“We didn’t care about football” – Andy Robertson opens up on the impact of Diogo Jota’s death

Andy Robertson has opened up about the extent of the impact that Diogo Jota’s death had on the Liverpool squad last season.

The Portuguese forward died in a car crash in July 2025 which also claimed the life of his brother Andre Silva, prompting an outpouring of grief not just on Merseyside and in their hometown of Gondomar, but throughout the world of football.

The Reds went on to endure a difficult season on the pitch as they went from reigning Premier League champions to a lowly fifth-place finish and lost 19 matches in all competitions, a decline which cost Arne Slot his job as head coach.

Robertson speaks about the impact of Jota’s death

Speaking as a guest on the latest episode of Stick to Football, Robertson explained how, in the months after the tragedy, he and his Liverpool teammates struggled with retaining the same ‘edge’ as in previous campaigns.

The left-back (now with Tottenham Hotspur) said: “It’s difficult to describe or talk about it, because what we went through was horrendous. If I’m talking about the new signings, they’re coming into a club that is heartbroken, and they’re trying.

(Photo by Clive Rose/Getty Images)

“That’s when I felt so sorry for these guys because they had signed and they were signing for big money. If I’m talking about football, when it took them months to settle in, because we were like ghosts. We didn’t care about football. That was the truth of it. We didn’t care about football because we just lost one of our best mates in the changing room.

“All footballers have that edge, don’t we, and I think when you lose that edge, sometimes you can’t perform to your best. I think last season we lost the edge. When I look back on it now, I think we lost that determination a little bit, because I know at times we were going, ‘What’s the point?’

“Look at what his family are going through, look at his kids, but we were grieving. It was our mate, at the end of the day. He’s not just a footballer to us. He was a teammate, a friend. He was everything. For us it was incredibly difficult.”

Liverpool’s players displayed extraordinary character last season

While nobody at Liverpool would want to use the tragedy as a copout for the on-field struggles of last season, it’d be crass not to empathise with just how extraordinarily difficult it must’ve been for the players and coaching staff to navigate the campaign.

Mo Salah chillingly spoke of being ‘frightened‘ at returning to the AXA Training Centre after Jota had died, which illustrates just how deep an impact it had on his grieving teammates.

As Robertson pointed out, it must also have been incredibly tough for the multitude of new signings last summer to integrate with the rest of the squad at a time of such unspeakable hurt and grief.

In that context, for the players to have come through the season with Champions League qualification achieved is a remarkable testament to their fortitude. Indeed, to get through the campaign at all was a praiseworthy feat.

We’re as guilty as anyone of being overly critical of the Liverpool team (and certain individuals) in those months after the tragedy – they deserve immense credit for coming through that exceptionally tough period, when they were being barracked for results on the pitch, whilst still trying to process the tragic death of a close friend.