Andy Robertson played his final game for the club in Sunday’s 1-1 draw with Brentford, departing alongside icon Mohamed Salah.
The left-back joined the Reds in 2017, with Diogo Jota joining in 2020, and the pair spent the next five years lifting trophies together in England.
Liverpool, winners of the 2024/25 Premier League title, endured a torrid fifth-placed finish this season on just 60 points, and the impact of Jota’s passing on that ordeal has been described by the Scot in a recent chat on camera with two legends of the game.
Andy Robertson on the aftermath of Jota’s death
Robertson, who started 29 Premier League games en route to Liverpool’s latest title win, spoke with Ian Wright and Gordon Strachan for The Overlap’s series, My Best Coach.
Strachan, former Scotland manager, gave the 32-year-old his first international cap, and has since watched Robertson win almost every trophy available to him in the English top-flight.
The departing left-back told the pair: “I think what happened in the summer, nobody can prepare for what we had to go through.
“After the highs of the end of last season, the first time [I saw] the lads after the trophy days, we were on a plane to one of our mates’ funerals,” he continued.
Robertson, acutely aware of Liverpool’s dramatic fall from grace under manager Arne Slot this season, clearly expressed that he didn’t want people to use Jota’s death as an excuse for that form, but affirmed how tough the ordeal was.
“We’re only human beings at the end of the day. I think for the world of football it was tough enough, but for us, it’s one of our best mates,” said the Scotland international.
“We had a disruptive pre-season… in terms of grief, the manager, the sports scientists, they couldn’t push us too hard, too early because of what we were going through,” he continued.
Robertson acknowledged that, despite winning their first five games of the season, the Liverpool team were acutely aware that their performances were poor from the start.
“It was probably a bit of a false position [topping the Premier League table after five games]. We knew our performances had to lift,” said the 32-year-old.
“For whatever reason, we’ve just not been consistent this season… it’s been a disappointment, there’s no hiding away from that.
“There’s no buttering it up. We expected a lot more from this season… we’ll see what the future holds for Liverpool.
I hope next season they can rebuild… and be back competing. That’s where they have to be.”
This week’s My Best Coach podcast is available now on YouTube and all leading podcast platforms
