While the players were still buzzing over the result, the press had their own obsession: the second-leg rematch.
Arsenal's brutal defeat had been staggering by any measure, and reporters were hungry to know whether the Gunners could get their revenge.
With Liverpool preparing for Matchday 26 of the league which was an away trip to Fulham—Klopp became the central target of every journalist in the room.
At a routine press conference, one reporter stepped forward and asked, "Jürgen, in a few days you face Arsenal in the FA Cup. Does that 5–0 victory give your side a psychological edge going in? Will you carry the same tactical approach into that match?"
Klopp's expression gave nothing of his thoughts away. There was no trace of triumphalism in his voice when he answered.
"I have to be clear: that FA Cup match will be an entirely new contest. The scoreline, the way it unfolded—all of that belongs to the past. We'll put it out of our minds, just as we do with every match from before this season. Arsenal are a big club with real character. Wenger will surely make targeted adjustments—he won't allow his side to walk into the same trap twice. We have no grounds for complacency at all. One hundred percent focus, attention to every detail—that's what it demands."
He paused, then added. "Tactically, we'll adapt based on our squad's condition and whatever changes they bring. We won't blindly copy what worked last time. There's no fixed formula for winning in football. Respecting your opponent and executing your own game—that's what matters most."
The next question turned to Julien. "Julien's performance in that match was extraordinary with two goals and an assist. Arsenal will almost certainly single him out for close attention in the Cup. How are you preparing for that?"
Klopp let out a laugh before he replied, his eyes were bright with the confidence.
"If he could be easily stopped, he wouldn't be Julien De Rocca. I have no doubts about his ability to handle tight marking and break down tactical plans designed specifically for him. His movement, his pace, his finishing—these are instincts ingrained into his bones. Containing him will cost any opponent dearly."
He leaned forward a little. "More importantly, Liverpool don't win on the back of any single player. We have Kevin, Steven, Louis, Daniel—players who can change a game in an instant. If the opposition pours everything into stopping Julien, we have other weapons. That's the strength of what we've built as a team."
On the question of mindset, Klopp was equally direct.
"The FA Cup is a vital front in our championship push this season—every match is critical. We won't let that big win go to our heads, and we won't let their desire for revenge rattle us. Stay focused in training, handle what's in front of us. That's enough. As for results—we'll let what happens on the pitch decide."
He closed with a reminder: "Of course, our most pressing task right now is preparing for the next league fixture. We're heading to London to face Fulham away. That game matters just as much."
While Liverpool's 5–0 demolition of Arsenal was dominating every front page across England, Julien happened to be scrolling through the news during a break—and stumbled upon something involving Liverpool's old rivals, Manchester United.
Buried in the corner of the page, United had quietly made a mess of things.
At home against Fulham who were the league's second-from-bottom side—United had conceded a leveller deep into stoppage time, limping away with a draw. Set against Liverpool's strong win, United's embarrassment threw the two clubs' post-managerial-change fortunes into sharp relief.
One side was charging forward in full resurgence. The other was flailing in the mud.
If suffering your own failures was bad enough, watching your rivals thrive made it that much worse for United supporters.
Before the match, Moyes had spoken with complete confidence and eagerness at his press conference: "I'm really looking forward to recapturing that incredible atmosphere—the fans singing as one, the way it was when we faced Real Sociedad."
The contempt for Fulham, a relegation-threatened side was unspoken yet feelable between every word.
It would prove a costly attitude.
The match played out like a summary of United's entire season. They launched an astonishing 81 crosses over the course of the game—shattering the Premier League record of 72 set by Liverpool against Stoke City back in August 2006—yet only 18 found their target.
The sheer futility of it reduced their attacking play to empty, repetitive noise.
One journalist pierced through it brutally: "Watching United attack is like a tape stuck on loop. Pass it to Ashley Young. Cross gets headed clear. Win it back. Give it to Ashley Young—"
At half-time, trailing 0–1, the Old Trafford occupants had run out of patience. Chants of Moyes out began rolling around the stands loudly.
Then, just as the situation seemed beyond salvage, Van Persie and Carrick struck twice within three minutes near the end to turn it around. And Finally, Moyes could allow himself a grin.
No one could have predicted what came next.
