Report by
Dave Usher
Nothing this team does surprises me anymore, especially in Europe. They could go to the Nou Camp and score six and I wouldn’t be shocked. Delighted, obviously, but not shocked. I don’t think many teams in Europe can cope with the speed and style of play. Beating Porto 5-0 away is a remarkable result but if you were shocked by it then you couldn’t have been paying attention in the group stage.
Porto will have fancied their chances against us and that proved to be their undoing. Attack this team at your peril. If our front three have space to run into then they’re close to unstoppable. When they’re backed up by a midfield in this kind of form, they are unstoppable.
The best way to play against us is not a style that many sides in Europe like to adopt and that’s why we’re the top scorers in the competition. It’s hard for a team that is the best in their own league to suddenly transform themselves into a park the bus bottom feeder. They aren’t used to it, and ego also plays a part. You can’t expect Porto to play like Swansea did, especially not at home.
That’s what you have to do though, or this is what can happen. We’ve been absolutely fucking murdering teams in Europe this year and putting up the kind of scores that we’ve not seen before, not even in our European heyday. The days of going somewhere and quietening the crowd and coming away with a 0-0 or a 1-0 defeat to take back to Anfield are long gone. We’re going away from home and fucking webbing teams everywhere.
5-0 against a team of Porto’s stature in the knockout stages is not only the kind of thing we’ve never really done, it’s something that very few sides outside of Spain’s big two have been capable of. We’ve been like this throughout this year’s European campaign, even going back to the qualifier when Hoffenheim were taken apart.
The only issue has been giving away silly goals at the other end (we battered Sevilla twice but let them off the hook, and the world’s leading scientists are still trying to get to the bottom of how Spartak held us to a draw in Moscow), but against Porto the defence were every bit as good as the forwards. Porto had only one good chance all night. Van Dijk and Lovren were outstanding, the two full backs were both terrific and the protection from the midfield three made life easier for everyone. Karius had next to nothing to do.
Despite what you’ll probably be reading and hearing today, Porto are a good team. They’re running away with their domestic league and had conceded only 10 league goals in six months. We put five past them in 90 minutes so now the narrative will be about how shit they are. We’ve heard this before. We heard it about Maribor when we put seven past them at their place. We heard it about Moscow when we put seven past them at Anfield. We heard it about Hoffenheim in the qualifiers, and Arsenal back in August.
When we get it right we’re the masters at making teams look bad. This was fucking masterful. No wonder Klopp was in such great form afterwards. Mind you, he was the same beforehand. It’s almost like he knew what was coming. He probably did, based on watching how Porto play and knowing how he was going to set his own team up. Firmino was the same, talking about how we would “make Porto suffer”. As a general rule, I don’t like that, but if you back it up then fair play.
There was an element of fortune about the opening goal but right from the opening minutes it seemed obvious that it was only a matter of time before we made the breakthrough. Lovren (who was great) started the move by stepping in and winning the ball aggressively. Wijnaldum drove forward and eventually it broke to Mané. His shot was well struck but was too central and should have been saved. Thankfully the keeper let it go through him.
Sadio needed something to go his way and that ought to have been good for his confidence, but for the rest of the half I still felt like he was still struggling with his game, as he has for a couple of months. Here’s the thing though, by most other player’s standards Mané has been doing fine. It’s not like he’s been shit, he just hasn’t been as brilliant as we know he can be.
It hasn’t mattered too much because of the way Salah and Firmino have picked up the slack, but if we can get Mané going too then the next few months are going to see a few more teams go the same way as Porto.
Salah just does something in every game now that makes you just go “wow”. His goal was just utterly ridiculous. How many players could have made it look that easy? Just like his second goal against Spurs, it was the kind of finish that usually you’d only see from Messi. 30 goals now, he’s actually outscoring Messi this year. Just needs to overhaul that slobbering big chinned goof at Spurs now.
I felt a little sorry for Milner as he deserved the goal himself after a brilliant run and shot, but he won’t be arsed as personal glory doesn’t interest him in the slightest. He’s the ultimate team first player and he probably enjoyed Mo’s finish as much as he would have if his own shot had gone in.
