John Giles joined Thursday's Off The Ball to discuss the weekend's Premier League action and to give his thoughts on the difficulties Liverpool face as they look to defend the title.
Liverpool's 4-3 victory over newly-promoted Leeds United was the pick of the results in the opening weekend of the Premier League. The reigning champions emerged with the three points but they looked far from secure at the back throughout the match.
"Going on my experience at Leeds when we won the league, when the next season came around, it took us a long time to get the attitude that we had for the run-in back for the new season," Giles said.
"The start of the next season comes very quickly, it took us ages to get going again with that intensity that you need when you’re going for the league.
"It might take Liverpool a few games or a few kicks up the backside to really get going again."
Liverpool energy
The former Leeds midfielder explained how there's an energy and excitement in the air in those games when you're challenging for the league but that somewhat disappears at the start of a new season.
"Once the new season starts again, you know that you have the whole season in front of you so you don’t have that same energy or excitement. You can’t contrive that excitement," Giles said.
"It’s no coincidence with Liverpool that once they won the league, they didn’t play well at all by their standards.
"When they finished it off, there was a slump."
Virgil van Dijk was not as assured as normal in the game against Leeds and he made a few sloppy errors, one of which led to Patrick Bamford's goal.
"He’s a very, very confident lad and I think sometimes a little bit over confident," Giles said.
"The other day, he should have got the ball away but I think when you’re used to to playing it out from the back in the way that he does it’s very difficult to pick the moment to get it up into the stands."
Giles did also credit his former team for their performance and praised Marcelo Bielsa for his approach at Anfield.
"Leeds took Liverpool by surprise, they took me by surprise in the way that they had a go at Liverpool," he said.
"One thing is for sure with Bielsa is that he’s not going to play defensively against anybody. I think they will cause a few upsets over the season."
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