Syndicated reporting provided by Stats Perform and reviewed by the SoccerNews editorial team.
Andy Robertson says Liverpool’s players “didn’t care about football” last season in the aftermath of Diogo Jota’s death, adding they lost their competitive edge as they grieved.
Jota, alongside his brother Andre Silva, was killed following a car accident in northern Spain on July 3, 2025, at the age of 28.
His death came less than a month after he helped Portugal win the Nations League for the second time, having also played a key role in Liverpool’s Premier League title win in 2024-25.
And a difficult defence of their title ensued, with Arne Slot departing after the Reds finished fifth in the table, only salvaging Champions League qualification on the final day.
Robertson – who joined Tottenham on a free transfer in June, following 378 appearances in nine years for Liverpool – says the loss of one of his closest friends had a huge impact on and off the pitch.
“It’s difficult to describe or talk about. What we went through was horrendous,” he told The Overlap’s Stick to Football podcast.
“The new signings, they’re coming into a club that was heartbroken. I felt so sorry for these guys because they’d signed, and they’d signed for big money, and it took them months to settle in.
“We didn’t care about football. That was the truth of it, we didn’t care about football because we’d just lost one of our best mates in the changing room.
“All footballers have that edge and, when you lose that edge sometimes, you can’t perform to your best. I think last season we lost the edge.
“When I look back on it now, I think we lost that determination a little bit because, at times, we were maybe thinking ‘what’s the point? Look at what Jota’s family is going through, I mean look at his kids.’
Six years ago today, Diogo Jota became a Red.
Today, as every day, all of us at Liverpool FC are thinking of him, his brother Andre and his family and friends.
Forever our number 20 pic.twitter.com/tFaTqQN6va
— Liverpool FC (@LFC) September 19, 2026
“We were grieving. He was our mate at the end of the day; he wasn’t a footballer to us. He was a team-mate, a friend. For us, it was incredibly difficult.
“The week before he died, I was at his wedding. That’s one of the most difficult things you’ll ever go through, seeing him on the happiest day of his life and then the next week, you’re seeing his family torn apart.
“But we had to play football at the end of the day. We didn’t have a choice in that. We tried to do it as best we could and perhaps that’s why last season was so tough.”
The 60 points Liverpool collected in the Premier League last season were the fewest of any team to finish fifth or higher since Tottenham in 2006-07 (also fifth with 60).
Meanwhile, their 24-point drop between 2024-25 and 2025-26 was the largest by any ever-present Premier League side across those seasons.
They have nine points on the board after five games under new boss Andoni Iraola, having beaten Bournemouth 1-0 last time out following three draws in their first four matches.
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