At 2-0 and in total control of the game, the only real danger facing us was complacency. Maybe the players would think it was too easy and stop doing the things that were actually making it so easy for them. They’ve done it before, most notably in Seville, but aside from one opportunity that Soares put inches wide, they didn’t allow Porto a sniff.
At no point did they let their guard down and the second half display was just ruthless. Defensively strong as fuck, hunting in twos and threes and never letting Porto find any rhythm, and then slicing through them at will when we won the ball. Better teams than Porto will struggle with us on this form. Better teams than Porto already have actually.
If we can defend the way we’ve done in the last two games (three if you count the Spurs game where we defended well but were undone by circumstances out of our control) then who will want to face us? Who will fancy their chances of keeping our front three under control?
If Mané hits top form then we’ve got the best front three left in the competition. PSG are staring elimination in the face but even if they turn that around, their front three isn’t better than ours. It’s got that fraud Cavani in it for a start, but the balance in our three makes them the most dangerous around.
Look at the third goal for example. Goals like that strike fear into the opposition like no other. Porto were on the attack but it broke down in our box when Salah got back in and made a nuisance of himself. That halted their momentum and a second or two later we won the ball back and Mo was off an running.
Firmino came short for a pass and then delightfully flicked it into Mo’s path and he was off and running.
There’s no finer sight than one of our attacks from deep like that. It’s been the hallmark of this season. We get it and then everyone just fucking goes.
Mo led the charge but Mané and Firmino, as usual, were able to keep pace with him. Porto’s players could not. Credit to Milner too, he got himself right up there as well. Salah’s slide rule pass to Firmino was perfect but it was a difficult ball to take in stride while running at pace. Bobby’s touch was stunning though and his shot wasn’t bad either.
He deserved the goal but the keeper made a terrific save. Mané was on hand to bury the rebound and now it was just a case of how many we’d get, and specifically, whether Mané would get his hat-trick. As I said, I didn’t feel that the first goal made much of a difference to his form, but the second did.
After that it was more like the old Sadio. Just look at his play in the build up to the next goal. He wins the ball, shows great strength to turn and escape despite having the shirt almost ripped off his back, and then plays a stunning ball to Milner. That pass was accurate to the fucking millimetre. He has plenty of room to roll it to Milner but by taking the tightest of angles it made sure Milner didn’t have to go too wide and it was that pass that allowed him to pick out Firmino for the finish.
I wrote in the Southampton report that I no longer felt that Mané would regain his form overnight and it would be a slow process. It still might be, we’ll see how he plays in the next game, but the way he smashed in that hat-trick was a fairly emphatic statement that he was ‘back’.
He is the star man but everyone played really well. Only Karius would be below 8 out of 10 and that’s only because he had virtually nothing to do. Trent did well against a pace opponent who wanted to run him at every opportunity. He saw him off and by the second half the lad had been moved infield before eventually being subbed.
On the other flank Robbo was fantastic. Solid defensively, tons of energy and he put in two stunning crosses. Had to laugh at Klopp afterwards saying “Robbo finally found his crosses, eh? I thought he’d left them in Scotland”.
Van Dijk just strolled through the game, winning headers, making interceptions and pinging cross field passes like a big Dutch Alonso. Henderson was quietly efficient but played his role superbly, while Wijnaldum had his best away performance in…. maybe forever actually. Loads of good forward runs and strong as an ox on the ball.
Milner was probably the best player on the pitch but I can’t give him the star man when Mané has bagged a hat-trick. Milner was great though. He was so good that the ref refused to book him even though he spent most of the second half committing tactical fouls and slowing Porto down. He’s been great in Europe this year, his experience is really proving beneficial.
All in all it was a great team performance and a magnificent result. What it means is Klopp can rest a few for the second leg and we might see the likes of Ings, Ox and maybe even Woodburn getting a start.
And when the draw for the next round takes place we’ll be the name everyone wants to avoid. Who knows how far we’ll actually go, but whatever happens now this season has gone a long way to making us relevant on the continent once again.
Team: Karius; Alexander-Arnold (Gomez), Lovren, Van Dijk, Robertson; Henderson (Matip), Wijnaldum, Milner; Salah, Firmino (Ings), Mané:
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