In the fourth minute of stoppage time, Darren Bent beat the United goalkeeper. Three points collapsed to one in an instant, and Moyes's relief and smile vanished before it had even settled.
The draw spawned a grim set of footnotes. It was United's first failure to beat a bottom-of-the-table side since losing 2–3 to Blackburn on December 31, 2011. It was their fourth consecutive draw on February 9th in league play since 1985. And it brought to an end Fulham's eleven-match losing run at Old Trafford.
For United, it felt less like a salvaged point and more like another wound.
Thirty-seven points dropped across the season. Nine league defeats. Five of those at home—Old Trafford, once spoken of as the Theatre of Dreams, had lost its menace completely.
What made it harder for the Red Devils fans to swallow was the investment behind it all. The winter window had brought in Mata at considerable expense. The squad already had Rooney, Van Persie, and Mata among its number. The backing Moyes had received from the club far exceeded anything Ferguson had enjoyed in his debut season—and yet the results were simply indefensible.
The comparisons to Sir Alex Ferguson were unavoidable.
When Ferguson had first arrived at United, he'd had no such squad, no such resources. He'd built his dynasty from the ground up, brick by brick. Moyes, by contrast, had been handed a winning hand and didn't know what to do with it. Getting results at all had started to look like a struggle.
Nothing illustrated the irony more sharply than the diverging fates of Liverpool and United after their respective managerial changes.
Liverpool under Klopp were transformed with tactical clarity, attacking vitality, defensive organization, and a winter window that only amplified their momentum.
The 5–0 demolition of Arsenal said everything. Klopp's relentless, high-energy philosophy fit the soul of the city like a glove. The club was on a fast track back to the summit.
United under Moyes had lost all authority. They were ponderous in attack, fragile at the back, incapable of grinding past a bottom-half side—six league rounds without back-to-back wins, it was this erratic form line that made their prospects look bleak.
To compound Moyes's misery, United were due to travel to Arsenal midweek—and Arsenal, fresh from being humiliated at Anfield, would be seething, looking for someone to take it out on.
Given United's current form, walking into the path of a wounded Arsenal side desperate to restore their pride looked like a very dangerous proposition indeed.
For Moyes, the only realistic ambition for that fixture might well be "don't get destroyed" which was a standard so low, and so far beneath where this club was expected to be, that the contrast with Liverpool's swagger could hardly have been more ample.
Julien scrolled through the coverage and gave a snort.
'This is just the beginning.'
If United's fans were already at their wits' end, how on earth were they going to cope with what came later—Rangnick, Ten Hag, the whole rotating carousel of disappointment?
Before reincarnating, Julien had watched Ten Hag still clinging to the Old Trafford job in his previous life. He'd witnessed the man dig out a positive spin at press conference after press conference, watched the once-mighty Red Devils transform, by degrees, into a club more famous for their soap opera than their football.
Ten Hag did not last there long. The whole situation was simply too absurd.
Whoever eventually inherited that wreck of a club—Julien had no idea who it would be.
He was still turning over those fragments of his former life when something else caught his eye, half-hidden in a corner of the paper: a story about Birmingham.
Much like the Cardiff City owner who'd made headlines for all the wrong reasons, this story's protagonist was cut from the same cloth.
Carson Yeung, fifty-three, the Hong Kong businessman who served as Birmingham City's chairman and majority shareholder, had officially resigned from all positions at the club and its parent company.
According to the BBC, he had been arrested by Hong Kong authorities the last year on suspicion of money laundering and was awaiting a verdict from his trial later that month. Birmingham City had confirmed the news on their official website; the Hong Kong Stock Exchange had also issued a filing.
Julien read on. The BBC laid out Yeung's background: raised in a public housing estate in Hong Kong, he had gone to England to study before returning to carve out a fortune in property and the gambling industry.
He had a genuine love of football. In 2005 he had served as chairman of Pegasus FC in Hong Kong, though he had stepped down after a falling-out with club management.
He had also splashed out on signed shirts from Manchester United stars and limited-edition Beckham boots—his passion for the game was never in doubt.
That passion had pulled him toward English football. He made three separate attempts to acquire Championship clubs, all of which were unsuccessful.
