Well well well. After weeks of dogged, relentless pursuit, we’ve not only caught Man City but we’ve edged ahead of them. The importance of some of those late goals we’ve scored is now even more in focus.
City have been blowing everyone away but you don’t get any more points for that than you do for a stoppage time winner after a below par performance. By hook or by crook, the Reds have been matching City result for result. In fact, the two point gap going into this weekend can largely be put down to us having had to play Chelsea away.
We’ve had a slightly tougher fixture list than City but it’s evened out now they've been to Chelsea too, and guess what? We’re top, pretty much as a result of Daniel Sturridge’s worldy at the Bridge. That’s the difference right now. One point, earned by that wonderful goal away at Chelsea.
Of course City’s goal difference is significantly better but I had written that off as a lost cause weeks ago. I may have been a little premature on that as there was a six goal swing this weekend and it’s now only an eight goal difference. If we click against one of the shite teams we could wipe that out in one week. There’s no guarantee we will ‘click’ in the way we did at times last season, because we’re a different side this year. Not as spectacular, but much more efficient.
We were really good at Bournemouth though. It was mostly efficient but with a dash or two of spectacular. The first goal was marginally offside and I’m surprised the linesman didn’t spot that as his view wasn’t impeded and it was a fairly straightforward one to get right.
Eddie Howe doesn’t usually make much of the numerous decisions that go against his side, but he was having a good old moan about this one. I don’t blame him for being pissed off, but he’s kidding himself if he thinks that was the reason his team lost. He reckons they were comfortable prior to that and we hadn’t troubled them. I’d agree that we hadn’t exactly peppered their goal, but I thought we looked lively from early on and it was only a matter of time before we put something together and scored.
Firmino looked sharper than he has of late and Salah was causing them all sorts of problems running in behind. The goal shouldn’t have stood, but I felt as though it had been coming. It was a nice one-two between Bobby and Mo, and although the shot by Firmino was well struck, it was a little speculative and Begovic should have dealt with it better. Mo was on it like a flash and buried it, before turning to give the stink eye to our bench.
I don’t know what Mo’s problem is but he’s had a face like a slapped arse for most of the season. Initially it was probably due to all the shit he was dealing with back home with the Egyptian FA, but that’s not who he was fucking glaring at after every goal he scored in this game. Not unless they were sat on our bench. He had beef with someone. If I had to join those dots I’d say he’s seen his arse about being subbed in the derby and then left out at Burnley. Hopefully it’s not that, but clearly there is something he’s not happy about.
He did it after the second goal too. At the time I thought he was maybe having a look back towards Steve Cook after the naughty stamp on his achilles as he tried to bring him down before he reached the box. It wasn’t though, as Cook was in the opposition direction to where Mo was glaring.
That was a great goal though. A lot of players would have gone down after that painful blow. You could see the grimace on Mo’s face when it happened, but he knew he was going to get his shot away and he carried on. The ball found the bottom corner with the aid of a slight deflection and that gave us some breathing room.
Against most sides I’d have felt comfortable at 2-0 but Bournemouth are the kings of the late comeback, as we know only too well. We needed a third and we got it when Cook diverted Robbo’s cross into his own net. Unfortunate and he wouldn’t be able to do that again if he tried a thousand times, but it was no more than he deserved for the earlier attempt to take out Mo and for looking like Tony Bellew’s stunt double. Fuck you, Steve Cook.
Game over now, and all that remained was for Mo to complete his hat-trick, which he did in some style. Again it was Cook being tormented, as Mo chased him down and muscled him off the ball. That left him one v one with the keeper and although he was forced wider than he’d have liked and couldn’t get his shot away, he kept his cool and made it look easy. The great ones do that.
4-0 at Bournemouth is nothing to be sniffed at. It took us to the top of the table, but everyone was talking as though it was a foregone conclusion that City would leapfrog us later on. The amount of times I heard “albeit only for a few hours” in reference to the possibility of us going top had me scratching my head. Even Klopp was guilty of it in his pre-match presser, and I’m fairly sure Milner intimated something similar after the game.
