The reaction to this has been a bit odd. Ok, it was only 1-0 and West Ham had a couple of great chances that thankfully they didn’t take, but there was absolutely nothing extraordinary about this. Throughout a season, even the very best teams will have some games like this and it doesn’t serve as any reflection of their level, it’s just football.
It’s hard winning Premier League games. Just because we often make it look easy doesn’t mean it is. Sometimes for any number of reasons games can end up on a bit of a knife edge, like this one. We haven’t had many of them to be fair. City have had a few and when they have, there’s usually been some kind of VAR controversy helping them along the way. When they win 1-0 it’s seen as a sign of how relentless they are (“this is what champions do” etc), yet when we show any kind of vulnerability - real or perceived - it seems to be viewed in a completely different way.
West Ham did alright. They’re a tough team to play against and they’re one of only two sides to beat us this season. They defended well and posed the occasional threat on the break. They created one big chance in each half but they fluffed them both. We were the better side throughout though and we were quite wasteful ourselves. On another day we get the second goal and go on to win comfortably. Nothing to see here, just the kind of fairly standard, uninspiring win that the top sides pull off as a matter of routine.
If you’d told me ten minutes into this that we’d only be 1-0 up and relying on West Ham missing an absolute sitter I’d never have believed it given the way we started. We were brilliant early on and should have gone ahead after a minute. West Ham were caught offside and Trent grabbed the ball, put it down and then quick as a flash he played a perfect ball down the channel to set Mo clear on goal. It was so good from him.
Mo raced clear into the box and we all awaited the inevitable, but surprisingly he hit his shot straight at Fabianksi. Disappointing, as he usually buries those. Not only that, but a goal so early may have opened the floodgates. We had other chances too and everything pointed to us scoring three or four and running out comfortable winners.
Probably the best moment of the half was a blistering run by Diaz where he turned on the afterburners and raced through the centre before he was upended on the edge of the box. Trent was inches wide with the free-kick. Very well worked that and Fabianski was completely wrong footed by it.
The Hammers weren’t exactly throwing men forward but they didn’t need to because Antonio was causing problems all on his own. Twice early on he brought saves out of Alisson just from innocuous balls down the sides. He’s a much better player than he’s given credit for and I guarantee there isn’t a defender in the league that relishes playing against him. Konate and Virg both played well in this game, yet Antonio still caused them a lot of uncomfortable moments. That he did it with very little support, especially in the first half when West Ham were very cagey, says a lot about him.
Our goal was a bit fortunate but it was also about percentages. Trent played the percentage option by shooting across goal. By doing that there was always the chance that someone would get on the end of it, or that the keeper would parry it out to someone. Then there’s Sadio, who also went with the percentage option of making a run in anticipation of the ball going across goal. He ended up with a tap in, although my celebration was a little muted as I assumed he must have been offside.
The linesman didn’t flag though which was encouraging. If Sadio had been clearly off then the flag would have gone up. I didn’t so that told me that it was probably close. And it was. Very close. Inches really. But he was just about onside and the goal stood. Sadio’s goal tally this season is sneaky good. He’s not catching Mo but he might still beat Jota to second.
We were pushing for the second goal and it looked for all the world that we’d got it following a brilliant move that involved a load of passes and the ball being switched from one side of the pitch to the other. Great football that. Hendo was heavily involved in the early stages of it and when he picked out Fabinho on the edge of the box, Trent made a run in behind. Fab could have played it early but he held onto it just long enough for Trent to find space and then he picked him out beautifully.
Trent cut it back to Diaz whose shot was blocked by Fabianski and then cleared off the line by a defender. The ball went back to Trent who fired it across again. Diaz went for a flick but didn’t connect, and Mo couldn’t get a shot away either as West Ham somehow smuggled away the danger.
We were wondering how that didn’t go in, but soon after it was West Ham wondering just what the hell had happened at the other end. Out of absolutely nothing really the right back played a ball through the centre of our defence and all of a sudden Fornals was sprinting through with nobody near him.
