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In the latest in a new series on liverpool.com, we pick out the most significant line from Liverpool manager Jürgen Klopp's pre-match comments, and analyse its importance. Keep an eye out for this series after every Liverpool match in future.

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"The first thing to learn is it makes no sense to compare seasons. If we lose two games and win all the others, we have a better season that last year for example. The moment we lose a game - and I can imagine it will happen like this - there will be questions asked. But we know we don’t have to compare the seasons."

- Jurgen Klopp, pre Borussia Dortmund, July 18 2019

Liverpool will probably lose a game of soccer next season. That might not sound insightful, but it would still be relatively monumental.

In the Premier League, you have to go back to January 2018 to find the last non top six side to beat the Reds (Swansea City in a 0-1 loss). It is the only side outside of that recognised upper cartel to inflict a league defeat on Jürgen Klopp’s side in the past two seasons.

It slipped under the radar a little because of the white-knuckle ride to the Champions League final, but Liverpool did not lose many league games last year. Five in total. An asterisk can be put alongside the 0-5 hammering at Manchester City due to Sadio Mane’s red card and the 0-1 defeat at Chelsea with one eye on their upcoming date with Real Madrid in Kyiv.

What didn’t go undetected was last year’s efforts. One league defeat. An ultimately costly one yes (if anything in a 98 vs 97 point season can be costly) but still: to only taste defeat once in 38, and that in a close run battle with Man City, is some spectacular form. Throw in the Champions League triumph and 2019/20 is going to be a pretty hard act to follow.

Klopp knows this. His words in South Bend, Indiana, are evidence of this. It should not be dismissed as negativity to say it is unlikely Liverpool will lose more than one league game next season, and may not retain the Champions League trophy. After such highs, even staying still would feel disappointing, when in reality it would be a phenomenal achievement.

So reactions will be key. Reactions from the players and manager. Liverpool lost 1-2 at City on January 3, and although they would not lose again, they would draw four of their next eight, more draws than in their other 30 games combined. It was a good reaction, but maybe not quite good enough. It asks the question: how does a team who has lost once in 15 months react if and when that next loss comes? The mentality monsters may need to roar once more.

There is another element to this, and that is the support. Already fans have started to lament the plans Klopp has outlined this transfer window; those plans loosely being there are none. It did not take long for the Madrid afterglow to deaden into the darkness of summer. What happens, then, after nearly 18 months of everything going right, if something goes wrong?

Klopp has built a togetherness like no other at Anfield. That was the hard work, and it is hard work made easy when a team is successful. What happens when that success is perceived to be in the past remains to be seen.

Comparing seasons is futile, he is right. Liverpool and City pushed each other to new limits, stretching the boundaries of a top class European league like never before. There have been top twos before, but never so dominant, so ruthless, so relentless.

His words are an important reminder of that. Things might not go Liverpool’s way this year. Everybody, on and off the pitch, should be prepared for that. And they should be ready for the reaction.