BOUNCING BACK FROM TRAGEDY

Jota's devastating death could inspire Liverpool's players to new heights or make title defence difficult

- Roy CURTIS

FOR Arne Slot and Liverpool, a preseason that interrogated their psyche in the most brutal fashion has unfolded as a dignified exercise in love pushing back the forces of darkness.

Diogo Jota's tragic passing on July 3rd seeped into every nook and cranny of the House of Shankly, the pollutants of shock, grief, anger and bewilderment seeming to turn even the ancient Mersey waters the deepest shade of black.

Anguish was plastered like a thousand billboards across a city where football and tragedy have too frequently coalesced, where those uniformed in the club's storied red shirts are often the primary measure of an entire tribe's dreams.

Liverpool handled an impossible situation with enduring class. Slot spoke beautifully, Jota's number 20 jersey was retired, players and supporters came together in a cathartic and tender outpouring.

Now, Diogo's friends have to go back to the day job. They must play competitive football again, deal with the remorseless scheduling, unceasing spotlight and mental and physical stresses of a Premier League season.

For all the professional counselling made available to players, nobody can predict with any certainty how the inhabitants of that super-heated Anfield bubble will react to having passed through such an emotional tempest.

Over the course of a 38-game season that begins with Friday's visit of Bournemouth, might the psychological haymaker of losing a just-married colleague in crushing fashion have a concussive effect on their title defence?

In November 2014, Australian test batsman Phil Hughes the youngest player to have scored two centuries in a single test match died aged 25, two days after being struck on the top of the neck by a ball in a domestic match in Sydney.

The impact caused a split in an artery triggering a massive bleed into the brain.