Shit. Just what the fuck happened there? I’ve never seen anything like this in all my years of watching football. We never defended that badly even when we were rubbish. By defending I don’t specifically just mean the defenders, I mean the whole team. It was a shambles.
This team hardly ever loses games, so to see them spanked like this is actually incomprehensible. If I hadn’t seen it I wouldn’t have believed this was even possible. Sure, we could have lost the game. I could see that happening. I could even see another Watford type result being possible. But this??? Nah, I never thought even in my worst nightmares this could happen.
I don’t really know what to say. It was only a few days ago the entire world was ready to just hand us the title. I felt like that too. I still do, despite this. The point is though literally everyone in the media had already decided that the title was staying here. Maybe that was the problem?
The players have got fuck all to do these days other than train and then go home and watch telly. They can’t go anywhere, or do anything. So maybe they’ve just been sat around watching Sky Sports News all week having smoke blown up their arses, and this was the result of it.
We didn't run away with the title last year just because we're better than everyone else. We ran away with it because we were focused and concentrated in every game we played (bar Watford) until the title was won. We didn't always play at our best, but we avoided the kind of bad results against inferior teams that had plagued us over the last 30 years. That's how you win titles.
So with that in mind, and having seen how we've approached almost every game in recent seasons, I think I can safely say that they just weren’t mentally prepared for this game, which tells me they didn’t take it as seriously as they would have if they’d been playing an Arsenal or a Chelsea. It’s not something you can level at these lads very often, but I don’t see how you can draw any other conclusion after this.
A fully switched on, fully motivated Liverpool does not concede seven goals against anybody, let alone Aston Villa. So therefore, clearly they weren’t switched on and motivated or this couldn’t have happened. It looked wrong right from the start. We've seen that before and usually we find a way to steady ourselves and get into the game. This time we never did.
Before I get fully into the inquest though I feel it needs saying that Villa played incredibly well and fully deserved this. It wasn’t lucky and we can’t say it was a freak result because it wasn’t. They were outstanding and could easily have scored more. Yes three of their goals were spawny deflections but considering they also hit the woodwork and missed four or five other great chances I don’t think we can say the scoreline flattered them at all. Credit where it's due.
We can have no complaints at all. We were fucking abysmal and deserved to be humiliated. How can this happen? I don’t think there’s any one simple answer. There are all sorts of factors that went into this and it just ended up being a perfect storm.
First of all it had been a troubling week at Melwood. Thiago and Sadio coming down with Covid shouldn’t in itself be a problem as ordinarily we should be able to cope without them. How has it impacted the group though? How many of them have had it on their minds this week or thought that they themselves had it? We don’t know how this kind of thing might affect them.
Shit, I’d have demanded all of them were tested right on full time, because if Corona Virus was a football performance this would be it. Defensively this display was me in March / April when I’d struggle to summon the energy to go for a piss and then I’d immediately fall asleep for an hour afterwards. Even then I was more alert than Joe Gomez in this game.
My point is that players are humans and sometimes we overlook that. There could be any number of reasons for it but something just wasn’t right with their mental approach to this game. What caused it is something they need to figure out for themselves.
Losing Alisson plays a part too, obviously, although even as shit as Adrian has been in 2020 I’m not pinning this on him. That’s too easy. We lost Allison at the beginning of last season too and we won every game with Adrian in goal.
I have no hesitation in blaming him for the Atletico Madrid defeat as that was completely on him. The team were great that night but he gave the game away virtually on his own. He isn’t the reason for this one though. He was just one of many factors.
Of course the first goal was shite but it doesn’t justify what happened afterwards. You have to respond when someone makes a mistake. We did it against Arsenal last week when Robbo fucked up. This time we didn't, but that's not on Adrian.
He’s an easy target but scapegoating him would be falling into the same trap as those who blamed the Watford loss on Lovren. Far too simplistic. He is a problem though, obviously. A problem that I don't know we have a solution to.
Other factors come into it too. The empty stadium thing is definitely playing a massive part in some of these wild, unpredictable results we’re seeing. As is the shortened pre-season. There are too many crazy results right across Europe for this to not be a thing. Pandemic footy isn’t the same as normal footy.
All of the above plays a part but in addition to that Villa were well up for it and had clearly done their homework on how to get in behind us, because they were able to do it ALL THE FUCKING TIME. The easy thing to do is jump on the Sky bandwagon and talk about the “risky high line”, but that high line has helped us to 196 points in two seasons as well as a title and a European Cup.
Nothing wrong with how we set up, but it doesn’t really matter how you set up when half the team are throwing in absolute fucking clunkers and we’re losing individual battles all over the park. You just can’t win when so many players play this badly and ignore the jobs they are supposed to be doing. I’m trying to be kind by putting forward reasons as to why they may have played like that, but nothing really justifies how bad this actually was.
I’m so shellshocked by it that I’m not even angry yet. I might be in a day or two when it fully sinks in, but chances are it’s just something that I’ll want to forget about as quickly as possible. The international break doesn’t help with that. Couldn’t have come at a worse time.
We got off to the worst possible start when Adrian misplaced a pass to Gomez in the box. He should be clearing that ball and not trying to play in that situation. Even if he’d played a decent pass Gomez would have been put under immediate pressure by Grealish.
Yes we play out from the back when it’s safe to do so but there’s nothing wrong with kicking it long when needed, and in fairness we see both Alisson and Adrian do that plenty. We aren’t a play out at all costs team like City or Arsenal and kicking it long is something we do when the situation demands it. On this occasion Adrian chose not to and was punished. Bad decision and bad execution.
It typified how the whole team had started though, Villa were sharper than us right from the first whistle. I had hoped the goal would wake us up but it didn’t. We didn’t start playing until we were 2-0 down.
The second goal was good from Villa’s perspective. Grealish played a nice ball down the line to get Watkins away and he cut inside Gomez and lashed one in the top corner. Shite from Joe though. Keep him on his left foot. It's really not that difficult.
We eventually settled down and had a good spell, created some chances that we didn’t take, probably should have had a penalty, and eventually made the breakthrough when Salah finished sharply.
I felt good at that point. The goal got us back into it and we were playing quite well after that nightmare start in which we could easily have conceded more than the two (Barkley missed two great chances). Then we gave away another goal almost straight away and never recovered from it.
The third was a fluke that we couldn’t do much about. We cleared the corner, McGinn volleyed it back in and it hit Van Dijk and went in the opposite corner. I think they’d won that corner from Barkley running through unopposed again and forcing a save from Adrian on his near post.
Actually that might have been a different incident. They had so many attacks it’s hard for me to remember the sequence they came in. I know that the attack that led to the corner had initially looked offside and Klopp was going mad. Replays showed the linesman was right though as Gomez tried to step out and catch them offside but he was too late.
Their fourth had a hint of offside about it too. It came from a free-kick that went to the far post and was knocked back into the centre for Watkins to complete his hat-trick. The lad who put the cross in was just onside and although there were a couple of them in the middle who were off when the free-kick came in, that’s not classed as offside anymore so again, nothing wrong with that goal.
Predictably, much is being made of how high up the pitch we defended that free-kick but we’ve been doing that for years and nearly always catch the opposition offside. Mind you, Villa scored from a similar one last year I think, so unlike the rest of the league they seem to have figured out how to beat it.
So 4-1 now. Fucking hell. The craziest thing is I rang my Dad at half time and I said I wouldn’t be surprised if we still came back and got something. Seems daft now but how can you ever completely write this team off? Robbo even said after the game that he thought we could come back and win it, but then we went out and played just as badly if not even worse.
Minamino replaced Keita at the break, which made sense I suppose but I’d have probably put Milner or Hendo on to get more control. It wasn’t an extra attacker we needed as we looked dangerous enough going forward. We just had zero control of the game, the defence had no protection and it was like basketball at times.
Clearly Hendo mustn’t have been fit enough as getting him out there was a no brainer otherwise. Minamino did nothing really, but he wasn’t alone in that and considering we were 4-1 down when he came on he’s not really on any list of culprits here.
The next goal was always going to be vital and if Villa got it then that was us done and dusted. And they did. Fucking Barkley with a deflected shot that looped over Adrian. It was the only way that turd was going to score as he missed every other chance he had, the breeze block headed cunt.
It was a flukey goal but it was self inflicted because it came about from Gomez passing it straight to a Villa player and putting us on the back foot. He was subbed soon after to put him out of his misery.
We were just a completely disorganised mess at this point. We were losing the ball cheaply and were wide open to counters. Klopp always talks about protecting our attacks and how important that is. We didn’t do it at all.
The defenders deserve all the stick that will come their way after this (not Robbo, he was sound) but they got no help whatsoever from those in front of them. None.
Mo pulled one back with another fine finish after Bobby actually finally fucking did something and found a team-mate with a pass. He spent most of the game passing it to Villa players and his evening was summed up when he gave them the ball and they went up the pitch and scored again when Grealish’s shot deflected in off Fabinho.
I couldn’t for the life of me even remember the seventh goal and I’ve just had to watch the 90 second highlight package on LFCTV to remind me. It was Grealish running free through the middle with no-one anywhere near him. That made me remember a similar one when Watkins ran through and Adrian had to make a good save to deny him.
Due to having to watch that I also had to sit through the other goals again and ok yeah, now I’m getting angry about it. Some of those players gave up. Their heads went down and they allowed what would have been a bad loss to become a historically bad one.
Probably doesn’t happen with fans in the ground as professional pride kicks in and you want to keep the score down. It just gives you that extra bit of motivation to not be humiliated. I didn’t see that here though. I just saw players not tracking runners, not putting pressure on the ball and generally just letting Villa do whatever they wanted.
I feel as though I’m finally done with Keita now. He just doesn’t do enough. Even his good games aren’t THAT good and the fact is most of his performances are like this one. Not terrible, it’s not like he stands out for being crap, but too often he just doesn’t do anything. He’s a nothing player. A pisser and farter.
He floats around being neat and tidy, but he’s meek as fuck and our midfield is nearly always far more open when he’s in it. He’s good at nicking it in the final third but if that doesn’t happen then once they’re behind him it’s goodnight. He’s our least effective midfielder and at this point I’d rather see any of the others (including Jones and Grujic) play ahead of him. He's in his third year and he's basically no better than he was when he first got here.
Bobby needs dropping now too. I don’t know how many performances like this he’s going to be allowed to get away with before he’s finally benched. There’s no way I’d start him next game. Not a chance. Mo through the middle with Sadio and Jota wide for me. Minamino even, I could live with that but I’d prefer Jota as I think he’s done well.
But Firmino will start. I'm under no illusions there and I’m not sure how bad he’d have to be to ever get dropped because Klopp is his number one fan. Dropping him might be what he needs though as this has been going on for 12 months now. He either needs a kick up the arse or he's low on confidence. Either way, benching him is the way to go. If he does play in the derby then he better fucking perform because we can't have any passengers in that game.
Then there’s Gomez. What the fuck? I thought he was great against Arsenal last week but then he goes and plays like this. It was truly horrendous. It was Lovren on one of his meltdown days. That Watkins kid gave him the absolute runaround. In fairness, Virg was shite too but Gomez was a whole other level of bad.
Fabinho was no better when he dropped into the backline and he was also shite in midfield. Barkley was running through uncontested time and time again. Given that it’s Fabinho’s job to protect the back four I think it’s fair to question just where the fuck he was when that kept happening.
I actually thought Gini was ok. By ok I mean he wasn’t terrible like some of the others. He did the kind of job he usually does, but usually he’s doing it with two other midfielders also helping to boss the game. It felt like he was a one man midfield at times.
Fuck me we don’t half miss Hendo sometimes don’t we? There is no way in a million years we concede seven with him on the pitch. Not a chance.
It’s interesting when you hear the other players talk about how last season it was Hendo keeping everyone grounded and not letting them get carried away even when we were miles ahead. Robbo in particular has mentioned it loads, how Hendo refused to relax or get complacent right up until the moment the title was finally won.
The way Robbo describes it you get the impression that some of the other lads were getting a bit too relaxed about it and it was Hendo who kept demanding more from everyone and making sure they kept their standards up. Hendo didn’t play at Watford and he didn’t play in this one. That isn’t a co-incidence for me.
Yeah, he didn’t play at Chelsea or against Arsenal either, but that’s different because games like that are ones when everyone is always going to be fully up for it because it’s a big game against a top six rival. Watford away and Villa away? Different story.
We’ve done an incredible job in recent years of being up for games like this and not letting standards slip, but the two times when we’ve let ourselves down have been when the skipper wasn’t out there.
The only good thing about this I suppose is that Villa fans didn’t get to see it in person. I dread to think what Brummy wit we’d have had to endure. They’re the most unfunny, unoriginal cunts in the league at the best of times, but this would have been unbearable.
Then again, if the stadium had been full this wouldn’t have gone down in this manner anyway. The stakes just aren’t as high when the stadium is empty. It just adds an extra layer of incentive that is almost impossible to recreate.
Would Man City have conceded five at home if fans had been there? Would United have let in six? Would Wolves have been spanked 4-0 by West Ham? I doubt it. And there’s no part of me willing to accept we’d have let in seven against Villa in a full stadium.
Football without fans is really shit and the results are just not realistic. Every week there’s completely mad scorelines and it isn’t a true reflection of the teams involved. But we’re stuck with this for the foreseeable future so these lads need to figure it out. You can’t play the way they did against Arsenal and then six days later serve up a shit burger like this.
It’s incomprehensible. Maybe this is something they needed. Were they starting to believe the hype? The hype was completely justified as this team is the best in the land by some distance. However, they’re only that good when they do the things that made them the best.
Against Villa I didn’t see ANY of that. There was no pressing, no closing down, no tracking of runners. I’d never accuse these lads of a lack of effort but they were definitely not switched on and focused for this game. I don’t like saying it because the attitude of this squad has been exemplary for years, but I suppose it’s only natural.
It’s impossible to be completely focused week in week out. That’s why even the very best teams don’t win every single game they play.
So yeah, whatever the reason it seems clear to me that that the players approached the game differently to the way they did the Chelsea and Arsenal games. Maybe you disagree and don’t think it was complacency, or you put it down to something else. Something less tangible like some of the things I mentioned earlier.
Whatever the cause of it, I think we can all agree that Aston Villa would not be putting seven goals past us if we were mentally right. Too many players just weren’t at it, for whatever reason.
So what now? We’ll see I guess. Before this game everyone had us running away with the league and one game shouldn’t change that, no matter how chastening an experience that game proved to be. I still think we’re by far the best team in the country but this empty stadium thing makes things far less predictable and we just don’t look the same as we did before lockdown.
We can still play at full throttle when we’re really up for it. The Palace game just after lockdown ended was a good example, as was Arsenal last week. I’m now beginning to realise that we can’t do that week in week out in empty stadiums though. In theory it shouldn’t make that much of a difference, but in reality it does.
It’s not even just the Anfield atmosphere we miss. Away games are more difficult too. It should be easier without a hostile away crowd but for a team like ours who play on emotion and need that intensity, it’s really difficult to do that every week when there are no crowds. We thrive on the emotion inside stadiums, whether its supportive or hostile.
This one off loss doesn’t change how I view our chances of retaining the title. Losing Alisson for six weeks does a little though. We coped pretty well at the beginning of last season when he couldn’t play but that feels like an awful long time ago now because Adrian now looks like he’s going to fuck up every time he plays.
We can overcome losing Alisson if everyone else is on it and last year that’s what happened. But it’s when we’re not playing great that we really need Alisson, and him not being there for any length of time is probably cost to cost us some points.
Personally I wouldn’t play Adrian again. He’s a busted flush now. I doubt his team-mates have any confidence in him and he’s now looking like he has no confidence in himself. He will play though because Klopp isn’t going to throw Kelleher in for the derby and for CL games.
The Villa away game last year was the day when a lot of Reds believed we would win the title. When you look back on it, it was definitely a pivotal moment. I wonder how we’ll look back on this one when the season is over? Maybe this is the first chink in the armour, or perhaps it is the wake up call that we needed.
Right now I’m positive that it’s the latter, but it’s this shitty Covid footy that is really throwing everything up in the air. It’s levelled the playing field massively as it’s not like real footy. There’s just an artificialness about it all and it’s causing results to be all over the place.
In closing, a result and performance like this shouldn’t ever happen but it might be a good thing that it has because now the players know that as great as they are, they aren’t invincible and if they don’t do the things that made them great in the first place they can be severely embarrassed.
Use that embarrassment as motivation to ensure it never happens again, and for the love of all that is good and pure, get your fucking shit together before the derby.
Star man is Robbo, which is mad because he plays in a defence that conceded seven goals. He was by far our best player though, along with Mo and Jota who were both alright.
Team: Adrian; Alexander-Arnold, Gomez (Jones), Van Dijk, Robertson; Fabinho, Wijnaldum, Keita (Minamino); Salah, Firmino (Milner), Jota:
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