Kind of feels like maybe the tide has turned a bit now doesn’t it? That horrific run we had looks like it’s in the rear view mirror and we’re looking more like ourselves again. We aren’t out of the woods yet but things do look a bit more…. dare I say, normal?

This was actually a pretty big test for us. Not because it was Arsenal (they truly are pathetic), but because Chelsea’s shock loss to West Brom earlier had opened up the door to the top four. We started the day five points behind them and with them facing the Baggies and us away at the Emirates. To end the day only two points back is unexpected and feels significant.

I’d given up on the top four but now it’s definitely within reach again, especially with Spurs also dropping points . This win feels like a statement of intent that we’re fighting back and ready to end the season strongly. Time will tell, but it does seem like we have a bit of momentum going at last. Even disregarding the potential impact this win could have, it feels good regardless because this is what is SUPPOSED to happen when we play Arsenal.

When we lost away to them last season I was seething way more than I had a right to. We were having an incredible season, the title was all but wrapped up (we may have already clinched it, I can’t remember) and the defeat didn’t mean anything other than it ended the chance to get to 100 points, which in itself irritated me but nowhere near as much as losing to them fucking bums. 

Why was I so angry? Because Arsenal are shit. It offends me that we could ever drop points to them because they’re weak, spineless, and an absolute fucking embarrassment. This is the worst Arsenal team I’ve ever seen. I despise how pathetic they are. They were even shit in that game last season but somehow we let them win and it took some getting over just because I saw it as a personal affront. 

I’ll be honest, I was having some flashbacks of that night at half time in this one. We’d played well, completely dominated, looked in no trouble whatsoever but we hadn’t created enough chances. It was all set up for Arsenal to score with the one chance they would inevitably get while we continued to waste promising situations. And then I’d be in foul form for weeks at the embarrassment of it all. Losing to Everton was bad enough, but if we let these fucking deadbeats turn us over again I’d probably be wanting half the squad sold on the spot. That was my fear at half time but thankfully it proved to be completely unfounded. 

For one thing, Arsenal didn’t actually even get one chance. They offered nothing at all. We completely shut them down all over the park and as Arteta said afterwards they “couldn’t put three passes together”. This was men against boys. 

But we’ve seen that before and often it has counted for nothing because we didn’t convert dominance into chances and chances into goals. This time we did, although it needed the arrival of Jota to change everything. On the one hand it’s great that we have him, on the other it does disturb me a little how toothless we look with the front three that was once the envy of Europe. 

The difference Jota makes to us is massive. Look what happened to us when he got injured. We were actually doing fine up until then and we look fine again now he’s back. That period when he wasn’t there, it all went to complete shit. That isn’t a co-incidence.

As well as we’d played prior to him coming on for Robbo (who looked like he was toiling under the weight of games he’s had to play), we hadn’t scored and I never really had the feeling we were likely to. He comes on and then within minutes… BANG… thumping header 1-0.

That first goal just changes everything for us as it removes the pressure and tension. Too often we haven’t been able to get that first goal (and we hardly ever score in the first half) and the stress levels just go up and up and up and the decision making in the final third goes to shit, especially if we concede and end up chasing it.

You go a goal up though and everyone has that bit more confidence and it just relieves a lot of pressure. That’s what happened here. We had more swagger after we broke the deadlock. Then Mo then makes it 2-0 with a superbly executed finish and then Jota pops up again to wrap it up. 

It wasn’t even a surprise. It’s what he does. His injury fucked our season and without it he’d be our player of the season. He’s an absolute menace and I feel like he’s going to score in every game. He’s just hungry for goals and he scores all different types of them. 

When the team was announced and Jota wasn’t in it I think everyone was disappointed. I was too, but as frustrating as it was I understood that it was the sensible thing to do as he’d had busy couple of weeks with Portugal and we’ve got Real Madrid on Tuesday. I agreed with the decision but any time he isn’t starting it effects my enthusiasm and confidence. With justification as we’re now a much better team with him in it than when he isn’t there.

I said to my Dad at half time that Jota will come on and do more in his first five minutes than Bobby will have done in an hour because that’s always the case now. Jota just seems to make things happen and has three or four goal attempts every time he plays, even when he only comes on for half an hour. 

I don’t want to single Firmino out too much on this occasion as he played ok. He was no worse than Mané for example, but my point is more about how Jota just changes the dynamic. He’s just so much more dangerous than anyone else we have other than Mo, and even that might be doing Jota an injustice.

Maybe teams have figured out how to nullify Firmino and what he does? Too often these days we just see him drop deeper and deeper and offer little or no goal threat. And on his bad days he just gives the ball away constantly.

Jota is the polar opposite. Everything he does is direct and positive. He runs at people, he gets shots away, he’s always popping up in dangerous areas. Maybe there’s a way that all four can play but if there’s only three playing then it’s Salah, Jota and then probably Mané, although Sadio has been in a slump for months now so you can make a case for leaving him out. 

I wouldn’t, because even on a bad day he occupies defenders and strikes fear into them. Does Bobby do that? Do you think any defender wakes up on the morning of a game and thinks “ah fuck, I’ve got to mark Firmino later”. No chance. Sadio still has that even when he’s playing like shit.

It’s not even Bobby’s fault entirely. He’s just become too extreme a version of himself. The falsest of false nines. Maybe he can re-invent himself playing behind the front three but it just feels like this is the beginning of the phasing out Firmino stage doesn’t it?