I thought he was offside and so did our back four. The flag didn’t go up, but that’s standard these days so you have to defend it. Alisson did brilliantly to delay him and force Fornals into a weak chip that cleared Ali but had so little pace on it that Trent was able to get back and hook it clear. Fornals then headed the loose ball goalwards but Alisson was there to parry that away, and Konate then blocked the third effort.
I then expected the flag to go up but it didn’t so I had to let the linesman know of my disapproval. He had Trent in one ear and half the Main Stand in the other. And it turns out he’d probably got it right. It might have been offside but without the lines being drawn it’s impossible to tell with the naked eye. So he was right not to flag. It’s funny really, most of the shouting I do at the match is directed at the officials, yet when I get home and see the replays I’m nearly always the one who was wrong. Still doesn’t stop me from being convinced I’m right the next time it happen though!
Trent will get loads of credit for the clearance but it was refreshing to see him afterwards saying that he was making up for his own error as he was initially out of question and then because he was sure it was offside he wasn’t sprinting flat out to get back at first. Then when no flag went up he sprinted back and thankfully got there in time. Good to hear him not wanting to take credit for rectifying his own error though. Worth highlighting again that Alisson was great on that one v one though.
At half time I was still feeling good about my 3-0 prediction. We just needed to be a bit more clinical as everything else was ticking over nicely. The Hammers did look like they had a goal in them but I expected us to sort those issues out at the break and close the door on them. We didn’t.
Almost immediately after the restart Bowen was racing clear and it needed a brilliant recovery by Robbo to get back and make a block just as Bowen was getting his shot away. As with the Fornals chance, there’s two ways of looking at it. One is to poke holes in the defending that led to the chance, and the other is to praise the recovery and the desire to make up for the initial failing.
My view is that teams are always going to create two or three chances in a game because even shit teams have enough good players to cause the occasional problem. West Ham aren’t shit, they’re 5th in the table and have some good players, so them creating a few chances is nothing to be particularly concerned about. To prevent the opposition from doing anything you need to be almost perfect, and that hardly ever happens. Norwich created a few chances the other week. It’s normal.
So the bigger cause for criticism for me would be our play in the final third. This game was edgy not because we gave up a few chances, but because we didn’t get the second (or indeed third) goal that allows you to feel more comfortable.
Why didn’t we get it? Just some poor decisions in the final third mainly. Not picking the right pass at the right time or generally just trying to force it. Mo was the most guilty of that. It felt like he spent the entire game trying to make up for the early miss and the longer it went the more desperate his attempts to score became.
Diaz went close with a curler after a sweeping counter and Salah had a couple of efforts he could maybe have done better with. A lot of the football we played was good but we just weren’t finishing it off. Diaz blasted inches wide and then did well to cut one back for Mo but he couldn’t take it in stride and it ran through to the keeper.
Then West Ham had a glorious chance that somehow they didn’t convert. A cross from the right found Lanzini is all kinds of space in the box. I don’t know who was at fault there but Trent had to come over a long way to make a challenge as no-one was anywhere near Lanzini. Trent didn’t win the ball but maybe he put Lanzini off, because after evading Trent’s block he rushed his shot and blazed over the bar. He had more time than he probably realised.
Massive let off and that was probably the biggest moment of the game. They did have one more moment of danger when Antonio ran clear on a break following one of our corners, but Robbo got back to hold him up and Keita came in to finish the job superbly. Great scrambling defence from the lads that, and the desire to get back in and preserve the clean sheet was admirable. It’s also exactly what you’d expect from these players.
I made the point on the podcast that you can’t take that for granted because so many teams don’t have that. Look at United for example. So easy to score against because they just don’t have that desire to chase back and fight with everything they have to protect their goal. That’s my biggest take away from this game. The players could have conceded on four or five occasions but on all but one (the Lanzini one) they got back in there and prevented the goal.
