This reminded me of some of the games in the first half of last season = unconvincing performance but a clean sheet and three points. Even the switch to 4-2-3-1 with Shaqiri coming into the side put me in mind of a year ago. Under normal circumstances we’d smash Watford but an early kick off after midweek European action can be a great leveller.
Watford having a new manager didn’t help either, so all in all this was a great three points even if it was “top versus bottom”. You get strange results at this time of the year. Even this weekend Chelsea lost at home to Bournemouth and Leicester were held by Norwich. We used to specialise in fucking up this kind of game. Not any more.
Klopp said afterwards that we didn’t have “an off day” and that it was just a tough game. I’d say it was both. It would be unfair to Watford to suggest that the only reason this game was close was because we didn’t play well. but obviously it was a big factor and even Nigel Pearson would concede that.
There are a number of reasons why we didn’t play well, but Watford’s performance is high on the list. They played very well and looked nothing like a bottom of the table side, but whether they stay there or not depends entirely on whether they can raise their game like this when they play the teams around them. They didn’t just come here to defend and I was impressed with the way they were able to play their way through us. Thankfully their finishing was like Mo in Salzburg (minus the one cracker he scored, obviously).
It’s all well and good putting in a shift at Anfield and clinging to a moral victory, but let’s see if they can do it when they play Burnley and Everton. If they do that they'll stay up. If not, then it's bye bye Harry the Hornet & co. Actually, why isn't their mascot 'Marvin the Moose' or something? And why aren't they known as the 'the Mooses'. Is Mooses even a word, or is the plural of Moose 'Moose'?
No matter, they gave us a tougher game than most have and at the final whistle the over-riding feeling was of relief more than anything. We never really got going for some reason. I thought we’d blow them away when I saw the team Klopp had picked. Shaqiri being brought in to play with the regular front three ought to have been enough to take Watford apart, but what looks good on paper doesn’t always translate to being good on grass.
The weird thing is that it's not as though the forwards were all shit. Shaq was alright, while Salah and Mané both looked really sharp. It was only Bobby who wasn’t at the races. His form has been patchy this season and I always feel he struggles in that 4-2-3-1. He shouldn’t do, as in theory he’s made for it. It just rarely seems to go well for him when we play this system and maybe Minamino will be better suited to it when we switch from 4-3-3.
Nothing was going right for Bobby at all. He was giving the ball away constantly and even the times when he did everything right it still wasn’t quite coming off. He still made a telling contribution to the game with his role in the opening goal though, but I’ll get to that in a sec.
Most of the big chances in the first half came at the other end. Watford seemed to be able to get in behind us at will and the space between Milner and Van Dijk was an especially profitable avenue for them. It wasn’t the fault of either player, it was more a flaw in the system I think as they just seemed to be able to work overloads against us and always had a spare man running into the box.
The chances they had, fucking hell. Deeney just failed to get a touch on a brilliant ball in from Sarr. Then Doucoure missed his kick in front of the Kop and then Sarr did likewise with the goal gaping. Klopp went mental at the Main Stand after that one. I don’t know what his problem was but my impression was that he didn’t like the way everyone mocked Sarr when he missed.
There was nothing out of the ordinary about it as any time a player misses like that the crowd will instinctively go “waaaaaayyyyyyyyy” but something got under Jurgen’s skin and he was waving his arms and shouting at us. Don’t fucking shout at us, shout at your players who weren’t tracking runners!!
Watford grew in confidence as the half went on, but ironically that contributed to them going behind as they got caught cold from one of their own corner kicks. They sent a lot of players forward and paid the price.
I mentioned a few weeks back that I missed those “red arrows” style counter attacks and I’m delighted to say they’ve returned with a vengeance since. We destroyed Everton with them and our first goal in this game was just devastating.
I love how we’re more dangerous from the opposition’s corner kicks than they are. It’s gone full circle. A few years ago it was panic stations any time we gave away a corner. Now I’m thinking it might actually be worth our while in close games to deliberately just put the ball behind for a corner just to give ourselves the chance to break on them.
This one might be my favourite goal of the season so far. We scored some crackers against the Blues but I’m struggling to think of a better goal than this one, just because of the devastating simplicity of it.
Watford must have been wondering just what the hell happened. One minute they’re going forward for a corner kick, and 10 seconds later the ball is in their net. It was just fucking ruthless. Gini cleared the initial corner and that was the key for everyone to charge out en masse for when the ball is knocked back in by the last man. If we win that second ball then look out.
We did win it and Firmino produced a stunning overhead ball to find Mané. Usually you’d expect him to run with it but this time he just knocked it into space for Salah to chase. The rest was all about Mo. The defender did well to stay with his run and must have been thinking if he can stop him getting a shot away with his left foot then that would be enough.
Mo surprised everyone by chopping it back inside and then bending it into the far corner with his right. It was a finish we’ve seen many times before from the likes of Owen and Suarez but they are both right footed. I don’t expect to see Salah producing a finish like that on his weak side, but he said afterwards that he’s been working on his right foot and it shows. Two brilliant right footed finishes in a week. Well in, Mo.
It was a lead we didn’t deserve but so what? If Watford can’t take their chances then that’s on them. If you miss chances against the top sides then you’re going to lose as the margin for error is so small. You have to take your opportunities when they come along, and Watford missed two absolute sitters. Scoring goals has been a massive problem for them all season.
