Liverpool forward Jota died in a car crash in Zamora, Spain at the age of 28 in July last year alongside his brother Andre Silva, aged just 25, as the pair travelled back to England.
The then Premier League champions endured a severely underperforming campaign, losing nine out of 12 matches between September and November before finishing fifth in the Premier League and firing head coach Arne Slot.
Speaking openly this week, Robertson revealed that Jota’s death left the Liverpool squad absolutely devastated as football took a backseat.
'We didn't care about football"
“It's difficult to describe or talk about, really, because what we went through, it was horrendous,” he said on the Stick to Football Podcast.
“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.
“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, 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.”
He continued as he spoke on the lack of desire from a Liverpool squad who had just lost one of their closest friends. Football became less important as the squad continued to mourn.
“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.
“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.
“So, yeah, for us it was incredibly difficult. 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.”
Jota will never be forgotten, and Liverpool have since erected a permanent memorial sculpture for Diogo Jota and his brother Andre Silva at Anfield called 'Forever 20'.
