Wijnaldum urges Liverpool to learn from last season´s title disappointment

Georginio Wijnaldum wants Liverpool to implement the lessons of last season after taking a commanding lead atop the Premier League.

The Reds were clinical in a 3-1 victory over Manchester City that put nine points between the teams after 12 games.

Leicester City and Chelsea are a point closer, but Liverpool appear ready to bury the ghosts of being pipped to the title last term.

Jurgen Klopp’s men were 10 points clear of City at the top at the end of last December only to go on to lose the title race by a single point.

“We have confidence because of the results we are getting but also because of the football we are playing. That’s what we showed [on Sunday],” Wijnaldum told the Liverpool website.

“It’s always good if you have a gap between the teams behind you [but] you can see with last season that it means nothing, because if you don’t perform and get the results you need to get, they can close the gap really quick.

“So, what we have to do is just focus game by game and give our all and then at the end of the season we will see where we are.

“But I think we just have to enjoy the moment we are in now, because we worked hard for it, and try to carry on.”

8 – Liverpool have won 11 of their first 12 Premier League games this season and lead the table by eight points – only Manchester United in 1993/94 have had a bigger lead after 12 games of a Premier League season (nine points). Outstanding. #LIVMCI pic.twitter.com/YL9d09qMxY

— OptaJoe (@OptaJoe) November 10, 2019

Early goals from Fabinho and Mohamed Salah, along with some favourable refereeing decisions, gave Liverpool a comfortable buffer at half-time of the Anfield encounter.

Jordan Henderson crossed for Sadio Mane to add a third after the interval before Bernardo Silva pegged one back for City with just over 10 minutes to play.

Wijnaldum commended the visitors for making life difficult for Liverpool in the second half.

“They just grew in the game and we tried to stop them with all we had,” the midfielder said.

“That’s what we did but you could still see that they have a lot of quality, so we did everything but sometimes they still came through our press. 

“That’s the kind of team we were playing against, but I think overall we did a tremendous job by playing the way we played in there and we can be proud of ourselves.”