Klopp blamed their misses on the wind. He might have a point as the wind did wreak havoc all afternoon. You could see the ball moving in an unnatural manner when it was in the air, but it was just as bad when it was on the ground. At one stage Foster was about to take a goal kick and the ball just blew across his box.
The wind might have played a part in Sarr misjudging the flight of the ball on the chance he had, but I think Doucoure just completely made a mess of his and can’t blame the wind for that. He'll be kicking himself about that. Or he'll be trying to. He'll probably end up booting his dog instead.
Watford never lost heart though. They had their chances in the second half too and Alisson needed to make two good saves from one v one situations. Perhaps if we’d gone two up earlier then their resistance would have been broken? While they were only one goal down they still had every incentive to keep going and at one stage we began to look really ragged and edgy.
Even Virgil wasn’t immune to it and for a heart stopping moment it looked like he’d passed the ball past Alisson into his own net, but thankfully it rolled just wide. That was an incredibly sloppy passage of play, as Robbo overhit a pass to Gomez and as he stretched to retrieve it he inadvertently nodded the ball down into the path of Andre Gray to set him in on goal. Virg got across but didn’t look where Alisson was. That would have been the worst Anfield moment since the Gerrard slip if that had gone in.
The crowd were understandably getting edgy and it wasn’t an enjoyable game at all. For the last 20 minutes I was just counting down the seconds until the final whistle. It could have been very different if our old pal VAR hadn’t screwed us early in the second half though. The notion that this is helping us (LiVARpool etc) is bizarre and reeks of straw clutching from jealous rivals. I don’t think we’ve had a ‘questionable’ VAR decision go in our favour all season (maybe an offside at Chelsea if I remember rightly?) but we’ve had two perfectly good goals ruled out by it at key points in games.
Everyone in the stadium thought we had gone two up when Shaq’s brilliant cross was headed in by Sadio. I’m usually shit hot when it comes to spotting offsides and it’s rare that I get caught celebrating a goal that doesn’t stand. At least it was before VAR.
Normally if there’s a hint of offside I’ll reign in the celebrations but this one caught me out completely. Not for a second did I think there was even a possibility that there was anything wrong with that goal and I was baffled when they said there was a VAR check. Having seen the freeze frame and the stupid lines that are drawn in order to manipulate something into looking offside when it’s not, I still say there’s nothing wrong it.
Based on goals I’ve seen disallowed and goals that have been given, I’m now convinced that any decision that’s relatively close can be manipulated to be offside depending on who the video ref is and what he wants to do.
You can freeze the frame as the passing / crossing player first strikes the ball, or you can do it as the ball leaves his foot. That’s a 30cm variable apparently. Then you have the lines drawn from the feet / body parts of the attackers and defenders. I saw one recently (Sheff United I think) where the defender’s foot looked like he had clown shoes on because of the blur on the video. The line went from the edge of his foot and the other line was halfway inside the knee of the forward. That’s before we even get into the jarg angles we’ve seen used on some of those lines.
It’s not accurate and yet they’re still making decisions based on millimetres. It’s wrong and it needs a complete revamp. It doesn’t need dissecting that much anyway. Whatever happened to “if it’s level it’s onside” and “the benefit of the doubt goes to the attacking team”? Now we’re seeing goals ruled out when to the naked eye they don’t look even remotely offside.
It’s a farce and it’s ruining the game. Klopp doesn’t even celebrate goals anymore (which is a crime as no-one enjoyed goals more than Jurgen) and we’re going to reach a point where fans aren’t either.
This is exactly why I never wanted it brought in. It was the FA Cup defeat to West Brom that made my mind up. I saw how the Baggies couldn’t celebrate goals properly because they had to wait for VAR and I knew there and then it was shit and would kill the game. Footy is all about that moment of euphoria when your team scores a goal and it’s being taken away by this garbage.
The offside thing is the worst part of VAR too. Just change the fucking law so it uses the standing foot of the attacker and defender as the marker. None of this shoulder, armpit, left testicle nonsense. And because we know it isn’t accurate to the exact centimetre, anything that within the 30cm variance should be onside.
But I’m wasting my energy even thinking about this shit, because the governing bodies will do exactly what they like and it doesn’t matter what the fans, players or managers think about it. We’re stuck with this VAR bollocks and the best we can hope for is they manage to make it a bit less shit than it is now.
We had a VAR check on Mo’s second goal too. That was one that at the time I did think was probably offside. There was a defender lying on the touchline having tried to cut out the cross, but the keeper was off his line and that made me suspect Mo was off. I didn’t really celebrate that one with any gusto and I was mildly surprised when it stood. Having looked at it since, I’d say it should have stood but that it looks more offside than Sadio’s.
Great finish from Mo (right foot again too!) and a lovely disguised assist from Origi, who feigned the shot and fooled everyone by just rolling it to Salah. What? You don’t think Origi could hit a shot that badly do you? How dare you disrespect the legend like that. Shame on you.
So a difficult day and a workmanlike performance, but it’s another three points and that’s all that matters. At this stage of the season it’s not always going to be pretty as the period between the start of December and the end of January is just a war of attrition. The worst of it is yet to come too.
Star man is Salah, with honourable mentions to Alisson, Henderson and Gomez.
Team: Alisson; Alexander-Arnold, Gomez, Van Dijk, Milner; Henderson, Wijnaldum (Robertson); Shaqiri (Oxlade-Chamberlain), Firmino (Origi), Mané; Salah:
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