Andy Robertson Reflects on Liverpool's Emotional Season After Jota's Tragedy

Andy Robertson has laid bare the emotional toll of Liverpool’s title defence, admitting the squad “lost their edge” as they tried to process the death of Diogo Jota.

The Portugal forward was killed in a car crash in July 2025, along with his brother Andre Silva, while travelling across Spain on their way back to England for the start of pre-season. Liverpool had just been crowned Premier League champions. Within days, football no longer mattered.

“It’s difficult to describe or talk about, really, because what we went through, it was horrendous,” Robertson said on the Stick to Football Podcast, premiered on Disney+. “Say if I'm talking about the new signings, they're coming into a club that is heartbroken.

“They're trying, and that's where I felt so sorry for these guys because they'd signed and they were signing for big money and all that, if I'm talking about football. It took them months to settle in because we didn't care, we didn't care about football.

“That was the truth of it. We didn't care about football because you've just lost one of your best mates in the changing room.”

‘We lost that edge’

Liverpool stumbled to a fifth-place finish and Arne Slot lost his job at the end of the season. From the outside, it looked like a simple story of champions failing to back up their success. Inside the dressing room, it was something far more raw.

“I think all footballers, we all have that edge, don't we? And I think when you lose that edge sometimes then you can't perform to the best. And I think last season we lost the edge,” Robertson said.

“I think when I look back on it now, I think we lost that determination a little bit and things like that because I know at times we were maybe going, ‘You know what, what's the point?

“Like look at what Jota's family are going through. Look at his kids. But yeah, we were grieving. It was our mate at the end of the day. He’s not a footballer to us, he was a teammate, he was a friend.”

For Robertson, the grief cut especially deep.

“The week before he died, I was at his wedding. So 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.”

New signings under a cloud

Liverpool had refreshed their squad that summer, bringing in high-profile arrivals expected to keep the club at the top of the league. Instead, they walked into a mourning workplace.

“That’s why I probably have so much sympathy in football terms towards the new signings, because I think they came into a team that was, like... we were elite in everything that we did for years,” Robertson said.

“And maybe we couldn't be that because of what had happened. And then they then started getting quite a lot of criticism. And that's why I think these lads will be absolutely fine at Liverpool. I would treat this season as their first season. That's the way I would do it.”

Slot’s handling of tragedy

Slot ultimately paid with his job for Liverpool’s slide down the table, but Robertson was adamant the Dutchman showed strong leadership in the most harrowing of circumstances.

“We spoke a lot (in pre-season). The manager was really good, to be fair,” he recalled. “Like our pre-season was barely anything because, to be fair to Arne, he was like, ‘If you don't want to train, you don't train.’

“Say one day you come in and you're struggling or whatever, that was his attitude of the pre-season.”

Liverpool leant on the club’s psychologist, who set up informal support groups.

“We had a psychologist that worked in the club anyway and he kind of set up little groups and it would just be like, if you want to grab a coffee and come round and talk and things like that.

“So we did that quite a few times, and I think that helped. But it was incredibly difficult times.”

Robertson kept circling back to Jota’s family.

“But then you always just feel sorry for his family, for his wife. At the end of the day, their life got flipped completely upside down.

“Ours, we were heartbroken and everything like that, but for them daily, it must be so difficult even now.

“We managed to get through it together, I think, and we always just said, ‘Look, we'll always remember him,’ and everything like that.

“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 that's why last season was so tough.”

From open-top bus to funeral

Robertson did not shy away from the reality that football is judged on results. He simply believes the context of Liverpool’s season never truly registered outside the club.

“It's a difficult one. At the end of the day, football's based on results, and we didn't get enough results. And that was the fact,” he said.

“But if you go back to the summer before, we have the biggest parade in Liverpool's history, right? We're on the open-top bus, we're going through the city centre, and I think over a million people had come out and seen us.

“The next day, we all shake each other's hands, we all go off for the summer. The next time we see everyone is at the airport heading over to Porto for his funeral. That's the next time I see all my teammates.

“So, from going from the highest of highs in terms of being on a parade with the Premier League trophy, and you're parading it round thousands and thousands of fans, to then seeing staff and players the way we were, like that, it's not normal.

“It's not normal what we went through. So, I think could it have been factored in? Yeah, maybe it could have.”

Once the season started, the harsh rhythm of elite football returned.

“But then when the season goes on and things like that, we know that we then have to do better and we need to win games and things like that.

“And I get why then there was a lot of frustration around the way we were playing, the results that we were getting. I can understand it.”

Cracks behind the fast start

Liverpool actually opened the campaign with five straight league wins, sparking talk of another title charge. Inside the dressing room, they knew the picture was different.

“What I would say is at the time at the start, the manager was really good and he helped us a lot,” Robertson said. “He understood the situation in terms of pre-season, in terms of not pushing us too hard, not trying to cause too much competitiveness or whatever, in case somebody was struggling that day or whatever.

“And, we then were starting slow, but we then go and win the first five games, and everyone thinks Liverpool are going to win the league again.

“We won the first five games but we were probably covering over the cracks at that point. And then after the international break, the cracks came.”

Liverpool now face the task of rebuilding not just a team, but that lost edge Robertson talks about so starkly. The question is no longer what went wrong last season. It’s how quickly a grieving dressing room can turn pain into something powerful again.