The classic game of two halves. For 44 minutes I thought we were really good. Maybe as good as we’ve played all season (Bournemouth game apart) when it comes to combining what we did both with and without the ball. We looked dangerous, created plenty of chances but when we lost the ball we never looked at all in any danger. The shape was good, the organisation was good, the football was good, the tempo was good.
Then it just petered out a bit in the second half. We were still relatively comfortable and defended well enough for the most part, but we didn’t have anywhere near the same amount of control we had before the break and the chances we had were more sporadic rather than from a sustained build up of pressure.
There are probably a couple of reasons for that. Firstly, the hangover. Sunday will have taken a toll on the players, both physically and emotionally. We came out flying because of the confidence boost a result like that gives, but the longer it goes the more chance there is that legs and minds become a bit tired. You hope to be a few goals up by the time that happens but if not you can end up having to grind it out. I definitely thought we lacked a bit of energy in that second half (Hendo apart, who got stronger as it went on), whereas in the first half we were flying around.
The second reason was that my boy Darwin was taken off after 55 minutes. And with him went most of the goal threat we’d had to that point. I don’t want to overstate this is any way, but I don’t think I can remember seeing so many “HOLY SHIT!!” Moments from an individual player in the same game since…. yeah I’m not going to finish that sentence as I’ll be reaching the Adele album and the ice cream again. I don’t have to spell it out, you know where I’m going with it.
And I’m not putting them on the same level, I’m just saying, that the “HOLY SHIT!!” thing isn’t something that happens all the time, but Darwin did it three times in this game. And that’s not even including the goal he scored.
So let me go through them, or at least the first two which were both before half time. The third happened in the second half so I’ll leave that for now. The first one was when he chased a ball over the top and then out of nowhere unleashed a dipping left footed half volley that Fabianski just about kept out. If that went in, then goal of the season is already over.
We’ve seen him do that on the opposite side on his strong foot. He nearly scored a worldy at Goodison just like that, but seeing him attempt the same thing on his left was a real eye opener for me. Not many players have the confidence or ability to trust their weaker side like that, so I saw him do that and was taken aback. Just wow.
The second one was similar. He brought a ball down on his chest and then unleashed another fucking howitzer from his left boot. This one hit the post (same post Suarez nearly broke with the greatest goal never scored) but the whole of Anfield was like “FUCKING HELL!!”. The rebound came back to him but he wasn’t properly set and sliced his shot wide.
Still, there was a buzz around the entire ground after that. He had another effort when he and Carvalho harassed Zouma and robbed him and Darwin surged through and forced Fabianski into another save with a sweetly struck left foot shot.
Mo was unmarked in the middle and threw his arms up win frustration, but I’m not even sure Bobby would have spurned the shot in that situation. And 100% Mo is not passing. Besides, Darwin is running in the opposite direction and couldn’t have possibly seen him. Nothing wrong with that.
He’s basically blasted every shot he had, and maybe we need to see a bit more finesse on occasion, but look how sweetly he struck all of those shots.
The goal he scored was boss too. Brilliant cross from Kostas and a terrific header by Nunez. I like how he attacked the ball and got ahead of the defender, but the header itself was really good too. The keeper had no chance because the bounce made it impossible for him to save it.
It was funny seeing him and Kostas celebrating together. Like Dr Evil and Mini Me.
Everything was going great and then out of nowhere we were on the brink of it being 1-1. West Ham had barely been in our half and then the first time they get in the box we conceded a penalty.
No complaints about the decision, it was fairly blatant really. Not exactly stonewall but I knew even in real time when I saw it that we were in trouble. Gomez saw the bouncing ball and thought he could win it. He left the ground to make a play on the ball and Bowen nipped in to get his body in between. He takes the ball on his chest and Joe clatters into him. Pre-VAR that’s 50-50 and if it’s a referees call it can go either way. With VAR, it’s almost always going to be given. Maybe we could have just yelled “this is Anfield” at the ref and that would have changed his mind, eh Pep?
