Report by
Dave Usher at Anfield
Well that was great. Absolutely top drawer stuff. Too often these “occasions” have seen us lay a big egg, but the unveiling of the new stand seemed to inspire rather than overwhelm the players, who really seemed to thrive on it. It couldn’t have really gone any better all things considered. Ok, we could have done without Lucas’ moment of madness, but aside from that this was boss.
I think we can take more out of this game than we could from other big wins, such as hammering City last season and winning at Arsenal the other week. This could be significant not because we demolished the Champions, but because we absolutely destroyed a team who plays in the style that we often have problems with.
Had we done this to Man City I’d have been made up, obviously, but it wouldn’t have really told us anything we didn’t already know. We can batter the top teams and make them look very ordinary, because our style is suited to running all over teams that want to play attractive, attacking football. Put us up against sides that want to just contain us and we’re usually the ones who end up looking ordinary. Not this time.
Leicester are a weird one because they have to be considered a top team but they play like most of the sides in the bottom half. They don’t play like a traditional top side and their style is what you generally get from the smaller clubs, but they do it so well they’ve become a top side. So you could say that we’ve just completely taken apart a team who are the best at playing the kind of style we usually struggle against.
That’s definitely a big step in the right direction, but there’s little point in making any kind of judgement on this team until they’ve put together a run of eight or ten games without throwing in a stinker. Battering Leicester was great, I loved it, but we’ve been burned too many times to fall into that trap again. The only definitive judgement I’m prepared to make about this team is that when they’re good, they’re the best team in the country. They’ve just got to be good more often.
No doubt some will put this down to Leicester coming back down to earth and not playing the way they were last year. I don’t care about that in the slightest at this point, dress it up however you like but we were irresistible at times. The good thing is you can see there’s still more to come as we failed to make the most of some very good situations in this game. I don’t think Mané was anywhere his best for example, yet he still ran riot and got a goal and an assist. He was also wasteful in a lot of situations and on another day would have been much better in those instances. It’s a scary thought just how good he can be, but like everything, it’s about consistency.
I said recently that Coutinho and Firmino sum up just where we are as a team, and Firmino proved that again in this game. He was ridiculously good, world class in fact. If he played like this every week he’d be Footballer of the Year, as he was fucking brilliant. You can say the same about Coutinho though when he has one of his superstar performances. It’s getting them to do it on a consistent basis that’s the key.
Firmino was so good against Leicester that even my arl fella admitted he played well, and he hates Firmino almost as much as my ma hates Lallana. “That Flaminio played well today” he grudgingly admitted. Praise from Caesar that. One day my ma might even say Lallana was good. She’s got a completely irrational hate of him and his “stupid twirly whirly things", and the Nivea ad hasn’t helped either, but I just don’t get it at all. How can you hate Adam Lallana? I understand thinking he’s maybe not worth what he paid, or that we could upgrade on him easily enough, but what’s to hate?
I like Lallana, always have. I was buzzing when we signed him and I enjoy watching him play as he’s so technically gifted, but I just wanted him to be better than he was. Now he’s playing great. I can’t fault him at all this season. He works harder than anybody, he’s playing very well and now he’s scoring goals too. I’m made up with him, and I’m made up for him. He’s really taken to this new midfield role and he was brilliant against Leicester. Only Firmino outshone him, and there’s no shame in that as there won’t be many better individual performances anywhere than Firmino’s this season.
I had some reservations about Firmino playing on the left, mainly because he’s tended to not play particularly well anywhere other than centre forward and has also struggled against teams who defend in numbers. So I wasn’t sure what to expect, but he started well and just kept it going the whole game. There were just so many moments of quality from him, and not just the two goals (although both were brilliantly taken).
The first goal was a great move. Lucas played his part by playing it forward to Milner early and with some zip on it. The quicker you get the ball out of defence like that the more space the attacking players have. Milner carried it forward and Sturridge made a great run over to the left to drag Wes Morgan out of position. Firmino ran into the gap, Milner found him and the Brazilian did the rest. Quality finish.
The second goal was also a thing of beauty. That back heel from Sturridge was just a wonderful bit of skill and also took great courage. If that hadn’t come off he’d have been slated for trying to be too clever, but it did come off and it was glorious. We were rampant at that point and others chances came and went as we were in total command. Then, out of nowhere, we did what we do.
