It’s tricky to judge how impressive this performance was because you have to factor in the level of opponent. Other than Bournemouth, Rangers are the weakest team we’ve faced this season by some distance. That being said, there was a lot to like about what we produced.
I think we got pretty much everything we would have wanted from this game other than a couple more goals and having Nunez on the scoresheet. I’m fine with 2-0 but only because the performance was more like a six, seven or even eight nil type game. We had loads of chances and played some very good football. I’d rather see that and score two than play the way we did at the weekend and score one more.
If we play like this regularly, more often than not we’ll have a lot more than 2-0 to show for it. Of course we won’t be playing Rangers every game so there is that. There’s a couple of ways of looking at this. One is that we only scored two, and they were a free-kick and a penalty. That’s not good.
The other way of looking at it is that we created shitloads of chances and on another day half of those go in and we’ve got another Bournemouth type result to show for it. Personally I’m in the latter camp. We weren’t clinical but there are mitigating reasons for that, specifically that Darwen isn’t off and running yet. If his first shot had gone in I reckon he’d have filled his boots.
Nunez didn’t score but he did absolutely everything else I would have wanted to see from him. He was a constant threat, he was involved in the build up and didn’t look like a square peg in a round hole. The only thing he didn’t do was put the ball in the net, but it’s not like he did much wrong with the finishes. Too close to the keeper, yes, but on another day they’re a yard either side and he’s going home with the match ball.
That was one of the big take aways from the performance for me, but perhaps the biggest one was the change in formation and how it looked. It was good, right? I know it was only Rangers, but given the lack of time we’ve had to work on it I think it went better than expected. We looked cohesive with and without the ball and Alisson didn’t have a thing to do until 85 minutes. They were barely able to get out of their own half.
That’s partly because they were outmatched but it’s also to do with our shape and how we defended. The most obvious thing I saw was that Trent’s role changed. I’ve been saying we should simplify things for him and let him actually play right back, and that’s what happened.
He wasn’t popping up in the middle or playing as a false 10 or whatever the fuck we’ve been asking him to do this season. He played on the right, he put quality crosses in, he played some defence splitting passes and he didn’t get exposed defensively. He wasn’t constantly having to chase back because the opponent had exploited the space he’d left in behind.
Again, partly that’s because Rangers aren’t good. It’s also because our shape was good and we defended better than we have been. Having Hendo and Thiago in the ‘double pivot’ gave us a good base and I don’t actually remember Rangers getting in behind us even once, not until the dying minutes when Kostas had to make a clearance off the line.
There was none of the usual running in behind our high line business we’ve been watching all season. Again, it’s Rangers so it could be that. We’ll find out soon enough though, assuming Klopp sticks with this new set up and doesn’t revert back to what we usually do.
I hope we stick with this for a little while now because what do we have to lose? In fact, I wouldn’t be averse to us doing something different again. We’ve got to become more difficult to play against and part of that will be to keep the opposition guessing. Arsenal now have some uncertainty ahead of the weekend. Will we play the way they’re used to us playing or will we do what we did against Rangers? Maybe we do something even more out of left field.
Just thinking about this game and how many chances we created, and I’m honestly surprised by it. Klopp said the forwards had one session together, but it looked quite natural I thought. Darwin’s movement was really good and it dovetailed well with what Jota was doing. He was very good I thought. He was finding space and getting turned and I’m looking forward to seeing him in this role again. I like the idea of just letting him roam about looking for space to cause havoc in.
I’m not sure I’d rather him there than Bobby though. We may see some rotation in those two striker spots between those two and Nunez and it’s going to be fascinating to see what Klopp goes with on Sunday. I’d lean towards Nunez and Bobby but its tricky because Jota owns Arsenal. So does Bobby actually, and I could see a strong argument for having Darwin on the bench. I’m good with whatever.
I know this is stupid and doesn’t mean anything, but I feel quite comfortable about us only scoring two because I always worry when we batter someone that we may have used up all of our goals and the next game could be a slog. This feels like the opposite, I have a sneaky feeling we’ve saved our goals for Sunday and I’m surprisingly bullish about that.
I’ve just realised I haven’t even mentioned the goals yet. The first is a beauty. About time too. Trent should do better on free-kicks with the talent he has. He went close against Brighton with a low one and this time he went high. I shouted “YES” as soon as it left his boot as you could immediately tell. McGregor got close to it which tells me that a lot of keepers would have got there and tipped it over the bar. He played well but he’s an old man. Not that I’m complaining. It’s a great free-kick and a nice moment for a lad who needed it.
Mo needed his goal too. Doesn’t matter that it was a penalty, they all count and he needs his numbers padding a bit. He took the penalty with the efficiency we’ve come to expect from him. Diaz won it with a zig zagging run into the box that caused two defenders to foul him.
We should have scored more but it doesn’t matter. We got the win, we got a performance and we got something to build on. I think playing twice a week will help us now because this stop start bullshit has never been any good for us. We did alright against Aja but then didn’t play for weeks and lost whatever momentum we could have taken from that.
Brighton was shit but there was a lot of cobwebs to be blown off and hopefully we’ve done that now and can start to claw our way back. Sunday is fucking huge for us now. Win that and suddenly things look like they’re on the up again. Lose it and we’re going to be miserable as fuck, especially with City on the horizon.
In the other game Napoli twatted Ajax everywhere in Amsterdam which kind of makes our loss in Italy look not quite as shameful. They’re good, and them beating Ajax was the best result for us even if it makes winning the group more difficult. We don’t need to win it, we just need to get out of it and that result helps. Hopefully Napoli will beat them next week too.
Star man is Trent but everyone played well. Alisson only had to do one thing all night but he did it and preserved his clean sheet. Rangers couldn’t do anything until the last few minutes when they made some changes and we got a bit sloppy.
Sunday will be a much bigger test but I see it more as an opportunity to show that we’re still who we are and that they are still who they are. Let’s fucking do these smelling themselves pricks.
Team: Alisson; Alexander-Arnold (Gomez), Matip, Van Dijk, Tsimikas; Henderson (Fabinho), Thiago (Milner); Salah, Jota (Firmino), Diaz; Nunez (Elliott):
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