You could tell by the way Gomez didn’t get involved in any protest that he knew it was a penalty. Thiago, Henderson and Van Dijk were all arguing with the referee about it but Joe just took himself away and awaited the inevitable. The ref was told to take a look and we knew what that meant.
Bowen had to wait a while to take the kick as some of our lads did a good job of delaying things. Virgil is getting slated by West Ham fans for roughing up the penalty spot, but he doesn’t. He goes and deliberately stands on it, but he does no damage to it at all so that’s a fuss about nothing.
You could see that Bowen didn’t look comfortable. John was sitting next to me in my Dad’s seat and he said that left footers usually put it to the keeper’s right and that Alisson was going to save it. I thought Bowen would go the other way, after giving Alisson the eyes. Maybe he would have on another day, but clearly he wasn’t confident and when a left footer is not confident he’ll do what John said and go with what is most comfortable. Ali must have known that too because he guessed right and made a great save. What a guy.
We wobbled a bit in the minute or so that remained and half time came at a good time for us. West Ham had done fuck all but all of a sudden they knew they were in the game. That was frustrating given how well we’d played but that’s why that second goal is always so important. Well not specifically a second goal, it might be a third, or fourth. I mean whatever goal that provides you with a two goal cushion. That’s the key, you can relax and start to play with a bit more freedom then.
It didn’t come even though we went close a number of times. Almost always through Nunez. At the start of the second half he was still the one carrying the most threat and brought another save from Fabianski after racing onto a through ball and unleashing another thunderous shot with his left foot.
That was the third “HOLY SHIT!” moment for me. Initially I thought he had no chance of getting on the end of that ball, but he just blew by two defenders and left them trailing in his wake. He’s like fucking lightning that lad.
Did you know that he is officially the fastest player in Premier League history? At least since they started clocking top speeds of players that is. In this game he beat the record which was held by Kyle Walker. He reached 38kmh which is just under 24mph. That’s incredible to me because although I can see he’s fast, I wouldn’t have him down as being THAT fast. Nobody has recorded a higher top speed than Darwin though. Not Walker, not Adama Traore. No-one.
When you add that to the others things he’s showing, quite honestly, I’m pretty giddy about what he could be. Two footed, good in the air, quicker than a hiccup… so many raw ingredients to work with there. The sky is the limit.
The funny thing about him though is he gives you enough to back up your argument whichever side of the fence you’re on. Those who aren’t convinced will note how he went for power and not placement in all of his shots and they’ll point to instances where he could have passed instead and they’ll use that as evidence to back up their position.
Then there’s those like me, who think he’s going to be boss and will point to the ridiculous half volley shots out of nowhere with his ‘weak’ foot, the brilliant headed goal and the amount of shots he manages every time he plays and use that as evidence of why he’s going to be ace.
There’s something for everyone there, but to me if you’re taking negatives out of anything he did in this game then it’s probably because you’re looking too hard for them and that nothing short of perfection will do. And he’s not perfect, far from it. There’s significant room for improvement there but isn’t that a good thing?
He’s already a striker who has almost a goal for almost every start he’s made (five in six), and he leads the league in all kinds of stats that you’d be looking for. And yet he’s still clearly got things he needs to improve on. He’s going to be sound even if he doesn’t improve those things, but if he does improve them, then fucking look out because he’s going to wreak havoc.
Even my Dad gave him some reluctant praise after this. After initially complaining that “I know he scored one but he’s missed some other chances he really should have scored” I eventually got him to say “he played well and might have been man of the match if he’d been left on”. You have to understand something here. My Dad will never admit he’s wrong about anything, so that’s quite the climbdown from him.
Darwin didn’t ‘miss chances’ in this game. Not really. The only ‘miss’ was when he sliced wide from his own rebound after he’d nearly broken the goalpost. Every other effort he had was a low percentage chance of scoring and in some cases he’s basically almost scored out of nothing. But getting a ‘not bad’ out of my Dad after he’d already made up his mind is quite the feat.
Give it a couple of weeks and my arl fella will be trying to grow his hair into a top knot and be covered in neck tatts. Ok maybe not, but Nunez is going to win him over just like he’s win over anyone else still doubting him. And those “you’re just a shit Andy Carroll” taunts from the away will dry up very quickly.