Lucas was brilliant aside from that one mad moment. I’ve seen some put part of the blame on Mignolet on the basis that he should not be playing the ball out to his defenders when Leicester are pushed up and ready to close them down. That would be fine if I hadn’t specifically seen Klopp yelling at Wijnaldum and telling him to go back and get the ball off the keeper earlier in the game. You could tell he didn’t want it and that Mignolet didn’t really want to give him it either, and sure enough he ended up losing it and it could have been costly. The point is, if that’s what Klopp wants the players to do, then you can’t be blaming Mignolet for following instructions.
The mistake was from Lucas though and poor old Mignolet is 100% blameless on that goal. What you can criticise him for is what he did soon after. We’d become edgy after letting Leicester back into it, so the last thing you need then is the keeper coming out for a long throw and getting nowhere near it. Huth’s header ended up bouncing off the top of the bar so we got away with it, but that kind of thing just spreads panic.
Thankfully we got to half time still in the lead and Klopp was able to settle them down and regroup. The second half was very good and relatively incident free at the back. Leicester had one or two chances but generally we were well on top and from the moment Lallana made it 3-1 we were always going to be fine. We’d had our wobble and come through it.
Hell of a strike by Lallana too. I’ve never seen him hit a ball like that, he doesn’t often just put his foot through it, he usually looks to place it or curl it, but he caught this one perfectly and it flew into the top corner.
We had several other chances to put the game to bed (the best one wasted by Hendo, who otherwise had a fine afternoon) but had to wait until the last minute to get the fourth goal. Schmeichel ended up looking stupid for running so far out of his goal, but he’d been doing that all game and had stopped a few of our attacks with his decisiveness.
Vorm had done the same when we played Spurs, but it’s a dangerous game and eventually Mané was going to make someone pay. He beat the keeper to the ball and carried it goalwards before rolling it to the unmarked Firmino in the middle. The pass wasn’t actually that good, it was a little underhit and Firmino was put under immediate pressure. A lot of players would have taken the shot first time and maybe had it blocked, but what Firmino did was so simple but brilliant. The little touch he took completely took the defender out of the picture and left him with a tap in. Cool as you like.
Klopp knew it was over then and immediately brought Mané off to get an ovation from the crowd. Amusingly, he sent on Moreno to play right wing, presumably because he couldn’t do any damage there. Klopp had earlier he lost his shit with the Kop when they started chanting his name at 3-1. I saw him going mental and knew immediately why he was doing it, but he needs to wind his neck in. Singing the manager’s name is not being complacent and thinking the game is over, and I don’t see what his problem is.
A few weeks ago he was running on the pitch and giving Mané a piggy back, yet here he is lecturing us on prematurely thinking a game is over? Look Kloppo, we’ve been watching this team a lot longer than you have. We saw them lose a 3-0 lead at Palace with only ten minutes to go, so we never think it’s over until it’s actually over. And if we want to sing your name, we fucking will, ok?
Co-incidentally, as this was happening Vardy went through and Mignolet made a good stop to deny him. Klopp will use that as vindication for his viewpoint, but it’s bollocks. Us signing his name, or anyone else’s for that matter, has nothing to do with what unfolds on the pitch, but if it does then what does that say? If his players can’t be trusted to not lose their concentration and get too cocky because the fans are enjoying themselves, then that’s on him, and them, not us.
Worry about your own job and let us do ours. We’ve been doing this shit a long time you know, we know what we’re doing.
Klopp histrionics aside, this was the ideal way to mark the first game in front of the new Main Stand, which is really impressive. They’ve done a hell of a job with it and it’s mad to think they’ve done it all in such a short space of time. I was sat in the old stand in May and then just a few months later that whole structure has gone and this monstrous thing has been constructed. There’s some right clever bastards out there.
The result obviously played a massive part, but I really enjoyed my first experience in my new home. I’ve got a nice new seat that isn’t just a flat piece of wood like the one I’d had for the previous 20 years. This new one is plastic with grooves in it for my arse cheeks to snugly nestle into, and I’ve now got legroom too! Whatsmore, there’s no big fuck off post blocking my view either, and although I haven’t tested them out yet I’m sure the bogs are very nice and not like the previous ones, which made the one in “Trainspotting” look like it belonged in Buckingham Palace.
The best part of being in the new stand though was that the players kept running over and celebrating their goals in front of us instead of those Kop end jabronis. We actually are the “Main” Stand now. At least for this one game anyway, no doubt they’ll be back in front of the Kop next time, the fickle bastards, but for this one game it felt good to be appreciated.
Star man is Firmino, just ahead of Lallana. Honourable mentions to Mané, Matip (composure personified), Milner and Hendo.
Team: Mignolet; Clyne, Matip, Lucas, Milner; Henderson, Wijnaldum (Stewart), Lallana; Mané (Moreno), Sturridge (Coutinho), Firmino:
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