I know City are good, but Chelsea at Stamford Bridge aren’t exactly chopped liver. It baffled me that people just assumed our stay at the top would be so short lived, and thankfully Chelsea ensured that wasn’t the case.
Milner also said afterwards that “it wasn’t our best performance of the season but we got the job done”. I beg to differ. It might not have been the absolute best, but it’s defo up there. I thought it was really good actually. Bournemouth are a handful and have given all the big guns a game.
I know Callum Wilson was missing, but even so, we restricted them to next to nothing. The only thing Alisson had to do was win a towering header to clear an errant slice from Milner that caught on the wind. That’s another point worth making. It was windy as fuck, so extra credit is due for how easy they made it look to play in those conditions.
Defensively it was a brilliant showing and going forward it looked like last season at times. It was unquestionably one of the most complete displays we’ve had and the significance of that shouldn’t be overlooked given the circumstances. So far the mental strength of this team has really shone through. After all they went through last season maybe they’re more battle hardened now?
That could be an edge we have over City. We’ve had to battle and scrap a lot this season, whereas until this weekend City had only trailed for 11 minutes or something daft like that. When we end up in a close, tense game, we’re used to it because it’s been like that a lot. City have had it so easy that as soon as they hit some adversity it’s almost alien to them. They didn’t react well to going behind at Chelsea, that’s for sure.
It feels like we’ve been playing either at the same time or after City for weeks, which has meant we’ve always been playing catch up and been playing under extra pressure. We know we can’t let them get ahead as it will be too tough to haul them back in, and somehow we’ve managed to stay in touch even when it looked like we were in a bit of trouble. I referenced Sturridge’s miracle goal at Chelsea earlier, and there was also the Origi goal last week of course. There was also the Alisson save at Burnley too, as well as other key moments here and there.
It hasn’t been easy for us, that’s for sure, and this was the first chance we’ve had in weeks to actually put the pressure on City and see how they respond to being behind. The answer was not very well. Losing at Chelsea was always a possibility of course, but would it have happened had we not comfortably seen off Bournemouth and gone top? There’s no way of knowing, but I believe this kind of thing plays a part.
I mean think about it. Imagine going along at a record setting pace, demolishing virtually everyone in your path and being hailed as the greatest team ever. Then you lose one game, at one of the most difficult places to play, and you find yourselves overtaken by a side that at times has been clinging on by its fingernails. That’s got to be a bit of a kick in the balls that, especially because it’s us and we’re already in their heads.
We’ve just got to keep it going. There’s little margin for error but it’s the same for City too. They know that now. One slip up was all it took for them to fall behind us. Some will tell you that it doesn’t matter who is top at the stage of the season. That’s bollocks. It matters massively. You don’t get a trophy for being top in December but the significance of it is still huge, at least for us anyway as it can only help our self belief.
Look at it this way; we’re now playing a 22 game season with a one point lead over City. I’d say that means an awful lot. Put another way, it means that over 16 games (almost half a season) we’ve done better than City and now we’re the only side left unbeaten.
There’ll be some ebbs and flows but we’re so miserly in defence now that we’ve got a real shot at this if we can avoid injuries and keep getting the same rub of the green we’ve had so far.
Star man is obviously Mo, but it was a really good all round display and everyone played their part. We go into another huge week looking in good shape, so hopefully we can see off Napoli and then finally give the Mancs the hiding they deserve. We know what to expect next weekend. City will have a stroll in the park against Everton while we’ll have to find a way to unlock Mourinho’s eleven man defence.
That little shitkicker loves nothing more than being the party pooper, and with United being shite and having little to play for, he’ll be in his element as nobody will expect them to attack, so he can park his bus and justify it by pointing to the league table and hilariously waffling on about ‘spending power’.
We owe them a beating, let’s hope we finally deliver it and keep this thing rolling.
Team: Alisson; Milner, Matip, Van Dijk, Robertson; Fabinho, Keita (Lallana), Wijnaldum; Shaqiri (Mané), Firmino (Henderson), Salah:
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