just the same lapses.

It did bring progress but is clearly still a work-in-progress.

It was also so conspicuous how this Sevilla draw echoed that Spurs match, in that it looked like Klopp was forced to take off one of his defenders because they were having such a bad game, with every error only compounding the next. In this case it was Alberto Moreno rather than Dejan Lovren.

That is also why it feels like this is more a big backward step, however, rather than properly bringing them right back to square one.

Even though Sevilla had been cutting Liverpool open early on to serve warning of what was to come, Klopp’s side had shored up after Sadio Mane’s header and had looked relatively solid… until Moreno had a bit of a brain freeze, and then another.

He was targeted, and that was why there was a specific reason for their loss of momentum, rather than a collective drop-off that had previously been the case.

It is still a worry as to how they could so lose any control of the game, and this points to something that many figures around the club have long felt is as much of an issue as the backline and maybe more because of how it affects that backline: the midfield. It just doesn’t have the right level of protection, or possession. Jordan Henderson is so often a leader for Liverpool in terms of personality but he didn’t really lead by example when required, with one stat indicating he only offered 55% pass completion.

If your primary midfielder is doing that, you’re just not going to see the kind of ‘professional’ display you would idealise in these fixtures. Worse then was how the wildness that brought to the game led to something much more run-of-the-mill: Liverpool conceding from set-pieces.

It was just a sloppiness that was all the more striking because of the slickness and precision at the other end, the cutting edge that had itself returned and was itself probably only bolstered by the confidence that came from more protection at the back.

Klopp now has to go about building some of it back up again but, with a resurgent Chelsea up next, faces exactly the type of fixture that could further knock it all down.

Before even getting there, he will likely have to knock down the same old questions.

That will frustrate him as much as anything.