Andy Robertson Reflects on Liverpool's Grief After Diogo Jota's Death
Andy Robertson has laid bare the depth of Liverpool’s anguish last season, admitting the squad “didn’t care about football” in the months after the death of Diogo Jota.
The Scotland captain, now at Tottenham, spoke candidly about how the club was “heartbroken” and stripped of its competitive edge as it tried – and largely failed – to function in the shadow of tragedy.
‘What’s the point?’
Jota died in a road accident last July, along with his brother Andre Silva. The loss of a popular team-mate and close friend ripped through the dressing room and, Robertson says, left Liverpool’s season effectively broken before it had truly begun.
“You've just lost one of your best mates in the changing room,” Robertson said on the Stick to Football podcast.
“All footballers, we have that edge don't we? And I think last season we lost the edge, when I look back on it now.
“We lost that determination a little bit because there were times where we were going like, well what's the point?
“Look at what Jota's family are going through, look at his kids. We were grieving. He was a team-mate, he was a friend. It was incredibly difficult.”
The timing made it even more brutal.
“The week before he died I was at his wedding,” Robertson said. “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.”
A club in mourning
Liverpool began the campaign as defending champions, expected to set the pace again. Instead, the season unravelled. Between September and November they lost nine of 12 league games, their title defence shredded in a chaotic spell that ended with head coach Arne Slot sacked and the club slumping to fifth.
Inside the club, Robertson says, the emotional toll was overwhelming.
“What we went through, it was horrendous,” he said. “The new signings, they're coming into a club that is heartbroken and that's where I felt sorry for those guys.
“They'd signed for big money and it took them months to settle in because we didn't care about football. That was the truth of it.”
Alexander Isak and Florian Wirtz were among the high-profile arrivals last summer, tasked with refreshing a champion squad. Instead, they walked into a dressing room still in shock, trying to process a personal loss while being asked to perform at elite level.
The results reflected that conflict. Performances dipped, intensity faded, and the sharp, ruthless Liverpool that had dominated the league was nowhere to be seen.
A dream that never came
Robertson had spoken about Jota before, in the immediate afterglow of leading Scotland to the World Cup last November. That night, qualification felt like the fulfilment of a shared ambition.
He revealed then that it had been both of their dreams to reach the tournament after missing out in 2022. Jota never got the chance to live it.
Now, with distance and a new club, Robertson has finally put words to what many suspected but nobody inside Liverpool had fully articulated: last season was played under a cloud that football simply could not lift.
Form, tactics, transfers – all of it felt secondary.
The edge went. The determination dulled. And for a grieving squad trying to honour a friend while watching his family suffer, the question Robertson kept coming back to was the one that defined their season: what was the point?