I wasn’t happy at all when he was subbed but Klopp’s explanation afterwards pacified me (slightly sore muscles, precautionary measure). At the time though I was genuinely pissed off. I understand the need to be making early changes because games are coming thick and fast and players need protecting, especially at the rate ours have been getting injured. But Darwin had only played 20 minutes or so at the weekend so seeing him hooked so early, while Bobby (who had played a lot longer) was left on seemed bizarre.
Now I know the reason why, that’s fair enough, but we definitely lost a lot when he went off. The West Ham centre backs will have been made up because he gave them an absolute fucking chasing. Of course they were then faced with the task of stopping Mo, so it wasn’t much respite but I definitely think they’ll have been glad to see the back of Nunez.
Those changes didn’t help the flow of our game. Fabinho was way off the pace and was either fouling or trying to foul the entire time he was on. When Milner was being readied to come on a bit later I even joked that I’d take Fabinho off. The other change was Jones for Carvalho. That didn’t help matters much either. Curtis hasn’t played for a couple of months so he’ll need to get his sharpness back. I’m glad to see him back out there though as we’ll need him, especially with the options on the left so limited now with Diaz and Jota out.
But the triple change disrupted things and the second half wasn’t good. We had some chances but never built up any kind of sustained pressure and against a better opponent we might have been in trouble. West Ham were pretty toothless though. They did nothing at until until they won the penalty just before half time, and although they had more purpose and ambition about them in the second half, there wasn’t much quality.
Even so, they had their chances to equalise. Benrahma volleyed straight at Alisson and we needed Milner to make a last ditch challenge to deflect a goal bound shot by Soucek. There were a few other openings they could have made more of too. A second goal would have definitely killed them off as there’s no way they had two goals in them, but they might have nicked one so we could never really fully relax and I didn’t enjoy the second half much at all.
That’s not important now. The three points is what we needed and that’s what we got. There was enough about the way we played, especially in the first half, to keep that feeling that we’re clawing our way back into form and we’re getting back on track. We have to beat Forest at the weekend though to keep that going.
Things don’t look anywhere as grim as they did after we lost to Arsenal but we’re not out of the woods yet. We have to string a run of wins together and if we do that we’ll be in the top four in no time as everyone above us are going to drop points, especially as they all play eachother over the next few weeks.
We look like we’re getting some key players back to top form now but the injuries are a problem. We can just about get by at the moment but if we lose a couple more in key positions then it could set us back again. For all the fawning over Arsenal this season, let’s not overlook the fact they’ve had their best eleven available for virtually every game. Let’s see how good they are when they lose a few to injury. They’ve got fuck all depth.
Right now we don’t need to worry about anyone above us, just win the games we’re supposed to win and then let’s see how far back we are when the World Cup break comes. The thing we can’t afford to do is drop stupid points against teams that we have to be beating, and we’ve got quite of few of those games coming up starting this weekend.
Seeing Mo looking sharp and Darwin finding his feet gives me more confidence that we’ll take care of business, but really we’re only going to go as far as our defensive play takes us. Virgil has looked more like himself this past week so that helps, and we’ve had good protection from the midfield these last couple of games too. The opposition have had chances, but that’s normal. What they haven’t been able to do is just run in behind us into acres of space. Stopping that was a big priority and so far so good.
Star man for me is Hendo. It would have been Darwin had he stayed on. It might have been even Thiago if he also hadn’t been given the early hook. But Hendo was good in the first half and excellent in the second. Honourable mention to Alisson too, the big, handsome, awesome, sexy bastard. And Milner, who was only on seven minutes but managed to cram in about an hour’s worth of contributions.
Darwin was the story though. I really hope he can follow this up with another dynamite display this weekend as he’s fun to watch when he’s just rampaging about like this.
Team: Alisson; Alexander-Arnold, Gomez, Van Dijk, Tsimikas (Robertson); Salah, Henderson, Thiago (Fabinho), Carvalho (Jones); Firmino (Milner), Nunez (Elliott):
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