In 2007 he purchased a 29.9% stake in Birmingham City, becoming their largest shareholder, before completing a full takeover in 2009 for around £81.5 million at the time.
After his investment, Birmingham enjoyed a remarkable high: in 2011, they defeated Arsenal to win the League Cup which was the club's first major trophy in forty-eight years.
The glory didn't last. That same year, Birmingham were relegated to the Championship, and Yeung was forced to sell shares to maintain their European license.
Then, in 2011, he was arrested on five counts related to suspected money laundering totalling around £50 million.
And that was the end of it.
Julien gave the story a moment's attention, then folded it away and turned back to the only thing that really mattered: training.
After channelling his victory points into raising his attribute ceiling, the work now was simply about grinding those attributes up. There was no shortcut—only repetition, discipline, and time on the pitch.
The congested fixture schedule had, if anything, hampered his progress. With matches stacking up on top of each other, truly intense supplementary sessions weren't always possible.
The days moved on.
Wednesday arrived.
Premier League Matchday 26 kicked off.
Liverpool made the trip for their away fixture at Fulham. With the schedule taking its toll, Klopp made calculated rotations. Robertson, who had impressed as a substitute in recent appearances earned a starting berth; Julien dropped to the bench.
From the opening whistle, Fulham acknowledged the gap in quality and settled immediately into a low defensive block, packing their half with bodies and ceding ground willingly in exchange for structure.
Liverpool held the ball but found it difficult to penetrate.
Fatigue from the relentless run of matches showed in Liverpool's attacking rhythm—they were slightly slow, lacking its usual sharpness. Robertson was busy and eager down the left, driving forward and getting to the byline repeatedly, but the quality of his deliveries let him down, and his teammates couldn't convert the chances they got into.
The first half drifted.
Sturridge put one wide of the post; Coutinho's long-range effort was caught comfortably by the goalkeeper. The deadlock held, and both sides went in at the break level at 0–0.
Klopp's expression on the touchline was composed. He had seen this coming and anticipated the energy deficit when he'd set his line-up. In the dressing room at half-time, he turned his attention to re-drawing the attacking blueprint for the second half.
After the restart, he acted. Julien came on for Coutinho, tasked with injecting the urgency the game was missing.
The effect was almost instant.
Julien began threading runs across the front third, pulling Fulham's defensive shape out of alignment, generating tension in behind that was not manufactured previously through neat passing alone. His movement drew attention and freed up space for others; Liverpool's threat level climbed noticeably.
The breakthrough came in the seventy-second minute.
Julien received from Robertson on the left, found himself caught between two defenders, shifted direction crisply to escape them—and instead of going for goal himself, slid a precise diagonal pass into the edge of the box, where Gerrard was arriving at speed.
Gerrard took one touch to set himself, then struck the ball cleanly. It rocketed and bend towards the far corner. The Fulham keeper got nowhere near it. The net rippled.
1–0.
Liverpool had their lead.
They didn't chase a second. They settled into possession, managed the clock, and held their shape. Fulham, true to their approach all evening, made no intense push to equalise—their plan had always been the counter-attack, and even a goal down, they kept their defensive discipline rather than abandoning it.
When the final whistle blew, Liverpool had their three points. Julien's assist for Gerrard's winner had been enough.
The gap at the top of the league held firm.
Among Liverpool's supporters, the excitement was building into something harder to contain. That Premier League title—the one they hadn't lifted in so long, felt less like a dream with every passing week.
That same evening, another high-profile fixture was getting underway: Arsenal hosting Manchester United at the Emirates.
The attention around it was intense.
Having been pulled apart 5–0 at Anfield, Arsenal were under enormous pressure from every place. And the larger significance wasn't lost on anyone—two of the Premier League's dominant forces of the past two decades going head-to-head, both carrying the weight of recent form.
At the day before's pre-match press conference, a reporter had tried to look ahead past the United match entirely, asking Wenger:
"After the Manchester United game, when you face Liverpool in the FA Cup, will Arsenal be going for revenge—or will there be some part of you worried about a repeat of what happened at Anfield?"
Every camera in the room spun to lock onto Wenger.
He listened. A faint smile crossed his face.
Then he spoke only a single, perfectly compressed word:
"Or."
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