I was a little surprised at how long Klopp waited to make a change in midfield but I suspect that was due to the improved second half showing of Keita. Don’t get me wrong, he was fine in the first half but didn’t have a massive impact on the game. He was on a periphery a bit, but his involvement grew after the break. I’d still probably have brought Jones on after 65-70 minutes but it wouldn’t have been a reflection on Keita’s performance.
Klopp elected to leave it though and instead his first change came up front. Now this was interesting because it was clearly the right change to make but it’s always a big call subbing Mo, not least because everyone is looking to see if he throws a strop.
I suspect Klopp made his mind up about this one at the same moment I did. About five minutes before Mo was subbed he had attempted a ridiculous shot from 25 yards that showed he just wasn’t in the right mindset. He was forcing it way too much and subbing him was an easy decision this time I think. Sadio was playing well and was involved in everything, Diaz was once again looking quality so the obvious change on this occasion was Mo.
Usually you’d be reluctant to do that because it’s always in your mind that he could score at any moment. Taking him off is a last resort, but he was never scoring in the game and it felt obvious. Still, taking him off always feels like a bigger deal that it ought to be. Sadio gets subbed loads, so does Jota, so does Bobby. Diaz probably will too. Mo though? Doesn’t happen often and the danger is that it’s becoming one of those “too big to be subbed” scenarios. Like if Messi or Ronaldo ever got subbed. No-one is too big to be subbed.
This was an important move by Klopp though because if he had subbed Sadio or Diaz i would have sent out the completely wrong message. It was obvious that Mo was the one who should go off because it just wasn’t his day. I thought he played well overall but it was just that poor decision making that let him down. He had one of those days when he just wanted to score and it seemed to dominate his thoughts any time he got the ball.
So Jota came on for him and although Mo didn’t look best pleased I’d like to think he was more upset with himself than with the decision to sub him. He shook Jota’s hand and gave a cursory handshake to Klopp (although there was no hug, Klopp knew better than to go in for one there!). Jota wasn’t good when he came on. He was more wasteful than Mo ironically. He did commit a proper snide foul to prevent a West Ham counter though. Top notch that was.
In the end we held on relatively easily. I never felt like we were under any real pressure and even when West Ham had corners we dealt with those without any issues. We definitely learned from what happened at their place, but we were also helped by some terrible deliveries by them.
So on we go. Another win to keep the pressure on City. I had hoped that United would have one of their occasional good days and do us a favour in the manc derby but unfortunately they were a meek, feeble, cowardly disgrace. Fucking losers. They’re more Arsenal than Arsenal are these days. Little wonder then that they are behind Arsenal in the table.
We’re now relying on others to take points off City, and that’s fine because most of the other sides City have left will make a better fist of it than United did. It’s hard to be much worse. Even Everton put up more of a fight.
We can’t control that so it’s just a case of continuing to win and wait for the opportunity. That might come soon or we might need to wait until we play City ourselves. There’s a lot of footy to be played before then so just try to keep on winning and see how it shakes out.
Star man is Trent, just ahead of Diaz. The funny thing is I thought most of the lads played well. Mo was the only one who was considerably below his usual level, and maybe Fab to a much lesser extent (he was fine, but wasn’t dominant). Individually we were decent but collectively it didn’t really click, largely because of the decision making and execution in the final third. Aside from that there wasn’t much wrong.
We need to sharpen that up for Inter because even with a 2-0 lead things could get hairy if we were to concede first. Play a strong team, get the game won and then utilise the five subs to keep everyone fresh for next weekend. I feel like Jota is going to have a big say in what happens against Inter.
Team: Alisson; Alexander-Arnold, Donate, Van Dijk, Robertson; Fabinho, Henderson, Keita (Milner); Salah (Jota), Mané, Diaz (Jones)L
Recommended Comments