As I say though, he wasn’t bad. He was involved more than he has often been this season and he did play one great through ball to Salah who then shot too close to Leno. Nice play that though. We had quite a lot of nice play. Mostly after we got the opening goal and started to play with more freedom, but even in the first half we had our moments. 

The best chance fell to Milner after he was well picked out by Trent. Should have scored but completely missed the target. Sadio had a headed opportunity from another right wing cross (think this one was by Fabinho) but for all our dominance and good situations we didn’t work the keeper enough. An all too familiar story this season. When Jota isn’t playing that is.

As I said though, everything just got much easier after the opening goal. Lovely goal it was too. Stunning ball in from Trent and a good header from Jota. I also liked the way Trent got himself back onside quickly after his initial run wasn’t found, and the way Mo waited for him to get back onside before giving it to him. The cross though. Fucking hell. Stunning.

Trent’s celebration defo had a whiff of “fucking have some of that Southgate” about it. If him being left out by England fires him up even more for us then great. He’s been playing well for a couple of months anyway and should never have been left out, but I’d be happy if every international manager decided to drop our lads.

The second goal was good too. Clever ball in behind by Fabinho and although Mo didn’t reach it first he put the shits up Gabriel and forced him into diving in to try and clear the danger. He didn’t clear it and Mo calmly went through, waited for Leno to commit and then rolled it through his legs with his right foot. Class finish.

Jota’s second was an emphatic finish that he took off the toes of Sadio, who had turned in the box after being fed by Mo. I don’t think Sadio was scoring from there so it’s a good job Jota was steaming in hunting out more goals.

I thought he’d go and get himself a hat-trick after that but we eased off on them and played a lot of keep ball. It would have been nice to smash them everywhere but with Madrid coming up in a few days it was sensible to conserve some energy. Klopp made another couple of substitutions when he sent on Wijnaldum for Firmino and Williams for Kabak. Bit of a strange one taking off Ozan, who looked a little puzzled before Klopp explained it to him.

I’m not sure whether we should have had a penalty there at the end though when Alisson sent Mo clear. It looked like he was fouled on first view, but first view is all we had because the final whistle went and they didn’t show any replay. Mo certainly seemed to think he’d been fouled. We don’t get decisions like that when they actually matter so I was a little bit surprised we didn’t get this one. Good chance to even up the numbers a bit and cover their tracks. Maybe because the final whistle went immediately VAR couldn’t get involved, not unless it’s to hand United three points anyway.

So a good win and yet another clean sheet for the new look back four with Fabinho in front of them. I like Kabak, he’s really growing on me now. He just quietly goes about his job and him and Nat have been brilliant together. We have no right to expect this level of performance from them. The Madrid game is going to be a big test for them and we may learn more about them on Tuesday night, but we know they can play against most PL teams.

They probably won’t have an easier game than this one but they still had to maintain their concentration and not make mistakes. There was only one awkward moment for them when Nat had to deal with a tricky bouncing ball. He headed it back and it may not have reached Alisson, but Kabak was there covering for his partner as any good centre back should.

He’s a weird one because if you ask me what he’s good at I couldn’t tell you. He isn’t big, he’s not especially fast, he isn’t physically dominant and he’s nothing special on the ball (by that I mean he’s good, but he’s no Alan Hansen). So he doesn’t have any specific attribute to hang his hat on yet somehow he’s getting the job done for us. 

Big Nat did well again and Lacazette didn’t fancy it at all did he? Phillips just dominated him and Lacazette looked like he quit. He was crying to the ref all game and milking any contact like he’d had his leg broken. We saw him the other week on MOTD screaming and he was at it again. 

There was a weird one when he went down holding his face after a tangle with Nat. The replay showed there was minimal contact at most, but when Lacazette eventually got to his feet he had blood coming from above his eye.

If I didn’t know better I’d say he pulled the old Ric Flair juicing trick. Razor blade in the sock, little nick of the eyebrow, blood everywhere. Obviously that didn’t happen but it just shows you how you can’t always judge contact based on replays. How many times have we said “he didn’t touch him” on incidents like this one? And if there’s no blood we just assume the player is faking it, but there was absolutely nothing in this at all yet Lacazette was busted open.

So all in all everyone played a part in this but star man is Fabinho just ahead of Jota, with special mention to Trent and to Milner who did a good job in two positions for us and completed a rare 90 minutes. Thiago looks more comfortable with Fabinho there as a safety blanket too. He’s not doing anything particularly eye catching but he’s playing a part and growing into the team now. We need a big performance from him against Madrid as that’s the stage he’s used to playing on.

I’m actually really looking forward to that game now that we aren’t the quivering fucking wreck we were a month or so back. Shame Ramos isn’t going to be involved as it would have been nice to settle that score, but then at least we don’t have to worry about him putting any of our lads on hospital this time. Twat.

Final word has to be on Stuart Atwell. Not for his performance (which was adequate enough), but for his haircut. Fucking hell fella. Comes to something when Aubamayeng can come out with a head like that and not have the most ridiculous haircut on the pitch. This wasn’t as bad as when Michael Oliver had tramlines shaved into the side of his head but it’s up there.

Team: Alisson; Alexander-Arnold, Phillips, Kabak (R Williams), Robertson (Jota); Fabinho, Milner, Thiago; Salah, Firmino (Wijnaldum), Mané: