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Bournemouth 0 Liverpool 3 (Dec 7 2019)

     

     
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    Report by
    Dave Usher

Now isn’t that much better? No dramas, no late heroics needed, just a routine, run of the mill, easy away win. It’s been a while. 

 

Bournemouth are great aren’t they? You break into their house wanting to steal some shit, and not only to they offer no resistance, they make you a cup of tea and show you to the hidden safe you didn’t even know about. 

 

Eddie Howe’s team knew they were beaten from the start and decided the best course of action was to just make sure they endured the least amount of embarrassment possible.

 

This was the Bournemouth I was cursing last year when they went through 90 minutes against Man City without so much as leaving their own half, let alone managing a shot on goal. Eddie Howe has done a great job with them, but his approach against the top sides is so meek that he really should be Arsenal’s next manager. His managerial approach would fit that spineless group of wastrels like an arse in a bucket.

 

Klopp made a load of changes from the team that beat the Blues in midweek, and once again they paid off. Shaq and Div came in to destroy Everton and Ox and Naby did it against Bournemouth. Having the ability to make changes and keep winning is huge, especially as it was one of the concerns people had until this week. The squad depth has been questioned but the fringe lads have stepped up big this week. 

 

We started brightly but the goal didn’t come immediately. We had chances and Mo was looking especially dangerous. We had to make a change midway through the half when Lovren felt something in his hamstring and was replaced by Trent, and that only made Bournemouth’s job harder as Gomez moved into the middle and Trent was raiding down the right.  

 

Bournemouth’s cause wasn’t helped by losing Nathan Ake early on, and from the moment we went ahead the game just became really easy and it was always going to be a case of how many we would score. 

 

The opening goal looked simple enough but it was superbly executed. We’ve seen that goal before but it’s usually Sadio running onto a pass from Virgil. This was Ox making the run and Hendo picking him out. It’s a great goal and a vital weapon in our armoury these days.

 

Hendo’s ball hit him perfectly in stride and Ox produced a controlled volley past the keeper. We score all sorts of goals and that makes us very difficult to defend. Ox seems to score almost every time he plays too. I don’t like him in the front three and he didn’t have a particularly great game, but he made the vital breakthrough and it’s just great to see the contributions we get from the lads who are brought in when Klopp needs to rest the big hitters.

 

Naby bagged the second and it was a cracker. He made a positive run forward and rolled the ball into Mo. He held off two defenders and then back heeled it back into the path of Keita. His took it beautifully in his stride and finished nonchalantly.

 

The only surprising thing was that we didn’t score any more before half time. It was just too easy and we were having it completely our own way but a two goal lead can give you a false sense of security. The third goal would kill it, and we got it via Salah. 

 

As soon as Naby picked the ball up I said “this is a goal”. That’s the kind of situation where he’s at his best. He’s flattered to deceive since he’s been here but that’s definitely what he’s good at; getting it and driving at the defence. In all those youtube videos I watched before he arrived, that was probably the situation he was in most.

 

He carried the ball forward and then slipped it through for Mo who rolled it past the keeper. The goal was a lot like Shaq’s in midweek. Similar run, pass and finish. Game over.

 

With a little more urgency we could have scored five or six, but there was no need for urgency when the opportunity was there to just win the game in second gear and conserve energy for the weeks ahead.

 

It was little more than a training session after that. We kept the ball and Bournemouth let us. They were probably happy to just let us have it as long as we didn’t try and score, and for the most part we didn’t.

 

They were glad to not get thumped and we were more than happy to just conserve energy. It must have been nice for the lads to not have to play the last 10 minutes of an away game either chasing a goal or trying to defend a lead. More of this in the coming weeks would be nice.

 

Klopp even took the opportunity to hand Curtis Jones a debut. He looked right at home and was heavily involved throughout. Made up for him, he’s been in blistering form all season and this was well deserved. He had a chance to score too but couldn’t keep his volley down.

 

Shaq got a run out in the closing stages too. Personally I’d have put Harvey Elliott on as those five minutes would have meant more to him than Shaq.

 

I’m running out of things to say about this team and their achievements. From the last 75 points available, we’ve taken 73. It’s hard to actually fathom that. Has it ever been done before? Not by us, but has anyone ever done that? It’s just astonishing.

 

With everyone else other than Leicester dropping points all over the gaff it’s hard not to get carried away but for now the league needs to take a back seat because the game in Salzburg is massive. Losing that is inconceivable because not only would it be a hugely deflating way to surrender our crown, it would also put us in the fucking Europa, and no-one wants that.

 

Given the big lead we have, the trip to Austria is undoubtedly the most important game we’ll play this month. No doubt we’ll see a full strength side (minus Fabinho, obviously) and hopefully a performance. We’re not good in the group stages because we’re a high stakes team and in the group games there’s usually a second or even third chance. That’s no longer the case as it’s now essentially just a knock out game. I’m actually nervous.

 

Star man was probably Henderson or Salah, but I’m giving it to Keita because we needed a performance from him and we got it. We’re not relying on him to come good because we’ve been doing just fine without him, but if he can hit form then that can only help us, especially with all these games coming up. This was a big step in the right direction for him.

 

 

Team: Alisson; Gomez, Lovren (Alexander-Arnold), Van Dijk, Robertson (Jones); Henderson, Milner, Keita; Salah, Firmino, Oxlade-Chamberlain (Shaqiri):

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As far as Bournemouth are concerned that shitty song "can we play you every week" has never been more apt...

 

I'd forgotten what it was like to have a relatively stress free Saturday afternoon

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I honestly don't think Europa league would be a complete disaster.

 

We would get to rotate all fringe players in to keep them sharp and rest the first 11.

 

Yeah we want to stay in it but I'm not going to lose sleep over it. The league for me this year Clive.

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73 points from our last 25 games.

 

To put that into perspective, the last time we won the title - 38 games - we got 79 points.

 

Arsenal won it the year before that with 76 points. 

 

Amazing really.

 

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